JANUARY, 1835.
MEMOIR OF THE LATE MRS. PEGGY WAUGH.
Recollections of departed excellence are always pleasant, often deeply interesting, and sometimes productive of the happiest effects. The delight we feel in tracing the successive stages of that pilgrimage by which the saints of the Most High have “passed into the skies,” is neither a faint nor fruitless emotion, but a healthful exercise of the moral sympathies. It purifies, while it elicits; the affections of the heart. As we trace the formation of their character, we are insensibly forming our own; and the observation by which we mark the development of their Christian virtues, is among the most efficient means by which we are provoked to their imitation.
Hence the inspired volume is not more a book of doctrines than a record of the piety of ancient believers. That Holy Spirit, under whose inspiration it was written, knew how to touch the springs of human conduct, and therefore incites us to the highest attainments of character by the influence of example. The names of the righteous are enrolled in its imperishable leaves, and their memory, after the lapse of ages, is still fragrant as the breath of the morning.
After the example of the sacred writers, every age of the church has preserved memorials of the wisdom and holiness of its own times. In some instances a service has thus been performed of inestimable value. Patterns of faith, of patience, of zeal, have been rescued from oblivion to be a stimulus to Christians in all succeeding periods of time. And in other instances benefits, though not equally extensive, yet substantial, have resulted from recording, in a brief memoir, the characters and actions of those who, not called to occupy prominent stations, have shed a sweet influence of piety upon the more retired walks of ordinary life.
The following pages are intended to preserve some short account of a Christian lady, who from youth to old age “walked in the truth;” and having become at length alike venerable in years and in piety, departed this present life with the glorious hope of a better.
Mrs. Peggy Waugh was born at Wallingford, A. D. 1747. At an early period of life her mind was brought under a divine influence; not, however, by the ordinary means of grace, nor by any solemn providence, but in a manner illustrating the force of scripture, and the sovereignty of that gracious Spirit by whom it was originally inspired, and is still savingly applied. Being present at a party where the evening was spent in festivity and worldly mirth, she was invited to join in the dance. This she had often done, for she was of a lively disposition, and her parents were gratified by her mixing in the gaieties of life; but in the present instance she felt herself unable to maintain the hilarity of her spirits. The cause of her dejection none imagined, and she was perhaps ashamed to acknowledge. While all was merriment around her, she became suddenly pensive. A passage of the word of God, pointedly in contrast with the spirit of the scene, had come with irresistible power to her recollection. It fastened upon her conscience:—it reached her heart. The music and dancing lost their charms; she sat in solitariness, though surrounded with company; the world’s fascinations appeared in a light in which she had never before seen them, and the salutary impressions of that evening remained unerased from her mind through all her subsequent life.
While she was yet young, her parents removed to Reading. Shortly after they had fixed their residence in that town, she was taken by a friend to the Baptist Meeting, where she heard the Rev. Mr. Davis. She was much interested in his discourse, and sought for opportunities to attend frequently on his ministry. Under the able instructions of that excellent man, her religious views became clearer and more definite, her principles more firm and decided, and it was evident that the spiritual change which had already commenced in her soul, was rapidly advancing to its completion.
It was now that her trials began. The determinate and consistent form which her renewed character had assumed, was far from exciting any complacent feelings in the minds of her parents; and it became the more obnoxious to them from the preference she manifested for the preaching of Mr. Davis. They had brought up their family to the established church, and it distressed them exceedingly to see their daughter becoming a dissenter. But she had counted the cost, and was prepared to make any sacrifice, and to endure any hardship, rather than forego the privileges she now enjoyed in the house of God. Hardships she had indeed to endure: such was the severity with which she was treated, that it was no uncommon thing, when she returned from the sanctuary, to find her father’s door locked against her; and often has she walked in the fields without food during the intervals of public worship, rather than incur the displeasure that awaited her at home. This was a season of trial, and she came forth from it like refined gold. Her filial attentions were not less respectful or affectionate than formerly; on the contrary, she watched both her temper and her conduct with more than wonted carefulness, and endeavoured to show them that she could bear with meekness the wrongs she suffered in so good a cause. Nor did she wholly withdraw herself from the established church. Reading was at that time favoured with the ministry of the Rev. Mr. Talbot, the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Cadogan, and the Rev. Mr. Eyre, his curate at St. Giles’s. The preaching of these faithful servants of the Lord was distinguished by its truly evangelical character, and she found much benefit in occasionally hearing them. At their Thursday evening lecture she was a constant attendant, both at this period and after she had joined the Baptist church. Her new principles had not contracted, but on the contrary enlarged, her mind. Her views with regard to the ordinance of baptism, and on some other subjects connected with those parts of divine truth on which a difference of sentiment prevails, were conscientiously embraced; but they were held in the spirit of Christian charity. As much as she could, without a sacrifice of conscience, she endeavoured to conciliate the prejudices of her parents; and at length her efforts were blessed beyond her most sanguine hope.
It will a little anticipate the order of the narrative, but it may properly be added here, that she had the satisfaction, at a subsequent period, to know that her pious conversation and deportment had, under God, been the principal means of producing a saving change in her father, in her mother, and in two of her brothers. Her parents, at an advanced age, departed in the faith, leaving no doubt on the minds of surviving friends that they had fallen asleep in Jesus.
It was the happiness of Mrs. Waugh to be united in marriage with a person of decided piety, whose sentiments on religious subjects were similar to her own. Shortly after their marriage, they were both baptized, and thus commenced together that public and good profession which they ever afterwards maintained by the integrity, and adorned with the graces, of the Christian life. On the morning of her baptism, a passage from the prophecies of Isaiah, evidently suggested by the difficulties which had environed her early religious course, forcibly impressed her mind, and afforded her much encouragement: “I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron.” “These words,” she writes, “came sweetly to me, and my soul was on the wing for heaven and heavenly things.”
The duties of domestic life began now to demand her attention. In the relations of a wife, a mother, and a mistress, the excellence of those principles on which her character was formed, was habitually exemplified. For her children, she was supremely anxious to bring them in early life under the influence of divine truth, and to lead them into the love of God. It is in their recollection still, with what maternal affection she would take them into her chamber, and converse with them on those subjects, and then present them, in the exercise of faith and devotion, to the care of that tender Shepherd who “gathers the lambs in his arms, and carries them in his bosom.” Indeed her deep interest in all young persons obliged her to press upon such as came within her reach a care for their everlasting happiness; with several, the result was most satisfactory, and they retain an affectionate remembrance of her solicitude on their behalf. With her servants also she would seize opportunities to speak of the value of their souls, and the improvement of their religious advantages; and sometimes she used to pray in secret with them. The afflictions which are inseparable from the lot of humanity, and those which parents only know, she endured with a meek and confiding resignation. Her cup had its bitter infusions, and some of her trials were more than commonly severe; but under every mysterious and painful dispensation, she stayed herself upon her God, and in patience possessed her soul.
By those who enjoyed her friendship, her pious conversation and correspondence were highly valued. She was no stranger in the habitation of the widow and the fatherless, or beside the dying bed. Her sympathy in such scenes was a mitigation of sorrow, and her offices of Christian love endeared her in the hour of distress. She gratified the benevolence of her heart by relieving the distresses of many; and some of her poor neighbours were pensioners on her bounty as long as they lived. Her attendance on public ordinances, it need scarcely be said, was regular and devout; and by her consistent and blameless life, combined with her affectionate and peaceful walk among her fellow-members, she was a comfort to her pastor, and an honour to the church. Thus for many years she moved in her orbit, as the celestial luminaries move in theirs; with a regular, uniform, and constant progression; deriving all their radiance from the sun, and reflecting his beams without noise or ostentation.
But a severe trial awaited her. The conjugal relation was at length broken. By the death of Mr. Waugh she was deprived of the staff of her age, and left to travel alone through the last stages of her pilgrimage. She had however the unspeakable satisfaction of reflecting that he had walked with her in the ways of righteousness, and that although he had outstripped her in the course, and arrived first at the sepulchre, she should follow him into the world of reunion and eternal love. His decease was also eminently happy. He was favoured during his illness with much spirituality and elevation of mind, and departed in the “full assurance of hope.” On being asked by one of his daughters, whether, if it were the will of God, he would like to return again into the world? “What,” he exclaimed, “when Christ bids me ‘come up hither!’” It was the privilege of his faithful wife (for such she deemed it) to be with him through all his illness, and to witness the final scene. She would not delegate to other hands the discharge of any duty which she could perform herself; but the conflict being over, she retired from the chamber of death, and was found some time after, by her children, who had missed her, in her closet, and on her knees. The throne of grace was her refuge. To that hiding-place she was accustomed to flee, in every “cloudy and dark day;” and sweetly was the promise fulfilled in her experience, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.” She felt deeply the stroke which had made her a widow; but, possessing an uncommon degree of self-command, it was a comfort to her children to observe her great calmness of spirit, and to hear the expressions of her confidence in God. Her natural fortitude was sustained by divine grace, and her whole carriage under this bereavement afforded an edifying instance of the manner in which a Christian both bends before the storm, and rises above it.
About two years after this event, she left the neighbourhood of Reading, to reside in the family of one of her daughters at Tottenham. By this circumstance she was necessarily brought into new scenes both of domestic and social life; and they served still further to elicit the graces of her matured and now venerable character. For to the visitors, of all ranks, she recommended the religion of the Bible; but with such propriety, that she never gave offence; and most tenderly and intimately did she participate in the diversified feelings of her grandchildren, evincing her affection for them, by her earnest and ardently expressed longing that Christ might be formed in their hearts, the hope of glory. It was about this time, that the writer of this brief tribute to her memory had the happiness to form her acquaintance; and he well remembers the impression of respectful admiration which that first interview produced on his mind. She was now “well stricken in years.” Time had mellowed the naturally sweet expression of her countenance, without much impairing its vivacity. Her silvery locks shaded a brow imprinted with the wrinkles of age, but intelligent and serene. Her eyes were yet bright, and glanced upon her friends with benevolent complacency. Her form was unbending and about the middle stature; her manners dignified, yet free; her conversation cheerful, affectionate, and eminently spiritual; her memory richly replenished with the word of God, and with hymns, which she recited with much emphasis and appropriate application; and her whole appearance and deportment that of a venerable Christian lady.
Some time before this period she had become very deaf; but though she felt it to be a great trial, it made scarcely any perceptible abatement of her cheerfulness; nor did she allow it to prevent her attendance upon the house of God. In proportion as she was shut out from the pleasures of conversation, she seemed to find an increasing delight in secret devotion. “Let us call those our golden hours,” she says in a letter to a friend, “that are spent with God. May we be found much in that excellent duty of self-examination.” And at a subsequent date she writes in her diary, “My hearing is in some measure restored; of which I can give no account from natural causes or medicinal art. O Lord, my healer, thou canst do every thing. O the riches of immortal grace! If I outlive my senses, I cannot outlive my graces. O how beautiful, how honourable, how durable! I earnestly plead with God for his church and ministers, in faith and hope, for what I am not likely to live to see. Dear Lord, let me depart and join the holy society above. Amen!”
It is often observed, that as Christians draw near to heaven, their desire increases to enter upon its holy joys. They present a delightful contrast, in this respect, to those unhappy persons whose old age is chilled with the infirmities of decaying nature, and never warmed into the glow of celestial aspirations by the presages of a blessed immortality. The natural desire of life is felt by both, and the uneradicated remains of our ancient and inveterate depravity will sometimes, even in aged Christians, repress the risings of the soul towards her native skies. But the prevailing tendency of the desires will be upwards. “To live is indeed Christ; but to die is gain.” Hence their conversation will take its complexion and character, rather from the things which are eternal, than from the transactions or interests of this present world. Such was eminently the case with the subject of this memoir. She seemed to live much, in the secret exercises of her mind, upon the invisible glories of that region of blessedness towards which she was fast approaching. Never was her countenance lighted up with a more cheerful beam of piety, than when, after she had been occupied awhile in silent musings, she would break forth in the joyful exclamation of the patriarch Job, “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.” This was indeed a very favourite passage with her, and was selected by herself for her funeral text. But “the word of Christ dwelt in her richly;” and it was sometimes equally astonishing and delightful to hear with what copiousness, accuracy, and animated expression, at more than 80 years of age, she would pour forth, like a sparkling stream, a long series of beautiful quotations, her feelings at the same time kindling into celestial rapture, and the whole perhaps finished with that ecstatic verse of Dr. Watts.
“Haste, my beloved, fetch my soul
Up to thy bless’d abode;
Fly, for my spirit longs to see
My Saviour and my God.”
She had outlived nearly all her contemporaries. Most of her friends had preceded her to their rest, and sometimes she would chide herself for still lingering in her upward flight, among the chilling clouds of these lower regions, when she thought her wings should have borne her more rapidly onward to join the company of the blessed. Thus she expresses herself in one of her memorandums: “O Lord, when I look around me, and feel I am bereaved of human joys, and behold the ravages which thou hast made among my dear, beloved friends and kindred in the flesh, I am astonished at the strength of that depravity, which leads me still to cling to this dying world. Why, oh, why do I not rest my weary soul on the unchangeable realities of heaven? There shall I meet those very dear ones who sleep in Jesus. Animating hope! Oh, then, let me march boldly on, nor faint in the day of rebuke; but may I be enabled to yield up all my earthly comforts when Jesus calls and demands, that I may find my all in him.”
It was her privilege often to climb to the summit of Pisgah; and when she descended again into the plain, how delightfully would she talk, and as in the very dialect of the country, of that land of fair and beauteous prospect which lies beyond the Jordan. There were seasons when no other subject seemed welcome to her thoughts. She would sit at such times watching the countenances of her friends, and at a break in the conversation, which she could not hear, drop a short sentence full of the love and joy of heaven. She seemed to have an inward and divine light which shone through her soul, and made it a region of pure and celestial thoughts; no doubts were permitted to disturb the composure of her mind, no temptation to trouble and overcast the serenity of her cloudless sky. Her days moved on in tranquil succession, each renewing and passing forward to the next, the sunshine of its predecessor. Only, indeed, as her orb descended to the horizon, the light seemed more to concentrate and to soften; just as the evening sun gathers back into himself the radiance with which he had illuminated the world, and sets amidst the chastened splendours of his own accumulated glory.
Her tabernacle, which had been often shaken, was at length taken down. No fierce disease was commissioned to inflict the final stroke. Till the last week she was permitted to continue in the society of her children. Two of them reside at Camberwell; and they reflect, with grateful pleasure, that some of her last days were spent with them. She left them on the Monday, after having passed the whole of the preceding month in their company. It was not then apprehended that her end was so near, but her conversation was sweetly tinctured by a vein of ardent and elevated devotion. Her mind was eminently spiritual; she seemed to be living in an element of prayer and love. It was the happiness of the writer to spend a short time with her during the last week; and in her pocket-book she has noted the comfort she derived from the devotional exercises in which they then engaged. The Sabbath day was a season of great delight. She did not know that on the following her translation was to take place; but had she foreseen it, scarcely could she have passed the day in communications more fitted to her near approximation to eternal joy.
The next day she returned to Tottenham, not so well as she had been, yet there seemed no cause for immediate alarm; but in her last words, as she was taking leave of her daughters, there was something almost prophetic of the event which was soon to take place. Clasping the hand of one of them, as she was about to step into the carriage, she turned to her, and said, “I shall soon mount on eagles’ wings; I shall run and not be weary, I shall walk and not faint.” On Wednesday, her indisposition considerably increased, and her strength began rapidly to decline. It soon became impossible to hold any conversation with her beyond a few short and detached sentences at intervals. In reply to inquiries, she still expressed her faith in the Lamb of God, and spoke of his preciousness to her soul. But the power of articulation failed, and this circumstance, joined with her deafness, precluded the further interchange of sentiment with the departing saint. She continued to lodge on the banks of the Jordan a day or two longer, till about noon on Lord’s day, June 30, 1833; when she passed through the river with a gentle and quiet motion, and was lost to the sight of surrounding attendants, amidst the distant groves of Eden, on the opposite shore.
“No pain she suffered, nor expired with noise;
Her soul was whispered out with God’s still voice:
So softly death succeeded life in her,
She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.”
Camberwell. E. Steane