1.AMONG the innumerable novelties which have appeared in the world, within half a century, I do not remember to have seen the experience of a child written by herself. Herein much variety is not to be expected, nor any art or ornament at all: as she set down from time to time, merely for her own use, just what occurred between God and her own soul. But on this very account, persons of understanding will set the greater value upon it: because it contains only genuine Christian experience, painted in its native colours.
2. The reflections occasionally interspersed, are always just, frequently strong and affecting: particularly those on death, or the shortness of life, especially from the mouth of a child. And the language wherein they are expressed, altho’ plain and altogether unstudied, is yet pure and terse in the highest degree, yea frequently elegant: such as the most polite either of our lawyers or divines would not easily alter for the better. Such language I hardly know where to find, unless in the almost inimitable letters of Jane Cooper: between whom and Miss Gilbert there was a remarkable resemblance, both in sentiment and expression. And had it pleased the all-wise Disposer of all things, to give her a few more years on earth, and an increase of grace in proportion to her years, she would have been another Jane Cooper.
JOHN WESLEY.
Liverpool,
April 7th, 1768.
A short ACCOUNT of
Miss MARY GILBERT.
THE ensuing account it is hoped may animate those who are in the morning of life, to a due improvement of their time, in remembering their Creator in the days of their youth; so that they may offer him the first fruits of those precious moments, in which they are probationers for an awful eternity: and which when past, whether they have been employed in the important [♦]task or not, are irrecoverably gone.
[♦] “talk” replaced with “task” per Errata
If it has this happy effect, the desired end will be fully answered, which is, that God’s grace and saving power may be manifested, in additional instances, both of living and dying witnesses.
Miss Mary Gilbert, was the eldest daughter of Nathaniel Gilbert, of the island of Antigua, Esq; by his wife Elizabeth, both persons of good families and eminent piety, whose chief study it was to train up their children in the knowledge of God and his ways, according to the established religion of the church of England.