Show pity, Lord: O Lord, forgive; Let a repenting rebel live; Are not Thy mercies large and free? May not a sinner trust in Thee? And the gravestone of the great shoemaker, scholar, linguist, and missionary, William Carey, in Bengal, contains beside the name and date only that final confession of faith: A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, On Thy kind arms I fall. The late beautiful and beloved William Bunting used to tell a story of a poor blind woman, in Liverpool, brought to a sense of sin and salvation at a Wesleyan service held in connection with the national fast upon the first visit of cholera to this country. Her impressions had been stirred by Watts’ hymn—the 224th of the Wesleyan Selection—“I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath.” The next morning she called on the Rev. R. McOwen, and asked if he could procure for her the book in which was the hymn with those lines, also Watts’, The Lord pours eyesight on the blind, The Lord supports the sinking mind. It also was in the Wesleyan Hymn Book, which Mr. McOwen placed in her hands. Her memory was soon stored with the hymns which she delighted in repeating. By her talent in shampooing she earned a respectable livelihood. For this purpose she attended on the old Earl of Derby, the grandfather to the present Earl. She repeated one of her hymns to him. The old Earl liked it, and encouraged her to repeat more. But one day, when repeating the hymn of Charles Wesley, “All ye that pass by,” she came to the words: The Lord in the day of His anger did lay Your sins on the Lamb, and He bore them away, he said, “Stop, Mrs. Brass, don’t you think it should be— “The Lord in the day of His _mercy_ did lay?” She did not think his criticism valid; but it showed she was not repeating her verses to inattentive ears, and other indications showed that the blind woman was made a blessing to the dying nobleman. But such anecdotes might be multiplied and extended to many pages. [Illustration] [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ISAAC WATTS IN EARLY LIFE. Believed to have been presented by him to his friend and schoolmaster, the Rev. John Pinhorne, Master of the Grammar School, Southampton, now in the Vestry of Above Bar Chapel, Southampton.] [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. A Circle of Friends. The friends of Watts, at almost any period of his life, form an interesting and very memorable circle, a very striking portrait gallery. Amongst them are some well-known names, and some, comparatively unknown now, famous then. We have said, about a mile from Theobalds, within the parish of Cheshunt, lived RICHARD CROMWELL. He was a member of Watts’ church, although he removed from Cheshunt some short time after Watts’ settlement.