Page:Our Hymns.djvu/147

 THEIR AUTHORS AND ORIGIN. 127

her piety and liberality, and she formed an important bond of union between the leaders of the new religious life and the higher ranks of society to which she by birth and family belonged. Even royalty itself was open to her; and George III., captivated by her piety and zeal, said to a complaining, bishop : &quot;I wish there was a Lady Huntingdon in every diocese in the kingdom.

Lady Huntingdon has enjoyed the advantage of having her memoir written by a member of the houses of Shirley and Seymour. From his extensive work we glean many of the fol lowing particulars. Selina Shirley was the second daughter of Washington, Earl Ferrars. She was born August 24th, 1707. At the age of nine, she received serious impressions while attending the funeral of a child. Some years after she was struck by a remark of her sister-in-law, Lady Margaret Hastings, &quot;That since she had known and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ for life and salvation, she had been as happy as an angel.&quot; She was- a stranger to such happiness. During a dangerous illness, which overtook her soon after, she sank into great depression of mind, and then rose in triumph and joy through prayer and faith in Jesus Christ.

In June, 1728, and before she had attained to her twenty-first year, the countess received the title by which she is known, by marrying Theophilus Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon. He was in sympathy with her in her religious pursuits, and they often went together to hear Whiten eld, and other similar preachers, at the Moravian Chapel, Neville s-court, Fetter-lane, where the first Methodist Society was founded by Wesley, Whitefield, Ingham, and others, in 1738. This chapel was afterwards returned to the Moravians. The first Methodist Conference .was held in Lady Huntingdon s house, in June, 1744, and Lady Huntingdon herself was a member of the first Methodist Society in Fetter-lane. Deeply impressed with the value of true religion, and feeling sure that she had received it from such men as Whitefield and Wesley, she willingly bore the obloquy that came upon her when she pleaded the cause of the despised Methodists. She

�� �