On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
manner hi which they united t ^ eir taleiits for the benefit t > f Mr . Lindsay ' s charge ; and by them she wa& encouraged and guided in the pursuit of that moral and religious knowledge for which her mind thirsted * The success which attended Mr . Lindsey ' s catechetical instructions , induced her to attempt something of the
same kind at Bedale ; the first comtneacement of those endeavours for the formation and improvement of institutions for gratuitous education , by which she was afterwards to acquire such deserved reputation and gratitude at the hands of her countrymen .
It is unnecessary to enlarge on Mrs * Cappe's connexions with Mr . and Mrs . Lindsey , because she has herself described their character and her feelings towards them , in the Memoirs which she furnished to the Monthly Repository . ( III . 637 , and
VIL . 109 . ) She had never been orthodox in respect to the doctrine of the Trinity , her father having been an Arian ; still less could her cheerful , benevolent piety , assimilate itself with the peculiarities of Calvinism . Since the commencement of
her friendship with Mr . and Mrs . Lindsey she had studied the Scripture more carefully , and having embraced those opinions which led Mr . L . to renounce his station in the Church , she not only fully entered jttto his motives , and aided and supported her friends in the trying hour of their removal , but determined herself to leave the Established Church when an
opportunity should offer of joining another whose creed and ritual were more agree * able to scripture .. It is a very interesting coincidence , that her first introduction to Mr . Cappe was occasioned by his defending , under the signature of a " Lover of all Good Men , " the character of Mr . Lindsey , which had been virulently attacked by a &t * Cooper in the public papers . The affairs of her brother
occasioned her to reside for several years subsequent to this period in the vicinity of Leeds , and here she appears to have begun to attend Dissenting worship regularly at MiM-hill Chapel . Mis abandonment of hid schemes , after involving his mother and sister in considerable
embarrassments , was followed by their removal to York in the year 1782 . Soon after her settlement in this city , she engaged * to conjunction with some other benevdlent persons , hi reforming the manage * nveiit of some of the public charities , and the
establishment' of others , especially for the benefit of females fir « he lotver classes . Her activity and ze £ l were so guided by discretion and tempered by mildness , that she triumphed over the difficulties which the undertaking © wr
Untitled Article
sen ted , at * d the opposition raised by feterested persons . Such attempt ^ were then novelties ; the public mind was not awake as it now is to the importance of those institutions winch form the labouring classes of society to intelligence , industry arid economy . The subject of the pFeSe&t memoir not dnlv rendered a most import
tant service to her fellow-citkens by her exertions here , but by her publications on this subject , excited others in distant places to follow her example , and assisted them in avoiding the difficulties which she had encountered , gaining for herself an honourable station in that band of philanthropists by whose disinterested labours so much has been done to improve the condition of * the poor .
Ttie year 1788 was that of her marriage with Mr . Cappe , whose rare and admirable talents and moral qualities had long attracted her reverence and affection . She was not deterred from this uiiion by
the difficulty and delicacy of the situation in which she should be placed by taking the charge of a numerous family ; she assumed along with the name the feelings of a parent towards erery member of it > and had the happiness to experience the return of cordial affection and esteem .
Her greatest . delight in this new relation was to assist in preserving from oblivion a record of the knowledge and talents of her husband . To her the Christian world owes it that the eloquence of Mr . Cappe is not already become a faint echoin the ear of his few surviving auditors , and that the labours of his lki * , in the investigation of the Scriptures , do not
remain locked up in an unintelligible short-hand . But the history of this portion of her life may best be learnt in her Memoir of Mr . Cappe , prefixed to hi 3 Critical Dissertations , and since separately printed—a beautiful specimen of truly Christian biography , to which , We trust ,, that few of our readers are strangers . With the same zeal and affection with
Which she had soothed and supported tjis decline , she endeavoured to do honour to his memory , and promote the tfiftUsion of his works . HXs fame was far dearer to her than her own ; one of the highest gratifications she could receive was toknow that hie eloquent and powerrul defence of the doctrine of Providence fyad enabled some mtf urner to exchange the
spirit of heaviness for the garment' erf praise ; that some heart , perhaps in a distant land , had been warmed with the iove of religion by his animated praise of viiitue and clevotion ; or that some seeker after Christian truth had found in his critical principles , the solution of difficulties in the language of scripture , by
Untitled Article
& 6 ttuurv ** -JS ?[ r 6 > Catfmrl&e C&ppe . OI 5
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1821, page 495, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2503/page/55/
-