"The path of the just is as a shining light that shineth more and more JOHN E. SOUTHALL, PRINTER, NEWPORT, MON. 1885. AS INTRODUCTION. S"the memory of the just is blessed", so we believe it is the duty of survivors to gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost to future generations that may be added to the cloud of witnesses of those whose dedicated lives and exemplary conversation plainly shew that they were seeking a better inheritance, "a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God;" of whom it is written, "God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a city." In this blessed number we have undoubted assurance that our beloved, departed friend John G. Sargent may be included, and, in undertaking a selection from his diary and correspondence, it has been with no desire to magnify the creature, being fully persuaded that by the grace of God he was what he was, and that, by his remarkably watchful care to walk in strict obedience and conformity to the heavenly gift,—the grace of God, in all its manifestations, both as related to his outward concerns and the growth of Divine life in his soul, he became quick of understanding in the fear of the Lord, and, in no ordinary degree, realized the preciousness of the promise to the pure in heart, "They shall see God." His great delight and care was to dwell in that pure and holy stillness, that secret place of the Most High, where an abiding under the shadow of the Almighty is known, and often would he testify, in a precious sense of grateful adoration, “under whose shadow I have sat with great delight." And now that he has, as we believe, been called from works to an everlasting reward, our desire is to show forth his purity of life and conversation, his deep and unabated love and dedication to the pure and unchangeable Truth, and his unswerving labour to defend a cause so precious, from the many deviations of our day. That this tribute to his memory may be so blessed with the seal of Divine approbation, as that it may carry home to many hearts the conviction, "he being dead, yet speaketh," is our earnest desire. Our beloved friend was brought up and educated in the Society of Friends. His parents removing to Paris when he was quite young, the care and oversight of him during his school vacations devolved very much on his paternal grandparents, but more especially on one of his aunts, whose watchful and tender care over him, he held in grateful remembrance through life, esteeming it among the many blessings a kind and ever-watchful Providence had bestowed upon him; and it is believed, that the seed sown under her judicious care and counsel, tended greatly to imbue his mind with a sense of the superiority of living in the fear of the Lord, to all earthly enjoyments and gratifications. About the seventeenth year of his age he was apprenticed to a draper, which engagement he appears to have filled with fidelity, and to have gained the esteem of his master and mistress. At the expiration of his apprenticeship he returned to Paris to his parents, not liking the business he had learned in England. He was for a short time employed in his father's business, and afterwards on his own account; he remained in Paris about nine years before he finally settled in England. For a short period a change appears to have come over him, and he became less inclined to the self-denying life that ap pertains to our high and holy profession, though, it is believed, he never lost sight of that strict integrity that was so conspicuous in his character in after life; yet a somewhat downward course marked his career. The dress was changed from that which betokened him as a Friend, to that whereby he would only be known as a young man of the world, and, as is always the case that one backward step makes way for another, so we find the plain language was abandoned, and the world's mode of speech and manners adopted, some places of amusement were for a short time frequented, and the Wesleyan chapel occasionally attended, instead of the meeting at a room hired by Friends in England for the use of those under our name in Paris. But this course of life was but of short duration. Immited Infinite Goodness was pleased to follow him with the gentle wooings and tender pleadings of heavenly love, and under the precious influences thereof, which enamoured his soul with a sense of Divine regard, a desire was quickened in him to return again to those pure testimonies which he had slighted, and to which he ever afterwards adhered with faithful integrity and scrupulosity; this was the greater cross, the motive being so little understood in France. But at that period, and in after years, he always found as care was observed to maintain an appearance and deportment consistent therewith, way was made for him, and that marvellously, amongst those with whom he had to mingle in the way of business. In returning again to the path of self-denial into which Truth ever leads its followers, one of the first tests of his allegiance was to avoid the salutation of raising the hat to persons in the street, so much practised as a mark of worldly honour; this was soon followed by an intimation not to append the word "Saint" to the names of the streets; and thus, in a city so marked for its frivolity and superstition, with no one to |