which had alienated the hearts of others and made them mm willing to render him any further assistance. He, in a letter to Mr. Lampen, says:—
“Mr. Groves writes with an affectionate kindness as is quite refreshing to me, when contrasted with the comparative indifference at Plymouth.”
“I find it really difficult to say half of that which his conduct to me, on this and other occasions, has made me feel. Mr. Groves is the only representative of that which, before I had gone out into the world, I thought all men to be. Of all the blessings God ever gave me, and they are many, the chief and best have been the friendship of Mr. Groves, and the benefits which have flowed from it to me; and of all the advantages which have come through you, the greatest was the introduction to Mr. Groves. He has been like a guardian angel, if there be such, appointed to watch over me for good, and to interfere between me and evil. In all my wanderings, stumblings, dangers, errors, mistakes, and sins, he has adhered to me still. And hen I have fallen, he did not say to me, as others have done, ‘Lie in the bed of your own making;’ but, although the most aggrieved, has come forth repeatedly to my help; has spoken to me good and comfortable words, and endeavoured to fix me again in the place from which I had fallen.”—Pages 290 and 231.
This testimony is peculiarly interesting to those who knew Mr. Groves: he never gave up any one whom he had once befriended. It is not that he was less able to detect their faults, as is evident from his letters to Kitto, when he left his situation at Malta;[1] but he had a love which could bear and endure all; an ability, given him of God, to sympathize with weakness to any extent. And God, who had given him this grace, tried it, not only in many, who like Kitto, he had befriended; but in some of his deepest personal friendships, in the world and in the Church; yet while chastened under it, as his journals show, in a way peculiar to the sensitiveness of his nature, he sought invariably to overcome evil with good.
Kitto, referring to his last interview with Mr. Groves, before going to Malta, writes:—
“I feel quite incapable of expressing how much I have been affected by the truly Christian, and, if Mr. Groves were a little older, I could even say paternal, conduct he has manifested towards me from the beginning of our intercourse, and more especially I felt it at the time of our separation.”
- ↑ See Appendix A.
