“fervent effectual prayer.”  “As a Prince he had power with God and with men, and prevailed,” for “when a man’s ways please the Lord He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.”  So it turned out.  Mr. Burdsall says, “One time, as I was returning home from preaching at a distant place in a very wet cold and hungry state, and as night was coming on, having to pass his residence, I thought I would call and see if he would receive me.  I knocked at the door, and he himself opened it.  Seeing me he called his eldest daughter and said, ’Here is thy brother, come and take his horse.’  I alighted and went in.  He then accosted me as he had done once before, asking, ’What are you a riding preacher now?’ I answered, ’To be sure I am; for I have ridden from York to Seacroft, and from thence to your house.’  ‘Well,’ said he, ’I know you live well.’  I replied, ’We do; but I have not lived so well to day as I might have done; for I feel rather hungry.’  He smiled, and bid his daughter put on the tea kettle.  We then entered into conversation, in which he said, ’You write parables to me, for you told me the sun was going down.’  I answered, ’I did so, and my reason for it was, I knew I had stirred up your wrath in marrying your daughter against your mind, and was fearful lest the sun should go down upon it.’  He burst into a flood of tears, and was so melted down, that for three hours, I was prompted both by his feelings and my own to speak of the love of Christ to poor sinners. * * * This was a night to be remembered as my reconciliation with Mr. Stables was at this time effected.”  The understanding thus happily brought about was never after interrupted; and Mr. Stables practically evinced the sincerity of his feelings by securing to his daughter an annuity for life.  In his last illness, which occurred a few years later, Mr. Burdsall, by his own request, frequently visited him, and ministered to his spiritual wants.  He died in peace on the 13th of June, 1787.

The first fruits of the union of Richard Burdsall and Mary Stables, was Mary, the subject of the present memoir—­the step-sister of the Rev. John Burdsall, who still survives.  She was born at York, without Bootham bar, June 19th, 1782.  The house which no longer exists, stood just under the shadow of the old gateway, nearly opposite the modern crescent, known as St. Leonard’s Place.

The foregoing facts, which to some may appear superfluous, are here introduced not merely with the view of making the reader acquainted with the antecedents of my honoured mother; but the much higher object of illustrating the sovereign mercy of God, and tracing the growth of the religious element in the family.  Many a page deeply interesting and instructive might be written which would unfold the grace of God in the history of particular families, flowing as a stream of light from generation to generation, or diffusing itself in the collateral branches; here swelling as “broad rivers and streams,” and there