The
iron constitution which had carried him through so many hardships,
enabled him to continue in his ministry to extreme old age. A friend
at length counselled him to stop before he found himself stopped by
being able to speak no longer. "I cannot stop," he said, raising his
voice. "What! shall the old African blasphemer stop while he can
speak?"
At the instance of a common friend, Newton had paid Mrs. Unwin a visit
at Huntingdon, after her husband's death, and had at once established
the ascendancy of a powerful character over her and Cowper. He now
beckoned the pair to his side, placed them in the house adjoining his
own, and opened a private door between the two gardens, so as to have
his spiritual children always beneath his eye. Under this, in the most
essential respect, unhappy influence, Cowper and Mrs. Unwin together
entered on "a decided course of Christian happiness." That is to say
they spent all their days in a round of religious exercises without
relaxation or relief. On fine summer evenings, as the sensible Lady
Hesketh saw with dismay, instead of a walk, there was a prayer-meeting.
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