death-bed he was
present; though in the narrative which he wrote, joy at John's
conversion and the religious happiness of his end seems to exclude the
feelings by which hypochondria was likely to be fed. But his mode of
life under Newton was enough to account for the return of his disease,
which in this sense may be fairly laid to the charge of religion. He
again went mad, fancied as before that he was rejected of heaven,
ceased to pray as one helplessly doomed, and again attempted suicide.
Newton and Mrs. Unwin at first treated the disease as a diabolical
visitation, and "with deplorable consistency," to borrow the phrase
used by one of their friends in the case of Cowper's desperate
abstinence from prayer, abstained from calling in a physician. Of this
again their religion must bear the reproach. In other respects they
behaved admirably. Mrs. Unwin, shut up for sixteen months with her
unhappy partner, tended him with unfailing love; alone she did it, for
he could bear no one else about him; though to make her part more
trying he had conceived the insane idea that she hated him. Seldom has
a stronger proof been given of the sustaining power of affection.
Assuredly of whatever Cowper may have afterwards done for his kind, a
great part must be set down to the credit of Mrs. Unwin.

Mary! I want a lyre with other strings,
Such aid from heaven as some have feigned they drew,
An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new
And undebased by praise of meaner things,
That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings,
I may record thy worth with honour due,
In verse as musical as thou art true,
And that immortalizes whom it sings.
But thou hast little need. There is a book
By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,
On which the eyes of God not rarely look,
A chronicle of actions just and bright;
There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary shine,
And, since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.

Newton's friendship too was sorely tried. In the midst of the malady
the lunatic took it into his head to transfer himself from his own
house to the Vicarage, which, he obstinately refused to leave; and
Newton bore this infliction for several months without repining,
though, he might well pray earnestly for his friend's deliverance.
"The Lord has numbered the days in which I am appointed to wait on him
in this dark valley, and he has given us such a love to him, both as a
believer and a friend