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and you will not speak in vain. If he had not enabled you to make the choice of Moses, you would have avoided the trials you find at N; you would probably before this time have entered a very different path of life. The world would have either congratulated or envied you; but I should have pitied you. You would soon have felt, (what the Lord enabled you to consider without making the experiment,) how little the fine things of this world can contribute to happiness. Every day would have shown you more of their vanity, and every day would have discovered to you new instances of the solid and real evils and troubles which are connected with them. You would either have been carried away with the stream, to the wounding of your conscience and the loss of your spiritual discernment; or, if enabled to stand your ground, you would have found a thorn in every step you took.

Blessed be the Lord, who inspired you with wisdom and strength to resist the golden temptation! I said then, and I say still, you will never have just cause to repent it. Continue humbly to commit your way to him; he will take care of you, and he can give you, even in temporals, what, upon the whole, shall be much more valuable and comfortable than all that you give up. However that may be, his loving-kindness, and the light of his countenance, are better than life itself. I warned you, though you knew it before, that the enemy would try, as far as permitted, to distress and worry you. But regard him not. Resist him, and he will flee from you. You are in the path of duty;. what you cannot alter, bear patiently, and the Lord, in his own time, will make the crooked straight. You are in a peculiar sense the charge of his providence, and he will not leave you nor forsake you. We hope to be at home on the even

ing of the 5th. I have great reason to be pleased with my excursion; and, blessed be the Lord, the thought of returning to London is very pleasant to me likewise. There, (with respect to this world,) my treasure is, and there is my heart also. The opportunities of preaching his word, and of intercourse with his dear people, the many kind and valuable friends he has given me, are more to me than all the mines of Peru.

Let us love and sing and wonder,

Let us praise the Saviour's name.

Let the world take the world; for you and for me the Lord has provided better things.-Oh for grace to be humble, thankful, circumspect, and exemplary, that our light may shine to his praise! I commend you to his gracious protection, and am, Dear Madam,

Yours most sincerely.

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WE have heard that you have been sick, and I write.

in hopes of obtaining an answer, to inform me that you have experienced the help and power of the great Physician, and that you are now better. I know indeed beforehand, that, whether sick or well, you are just as you should be, and that what the Lord chooses for you is always the best. But the Gospel, though calculated to form us, (rebellious as we are by nature,) to a cheerful acquiescence in his will, and to regulate our sensibility, is not designed to suppress it. The same love which rejoices in the comforts of others, will likewise sympathize with them in affliction. We are directed to pray for one another in this view, that, if it be the Lord's pleasure to prolong life and to restore health, our sense of the mercy may be heightened by the consideration that it is bestowed in answer to prayer. You do not properly need my prayers and wishes, you are safe in the hands of infinite wisdom and love; and you were in a wilderness remote from all society,

if

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you could not be sick or afflicted an hour longer than the Lord saw necessary to answer some gracious purpose in your favour. favour. But this is his institution, that as members of the same body, we should maintain a fellowship and sympathy, helping together by prayer, that so for the gift bestowed by means of many persons, thanks may be given by many on our account. pleases me to think that, though I am much and often surrounded with noise, smoke, and dust, my friend Mrs. C*** enjoys the beautiful scenes of rural life. O how I long sometimes to spend a day or two among woods, and lawns, and brooks, and hedge-rows, to hear the birds sing in the bushes, and to wander among the sheep and lambs, or to stand under the shadow of an old oak, upon a hill top! Thus I lived at Olney; how dif ferent is London! But, hush! Olney was the place once, London is the place now. Hither the Lord brought me, and here he is pleased to support me, and in some measure, (I trust,) to own me. I am satisfied. Come, I hope I can make a good shift without your woods, and bushes, and pastures. What is the prospect from the finest hill in Essex, compared with the prospect I have from St. Mary's pulpit? What is the singing of birds, compared with the singing our hymn after sermon on a Sunday evening? What the bleating of lambs, compared with the lispings of inquiring souls, who are seeking after Jesus! No, welcome noise, and dust, and smoke, so that we may but be favoured with his gracious presence in our hearts, houses, and ordiThis will make all situations nearly alike, if we see the Lord's hand placing us in it, are enabled to do his will, and to set him before us, as our Lord and our Beloved. You will please to present my goodwishes to Mrs. B****, and likewise Miss D****, if she

nances.

is with her. He in whose presence is life, whose loving-kindness is better than life, be with you all. Though we do not see each other, we are not far asunder. The throne of grace is a centre, where thousands daily meet in spirit, and have real though secret communion with each other. They eat of one bread, walk by one rule; they have one Father and one home. There they will shortly meet to part no more. They will shine each one like the sun. They will form a glorious constellation, millions of suns shining together in their Lord's kingdom. How pleased is Satan when he can prevail to set those at variance, who are in so many respects united! but such is his subtlety, and such their weakness, which he practises upon, that he has often prevailed thus.-Sometimes he shuts them up so close within the paper walls of a denomination, that they cannot see an inch beyond the bounds of their own party. Sometimes he holds his magical glass before their eyes, and when they thus view each other through the medium of prejudice, they seem so mutually and so strangely metamorphosed, that perhaps both leaders and people are shocked, disgusted, and terrified at the sight of those who are as near the Lord as themselves. Here and there one escapes the general delusion; these wonder at the bustle around them, and endeavour to persuade the rest to peace and love as becometh brethren, and perhaps are requited with the reproaches of both sides, as neutrals, time-servers, and cowards. But these peace-makers are blessed, approved of God, and beloved by all men who are in possession of their spiritual senses. Through mercy, my dear madam, neither you nor I are to be scared by such words as Methodist or Calvinist. We see there is both wheat and chaff

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