For your encouragement, I express the conviction, that such exercises as yours, are a conflict that must ultimately prove successful. You do not cloak your sins. You confess and deplore them. I believe that you will still be as "a brand plucked from the burning," and that you (with all your wanderings) will be restored, and raised up, as a chosen instrument, to spread a Saviour's name. Many a "chief of sinners," has been brought, since the days of "Saul of Tarsus," to sit as a little child at the Redeemer's feet. To this state you, I am assured, will come. Pray! Pray earnestly, and you will be heard by your Father, which is in Heaven. I could say many things of duty and virtue, but I wish to direct your views at once to Christ, in whom is the alone balm for afflicted souls. May God ever bless you, JOSEPH COTTLE. P.S. If my former letter appeared unkind, pardon me! It was not intended. Shall I breathe in your ear?--I know one, who is a stranger to these throes and conflicts, and who finds "Wisdom's ways to be ways of pleasantness, and her paths, paths of peace." To this letter Cottle received the following reply: LETTER 159. TO COTTLE O dear friend! I have too much to be forgiven, to feel any difficulty in forgiving the cruellest enemy that ever trampled on me: and you I have only to _thank_! You have no conception of the dreadful hell of my mind, and conscience, and body. You bid me pray. O, I do pray inwardly to be able to pray; but indeed to pray, to pray with a faith to which a blessing is promised, this is the reward of faith, this is the gift of God to the elect. Oh! if to feel how infinitely worthless I am, how poor a wretch, with just free-will enough to be deserving of wrath, and of my own contempt, and of none to merit a moment's peace, can make a part of a Christian's creed; so far I am a Christian. S. T. C. April 26, 1814. */ Cottle informs us that Coleridge had now resolved to put himself under constraint in the asylum of Dr. Fox, in the neighbourhood of Bristol. LETTER 160. TO COTTLE (-- Apl., 1814.) Dear Cottle, I have resolved to place myself in any situation, in which I can remain for a month or two, as a child, wholly in the power of others. But, alas! I have no money! Will you invite Mr. Hood, a most dear and affectionate friend to worthless me; and Mr. Le Breton, my old school-fellow, and, likewise, a most affectionate friend: and Mr. Wade, who will return in a few days: desire them to call on you, any evening after seven o'clock, that they can make convenient, and consult with them whether anything of this kind can be done. Do you know Dr. Fox? Affectionately, S. T. C.