_1809, March 30._--My dear friend in India much upon my heart lately, chiefly in desires that the work of God may prosper in his hands, and that he may become more and more devoted to the Lord. I seem, as to the future, to have attained what a year or two since I prayed much for--to regard him absent as in another state of existence, and my affection is holy, pure, and spiritual for this dear saint of God; when it is otherwise, it is owing to my looking back. Recollections sometimes intrude, and I welcome them, alas, and act over again the past--but Lord, Thy holy, blessed will be done--cheerfully, thankfully I say this. _Tregembo, July 11._--I have suffered from levity of spirit, and lost thereby the enjoyment of God. How good then is it in the Lord to employ means in His providence to recall His wanderer to Himself and happiness! Such mercy belongeth unto God--and this His care over me I will record as a testimony against myself, if I forsake Him again and lose that sweet seriousness of mind, so essential to my peace and safety. Though I have never (perhaps for many hours in a day) ceased to remember my dear friend in India, it has not of late been in a way but as I might love and think of him in heaven. Why is it then that the intelligence of his probable nearness to that blessed abode should distress me? yet it did, and does so still. It is this intelligence which has, I hope, taught that my late excessive cheerfulness was dangerous to my soul, in weakening my hold of better and calmer joys. I was directed, I think, to the thirty-sixth Psalm for what I wanted on this occasion, as I was once before to the sixty-first, and I have found it most wonderfully cheering to my heart. The Lord, as 'the preserver of man and beast,' caused me to exercise dependence on Him respecting the result of my friend's illness. Then the description of the Divine perfections drew back my wandering heart, I hope to God. The declaration of those who trust in God being abundantly satisfied with the fatness of His house, taught me where real enjoyment alone will be found; but the concluding part opened in a peculiarly sweet way to my mind: 'Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures.' _October 23._--I am under some painful forebodings respecting my dear absent friend, and know not how to act. I am strongly impelled to write to him, now that he is in affliction and perhaps sickness himself--yet I dread departing from the plain path of duty. 'O Lord, direct me,' is my cry. I hope my desire is to do Thy will, and only Thy will. I have given him up to Thee--oh, let me do so sincerely, and trust in Thy fatherly care.