_1810, January 1._--Felt the necessity of beginning this year with prayer for preserving grace. Prayed with some sense of my own weakness and dependence on God--with a conviction of much sin and hope in His mercy through Jesus Christ. Oh, to be Thine, Lord, in heart and life this year! Had a remembrance of those most dear to me in prayer, and found it very sweet to commend them to God, especially my friend in India--perhaps not now in India, but in heaven. Oh, to join him at last in Thy blissful presence! _January 24._--Heard yesterday of the marriage of Mr. John--what a mercy to me do I feel it!--a load gone off my mind, for every evil I heard of his committing I feared I might have been the cause of, by my conduct ten years since--I rejoice in this event for his sake and my own. _February 6._--Heard at last of the safety of my friend in India, and wrote to him--many fears on my mind as to its propriety, and great deadness of soul in doing it--yet ere I concluded I felt comforted from the thought of the nearness of eternity, and the certainty that then, without any fear of doing wrong, I should again enjoy communion with him. _February 24._--Many sad presages of evil concerning my absent friend, yet I am enabled to leave all to God--only now I pray, if consistent with His will, his life may be spared, and as a means of it, that God may incline him to return again to this land. I never did before dare to ask this, believing the cause of God would be more advanced by his remaining in India; but now I pray, without fear of doing wrong or opposing the will of God, for his return. _March 5._--I am sensible of a very remarkable change in the desires of my soul before God, respecting my absent friend. I with freedom and peace now pray continually that he may be restored to his friends and country; before, I never dared to ask anything but that the Lord would order this as His wisdom saw fit, and thought it not a subject for prayer. His injured health causes me to believe that India is not the place for his labours--and, oh, that his mind may be rightly influenced and the Lord's will done, whether it be his remaining there or returning. _April 23._--Wrote to India.