“Nor is it easy to conceive in what circumstances you could, on any supposition, have been easier and happier than in that pious and truly honourable family in which, as I verily believe in special indulgence both to you and to it, Providence has been pleased to appoint that you should spend so considerable a part of your life. It is my earnest prayer that all the remainder of it may be serene, useful, and pleasant. And as, to my certain knowledge, your compositions have been the singular comfort of many excellent Christians—some of them numbered among my dearest friends—on their dying beds, for I have heard stanzas of them repeated from the lips of several who were doubtless in a few hours to begin the ‘Song of Moses and the Lamb,’ so I hope and trust that, when God shall call you to that salvation, for which your faith and patience have so long been waiting, He will shed around you the choicest beams of His favour, and gladden your heart with consolations, like those which you have been the happy instrument of administering to others. In the meantime, sir, be assured that I am not a little animated in the various labours to which Providence has called me, by reflecting that I have such a contemporary, and especially such a friend, whose single presence would be to me as that of a cloud of witnesses here below to awaken my alacrity in the race which is set before me. And I am persuaded that, while I say this, I speak the sentiment of many of my brethren, even of various denominations, a consideration which I hope will do something towards reconciling a heart so generous as yours, to a delay of that exceeding and eternal weight of glory which is now so nearly approaching. Yes, my honoured friend, you will, I hope, cheerfully endure a little longer continuance in life amidst all its infirmities from an assurance that, while God is pleased to maintain the exercise of your reason, it is hardly possible you should live in vain to the world or yourself. Every day and every trial is brightening your crown, and rendering you still more and more meet for an inheritance among the saints in light. Every word which you drop from the pulpit has now surely its peculiar weight. The eyes of many are on their ascending prophet, eagerly intent that they may catch, if not his mantle, at least some divine sentence from his lips, which may long guide their ways, and warm their hearts. This solicitude your friends bring in those happy moments when they are favoured with your converse in private, and, when you are retired from them, your prayers, I doubt not, largely contribute towards guarding your country, watering the Church, and blessing the world. Long may they continue to answer these great ends. And permit me, sir, to conclude with expressing my cheerful confidence that in