"My dear Nephew,--My daughter Harriet received your letter by the last steamer. I have not the least evidence from the letter that you love the Savior, for you do not even refer to him. On this account I may perhaps be warranted in coming to the conclusion that he is not much in your thoughts. Be this, however, as it may, I have become so much alarmed about your spiritual condition as to make it a special subject of prayer, or to set you apart for this purpose; and I design, God willing, to pray for you in a special manner until about the time when this shall reach you, that is, about two months. After that I can make no promise that I shall pray for you any further than I may pray for my friends in general. I have now set apart a little season to pray for you and to write to you. Do you wonder at this? Has it never occurred to you as _a very strange thing_ that others should be so much concerned in you, while you are unconcerned for yourself? I can explain the mystery. Your friends have seen you, and your uncle, among the rest, has seen you walking on the pit of destruction, on a rotten covering, as it were, liable at every moment to fall through it, and drop into everlasting burnings. _This_ you have not seen, and therefore you have remained careless and indifferent. Whether this carelessness and indifference will continue I know not. All that I can say is, that I am greatly alarmed for you. It is no small thing for you to trample under foot the blood of Christ for eighteen years. Justly might the Savior say of you, as he said of his people of old, 'Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone.' Your treatment of the blessed Savior is what grieves me to the heart. What has He not done to serve you? Were you to fall into a well, and a stranger should run to your help and take you out, that stranger should forever afterwards be esteemed as your chief friend. Nothing could be too much for you to do for him. Of nothing would you be more cautious than of grieving him. And has Christ come down from heaven to save you? Has He died for you? Has He shed his very blood for you that you might be delivered from the worm that dieth not, and the fire which is never quenched? And can you be so wicked as not to love Him? My dear nephew, this will not do; it _must_ not do. You must alter your course. But I will stop writing for a moment and kneel down and entreat God's mercy for _you_. I will endeavor to present the sacrifice of the Redeemer at the Throne of grace, and see if I cannot, for this sacrifice' sake, call down the blessing of the Holy Spirit upon you." As a remarkable coincidence evidencing an answer to earnest believing prayer, this letter found both the nephews drawing near to their eternal state. Under the discipline of the Holy Spirit, the end of the two stipulated months for special daily prayer in his behalf, found De Witt brought into the light and liberty of the Gospel, rejoicing in his Savior.