"These lines, I thought, would be ill placed among contributions of different import: I therefore wrote them at the end of my Bible, and put some others, of a religious and kindly admonitory tendency, in the lady's album. Not even in the albums can I write without manifesting, that to please is less my object than to acknowledge the goodness of God. Well, then, my dear Sir, in this respect you may gather, in some degree, how it is with me, and how God has wrought upon my mind, and operates upon it to the end I speak of. When His hand struck me as for death, it was in a house of prayer, and whilst being carried from the place in men's arms as for dead, He lifted my heart to His throne of grace. During the loneliness of what seemed to be my dying bed, and the discomfort of my awful infirmity, and the ruin of my house, and family, and property, He was with me, and comforted me; and hitherto He has helped me, and I bless His holy name; my faith in Him is unshaken, and He keeps me constantly to himself; and despite of worldly affections, and nature's fear, I depend on Him and the workings of His providence, that He will never leave me nor forsake me. It has never entered my mind, even as a shadow, that I can do anything for Him; but what He enables me to do, I will do to His glory. In the dark seasons of the hidings of His face, I would wait on Him who waited for me while I resisted the drawings of His love; and when I sit in the light of His countenance, I would stand up and magnify His name before the people. And now, that He has wonderfully raised me up, after a long season of calamity, to the power of using my pen, I pray that He may direct it to tell of His mercy to me, and by what way He has brought me to acknowledge Him, 'the Lord our righteousness,' 'God blessed for ever,' at all times, and in all places, where there may be need of it. I trust I may never be ashamed to declare His Name; but readily exemplify, by His help, the courage and obedience of a Christian man, and, as a good soldier of Christ, fight the good fight with the sword of the Spirit. "May God grant me grace to do His will, is my humble supplication. I am, "Dear Sir, "Yours most sincerely, "WM. HONE." The foregoing letter may perhaps be considered too pharasaical; but when is added to it the following note by Mr. Hone, relating the afflictions which had overtaken him, and well nigh overwhelmed him, it cannot appear surprising that when he sought comfort and relief from where alone they are to be found, his heart overflowed with thankfulness and praise. I find the subjoined notice to his readers in Hone's _Table Book_, vol. ii. p. 737.:-- "Note. "Under severe affliction I cannot make up this sheet as I wish. This day week my second son was brought home with his skull fractured. To-day intelligence has arrived to me of the death of my eldest son.