If, as I truly believe, the christian religion is intended to subdue the wanderings of the imagination, and bring the mind into a humble dependance on our Creator, it seems necessarily to follow, that we ought to be anxiously careful to prevent its being drawn into a too great fondness for enquiries into unsearchable things. In the course of my reading, I have lately perused the prayer of a very learned man,[7] which, for its rational and fervent piety, must be instructive to all, and in a particular manner to those who are _our teachers_. It is the prayer of one whose writings will be read with instruction and delight as long as our language endures; whose intellectual faculties were of the highest order, and who was sufficiently sensible of his superiority, when compared with most other men: yet, when in solitude and private worship, he looked beyond all sublunary things, and contemplated the immensurable distance between the wisdom of man and his Creator, with deep prostration of mind he prayed "Oh, Lord, my maker and protector, who hast graciously sent me into this world to work out my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties which thou hast required. When I behold the works of thy hands, and consider the course of thy providence, give me grace always to remember that thy thoughts are not my thoughts, nor thy ways my ways: and while it shall please thee to continue me in this world, where much is to be done, and little to be known; teach me by thy holy spirit, to withdraw my mind from unprofitable and dangerous enquiries, from difficulties vainly curious, and doubts impossible to be solved. Let me rejoice in the light which thou hast imparted, let me serve thee with active zeal and humble confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest, shall be satisfied with knowledge. Grant this, O Lord, for Jesus Christ's sake." Footnote 7: Dr. Johnson. And that it is with minds thus disciplined, that all ought to be prepared for prayer, and that in this spirit alone, can the preacher awaken the mind to true worship, are truths which few professors of the christian name, and none who believe in the doctrines of Friends, can doubt. LETTER III. If, in my succeeding observations, I refer to the opinions held by any other sect than that in which I have been educated, I wish it to be understood, that it is neither to approve nor censure. Believing, (as I sincerely do,) that christianity consists not in forms or observances; neither in subscriptions to curiously contrived creeds, nor in confessions of faith; but in that worship which purifies and cleanseth the heart; so I believe that he who ministers to a congregation in this spirit, (whatever may be his name among men,) ministers profitably; "and that both he that soweth, and he that reapeth, may rejoice together."