"I just recollect this letter will reach you on the Sunday. Allow me, therefore, to repeat my emphatic valediction _Remember_. You will be in my heart and in my prayers, and probably we shall be celebrating about the same time the memorial of our blessed Lord's suffering and the bond of the mutual affection of His disciples towards each other. The anniversaries which have passed remind me forcibly of the rapid flight of time. My course must be nearly run, though perhaps it may please that God who has hitherto caused goodness and mercy to follow me all my days, to allow me to see my dear boys entered into the exercise of their several professions, if they are several. But how glad shall I be if they all can conscientiously enter into the ministry, that most useful and most honourable of all human employments."[50] "_June 14._ "All may be done through prayer--almighty prayer, I am ready to say; and why not? for that it is almighty is only through the gracious ordination of the God of love and truth. Oh then, pray, pray, pray, my dearest boy. But then remember to estimate your state on self-examination not by your prayers, but by what you find to be the effects of them on your character, tempers, and life." "_July 12, 1823._ "It has often been a matter of grief to me that both Henry and Robert have a sad habit of appearing, if not of being, inattentive at church. The former I have known turn half or even quite round and stare (I use the word designedly) into the opposite pew. I am not aware whether you have the same disposition (real or apparent) to inattention at public worship. I trust I need not endeavour to enforce on you that it is a practice to be watched against with the utmost care. It is not only a crime in ourselves, but it is a great stumbling-block of offence to others. The late Mr. Scott, though an excellent man, had contracted a habit of staring in general while reading the prayers of our excellent liturgy; and he once told me himself he actually did it most, when his mind was most intent on the solemn service he was performing. But to others he appeared looking at the congregation, especially at any persons entering the chapel, and many I fear were encouraged to a degree of distraction and inattention in prayer by the unseemly habit he had contracted. Now let me entreat you, my dearest boy, to watch against every approach to inattention in yourself, and to help dear Henry, in whom I have remarked the practice, to get the better of it. I have always found it a great aid in keeping my thoughts from wandering at church to repeat the prayers to myself, either in a whisper or mentally, as the minister has being going along, and I highly approve of making responses, and always when you were children tried to have you make them; but I used to think your mother did not join me in this when you were next to her, partly probably from her own mind being more closely engaged in the service--prayer being the grand means of