It is a comfort which exceeds all others, that as age advances the end of life is viewed as a mere change of residence, and the mental eye fixed on heaven, with full confidence in the promises of God. I would not give this conviction for the wealth of the Indies, for the empire of the world. And what does one lose by religion? I enjoy all such pleasures of life as are unattended by remorse, just as much, or more indeed, far more, than I did while I was a dissipated character. Reading, composition, serious conversation on any topic worth discussing, the rural beauties of Nature, and the pleasures of agriculture, friendship, affection, not love, as it is called, the whole of which I fear is founded in lust, and proves nineteen times in twenty the tyrant of the breast, and the fertile source of ten thousand miseries! Happy those in whom it terminates in a settled, quiet, tranquil friendship, sufficient to satisfy without the wanderings of the heart that lead to so much misery. I was here (at Bradfield) three weeks at Easter after a severe confinement to incessant business; I am now again in the same deep retirement, the life of a hermit, after eight weeks of business and bustle. I feel how vast the benefit is to have these periodical retirements from the world in silence and solitude. Had I gone directly from London on my tour, plunging from one busy scene to another, my mind would have had no time to cool, none to settle into any calm and tranquil state for reflection, which is unfavourable to the growth of religion, of morals, nay, of talents to perform anything of consequence. A round of business or dissipation thus unbroken is mischievous to the heart, ties it to the world, and unfits it for every effort of regeneration and repentance, or of meditation and philosophy. Lord Euston is going the tour of Suffolk, ordering returns to be made of all carts, waggons, horses, mills, and ovens; a step preparatory in the expectation of an invasion. But it is in everyone’s mouth that with such a price of corn half the country would join an enemy. I must freely confess I dread the result. We have no hope but in the protection of the Almighty, who has hitherto so wonderfully protected us; and what has been the gratitude shown to Him?