YOUR Christian affection and maternal concern for me, so many years, entitle you to this acknowledgment. The holy apostle, in his directions to his son Timothy, advises to entreat the elder brethren in the church as fathers; the younger men as brethren; the elder women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters, with all purity.—1st Epist. _Tim._ 1, 2. I am most sensibly alive to every feeling of gratitude, for your long and unwearied kindness—your many prayers for my present and my eternal good—your tears on account of my troubles, and your best wishes for the sanctification of them, that I may be delivered from sin, the worst of evils, from error, as derogatory to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and from all the traps, snares, and temptations which may be laid for my feet, and which might bring me into bondage; the Lord reward thy kindness, and may a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou hast been enabled to trust. It has been the desire of many to be acquainted with the earlier part of my life, my birth, parentage, education, and how the Lord has manifested his good hand to me in a way of providence, and his Spirit’s operations in away of grace. With respect to my birth and parentage, I know nothing; nor did I ever hear of any _one_ that _ever_ did. I never could gain the least information of my parents, from any quarter, nor ever hear of a relative of any description. I never knew a mother’s care, nor a father’s fostering hand. Many times, when a boy of only eight years of age, have I reflected my case was hard. I have sat under the trees at the Foundling Hospital, and wept that I had no mother; and when the nurses from the country came to see other boys, and given them little presents, there was none for me; and when the kiss went round, there was no kiss for me. I said nothing; but tears might have told what I felt, and what they meant. Sometimes I heard that some boys had found their mothers, but that was never my lot. No kind mother owned me. This would make me weep again. Often have I observed, when in the chapel of the hospital, some persons would sit and look at the children in the gallery with seeming anxiety; as if they were their own, though they dared not acknowledge them, and singling out one and another, they used to send them presents. Perhaps, thought I, my dear mother may be among them, but dare not own me. But who can tell her feelings? I used often to repeat the 10th verse of the 27th Psalm, though I knew not its real excellencies: “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.” This was true in my case, in more senses than one. I have often reflected, and do to this day, how it is possible for a mother to forsake her child. Divine truth has declared it possible. Yea, she may forget the son of her womb, a sucking child. One would think it almost impossible; but, _mothers_, _yes_, _even mothers_, _may monsters prove_.