Yours, J. C. “Each cherub of Jesus who preaches the Word, Shews the path-way that leadeth to life; The sixty that handle the spiritual sword, Attends both the Lamb and his wife.” {106} LETTER XXII. “And the rains descended, and the floods came, and beat upon that house, and it fell not.” To — From the building of the chapel, for the first two years, all went on smoothly, all was prosperous and peaceable; we had set sail in the ship Adramytum, and the South wind blew softly; and having obtained this, we sailed too close by Crete. This soft wind and easy sailing is not very advantageous to spiritual mariners. Ease, popularity, and prosperity, will never do long for the believer or the Christian minister. Prayer, meditation, and temptation, or trouble, makes a good preacher; and where the former is neglected, or but slightly attended to, the Lord has always trouble in store to arouse him again. The pilgrim’s seldom long at ease; When on fright’s gone another doth him seize. Hence the following declaration—“If thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know in what hour I will come upon thee.” This is an address to the angel, the minister, and the church of Sardis. And I really think the description of that church exactly answered to our situation, as a church: I am sorry to odd, like most of the churches in the present day. This is too plain to be denied. Our summer’s day was soon clouded, an awful storm was foreboded by many, which at last fell upon us all: for, not long after, sailing by Crete, there arose a mighty wind, called Euroclydon; and when the ship was caught, and could not bear up to the wind, we let her drive, and running under a certain island which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat, and being exceedingly tossed with a tempest, and neither sun nor moon, nor stars, appeared for many days, and no small tempest lay out us, all hope of deliverance being taken away, we cast fair anchor out of the stern, and wished for the day; but falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground, a part which was broken with the violence of the waves, but some other parts remained immoveable; yet, in God’s time we escaped to land; for, in the midst of the storm, some of as, in the confidence of faith, said, “We shall yet praise Him;” and though deep called unto deep, yet we knew the Lord would command his loving kindness in the day time: and even in that night his song was at times with us, and our prayer, unto the God of our lives; yet the sea wrought, and was tempestuous, till the Lord High Admiral of the Seas awoke and rebuked the winds and waves, and then there was a calm, for which we can never be too thankful. O for a heart to praise him who reigns over all his and our foes! In the year 1816 I began a course of