“I am glad to hear that the Gospel spreads among you, for the sake of my poor fellow-sinners. O that I had the glory of Christ more at heart! Most of us have far too little earnestness; and I for one. Wall’s Lane is in my parish here. Its well known character will give you to understand that I have abundant room for the exercise of zeal. I have as yet visited only the two alms-houses and the poor-house, in which I meet the people once a week, and two or three other houses. To cleanse these stables of Augeas, I may well be taught a useful lesson from the fabled hero—not to attempt the work in my own strength, but to turn the river of grace into it. In my country parish, religion is at a low ebb. The school, however, is re-established; and the benefit of it will, I trust, be of eternal consequence. With respect to my own heart, my dear friend, what shall I say? I have been visited, of late, with some very severe trials; of which the loss of the fortunes of myself and two sisters is the _least_. As often as the pride and arrogance of my heart are brought down into the dust, and I am able to walk softly before the Lord, I am peaceful and happy enough. My present desire is to walk _alone_ with God. I have lived too much in public; going to God in prayer as if I were coming out of a crowd, and about to be tossed into it again. But to walk with God is surely to be with him always; to preach as one delivering the message in his presence; to plead with souls as in the stead of the invisible God near us. Ah, my brother, we die _alone_. If we have not lived in solitary communion with God, we shall start at finding ourselves, in the solemn silence of death, about to launch forward where no friends, no ordinances, can accompany us.” We cannot help observing, how the impressive thought, contained in the last sentences, was strikingly and literally exemplified, in the circumstances of his own decease. He shortly wrote again: “I am about to alter my plan of preaching to my country congregation. They have been hearing from me the Gospel, for which they are by no means prepared: for I have discovered, to my surprise and grief, that they do not know the difference between sin and duty. It is now my design to explain to them the Commandments, Sermon on the Mount, &c.”—“Through the tender mercy of God, I begin to feel a little more zeal and earnestness than formerly. O, my brother, how great the honour that in our _office_ at least, we are like to Christ; that, in this respect, as he was, so are we in this world! May love carry forward our feet in swift obedience; and may we continue in our work, with all firmness, and patience, and tenderness for the souls of men!”