“What a blessing it is for me, that I have such a sister as you, my dear S—, who have been so instrumental in keeping me in the right way. When I consider how little human assistance you have had, and the great knowledge to which you have attained on the subject of religion, especially observing the extreme ignorance of the most wise and learned of this world, I think this is itself a proof of the wonderful influence of the Holy Ghost on the minds of well-disposed persons. It is certainly by the Spirit alone that we can have the will, or power, or knowledge, or confidence to pray; and by Him alone we come unto the Father through Jesus Christ. ‘Through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.’ How I rejoice to find that we disagreed only about words! I did not doubt, as you suppose, at all about that joy which true believers feel. Can there be any one subject, any one source of cheerfulness and joy, at all to be compared with the heavenly serenity and comfort which such a person must find in holding communion with his God and Saviour in prayer; in addressing God as his Father, and more than all, in the transporting hope of being preserved unto everlasting life, and of singing praises to his Redeemer when time shall be no more? Oh! I do indeed feel this state of mind at times; but at other times I feel quite humbled at finding myself so cold and hard-hearted. That reluctance to prayer, that unwillingness to come unto God, who is the fountain of all good, when reason and experience tell us, that with him only true pleasure is to be found, seem to be owing to Satanic influence.” After mentioning that his mathematical studies required such deep thought as to exclude, for the time, every other subject from the mind, and that they were, on this account, very dangerous to him, he speaks in the same letter of the beginning of his religious feelings.