"He did not cast me off, but dealt with me according to the constitution of his well-ordered covenant: 'If his children,' Christ's, 'forsake my law and walk not in my judgments, if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail; my covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.' Psalm 89:30. This is the covenant--made with Christ as the head of all who believe--of which I took hold in early life; my God kept me to my choice, and manifested his own faithfulness and the stability of his covenant. When lighter afflictions proved ineffectual, he at last, at one blow, took from me all that made life dear, the very kernel of all my earthly joys, my idol, my beloved husband. Then I no longer halted between two opinions; my God became my all. I leave it as my testimony, that he has been a father to the fatherless, a husband to the widow, the stranger's shield and orphan's stay. Even to hoar hairs and to old age he has carried me, and not one good word has failed of all that he has promised. 'He has done all things well,' and at this day I am richer and happier than ever I was in my life. Not that I am yet made free from sin, that is still my burden--want of love and gratitude, indolence in commanded duty, self-will, and nestling in the creature. But my heart's wish and earnest desire is conformity to the divine will. The bent of my will is for God; and if my heart deceive me not, my God is the centre of my best affections. It is by grace that I am what I am, and the same grace engages to perfect the work begun. "This God is my God; he will guide me even unto death, through death, and be my portion to eternity. This God I recommend to my friend; and this well-ordered covenant, this all-sufficient Saviour, for your acceptance: the Bible for your guide, pray to God for his Holy Spirit to lead you to the knowledge of the very truth as it is in Jesus. Accept this as a testimony of friendship, and believe me "Yours, in love, "I. GRAHAM." To the same. "NOVEMBER 2, 1800. "You have, I find, been the child of affliction: she is a stern, rugged nurse; but blessed often are the lessons she teaches. I have, says God, chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. It is God's ordinary way of drawing sinners to himself, either to dry up or imbitter the streams of worldly comfort, that he may shut them up to seek that comfort that depends not on any transitory source.