"What shall I render to the Lord for all his mercies--mercies temporal, mercies spiritual, mercies eternal, multiplied mercies? The one thing that I asked of the Lord has been answered in full, and Oh, how much added. God himself become my salvation, and the salvation of my house; how unspeakable the blessing. Although chastisement and affliction were the means of correction and sanctification, or even the vengeance taken on my inventions, yet, as a God, he at the same time pardoneth. For Oh, my character is ever the same with backsliding Judah and treacherous Israel. Glory to that name which is ever the same, and changeth not. 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.' This was his name among a stiff-necked people, an idolatrous, ungrateful people; this is his name to me alike in character. O how he has magnified this name to me, a backslider in heart and life; multiplying pardons while I have multiplied transgressions: still he has been last with me, healing my backsliding; restoring my soul; leading me to the open fountain; giving faith to wash, and joy and peace in believing; not only so, but in this land of drought, this waste howling wilderness, this vale of tears, where 'man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards,' my cup with temporal comfort is full and running over; all his creatures minister to my comfort; and as days and nights roll on, his daily providence adds, and diminishes not. "I had hardly hoped to see the faces of my children again; for he commanded, and raised the stormy winds and lifted up the waves of the sea; they mounted to heaven and sunk again to the deep; death with all its _natural_ horrors surrounded them; the deep yawned to devour them; but God, their own God, was at hand, their anchor of hope, their ark of safety, their hiding-place till the calamity was past: they cried to him, and he saved them out of their distresses; he made the storm a calm, and the waves thereof still, and brought them to the desired haven. This trouble was not unto death, but for the glory of God and the exercising of your faith, for the manifestation of his power and goodness, and the enriching of your experience. "O then let us praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men. Let us exalt him in the congregation of his people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders." "OCTOBER 23, 1801. "Surely, surely my heart feels grateful for the time, though this, like every other good motion, will, like the morning dew, soon pass away.