"MY DEAR JULIET--Since the hour I received your letter, you have been little out of my mind. You call upon me as mother, friend, counsellor. Shall conscious unworthiness, or weakness, or ignorance, prevent my answering? No; for God often chooses weak instruments to bring to pass great ends, I have been once and again to a throne of grace, for wisdom to direct me, and grace to be faithful. If your desire after spiritual knowledge be sincere, and from the Spirit of God operating on your heart, you will bear searching. "You are a communicant, my Juliet; this presupposes that a very great and important change has taken place in your mind--that you have been made deeply sensible of what the word of God testifies of every son and daughter of Adam's race. 'As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.' Rom. 3:10. Man is born as the wild ass's colt, going astray from the womb. Job. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; I the Lord search it. Having the understanding darkened, alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in us, because of the blindness of our hearts. Dead in trespasses and sins. Eph. 4:18; 2:1. "Your profession presupposes that this chapter may be addressed to you, Juliet, by name: 'You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; by grace are ye saved, through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast.' Works there are, my Juliet, most assuredly; every quickened soul will live, and bring forth fruits of righteousness; but these works are not attainable but in God's way and order. It follows, 'For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.'