"MY DEAR FRIEND,--I am much obliged by your affectionate epistle, which I received on the 10th; and I regret that you should deem any apology necessary for the introduction of that specific advice which it contains. My obvious indifference to the momentous question of personal religion, and my growing conformity to the customs and habits of the gay world, must, I have no doubt, have given you very considerable uneasiness; and I assure you that it often plunged me into the deepest depression of spirit. I was often cheerful, but never happy; often trying fresh expedients to divert my attention from what I deemed _the gloomy subject_, but never could succeed; and though I became more insensible to the attractions of religion as I grew in years, yet I exposed myself more frequently to the keenness of its reproofs and the awful terrors of its threatenings. My associates, who had not had the privilege of a pious education, could enjoy the world, and treat with levity the prohibitory injunctions of the Scriptures, but I could not. I never could divest myself of the full conviction that God has the first claim on the affections of the heart; and that he has appointed a day when every human being 'must appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.' These thoughts would rush into my mind, not only when alone, but also when in the midst of the gayest company, and by no expedient could I succeed in driving them away. "It was under the most agonizing mental conflict I ever sustained, that I hailed our tour to the west as likely to dissolve the fatal charm by which I was subdued and enslaved; but I found, on my return, that my _heart_ had undergone no change, as I often secretly anticipated a re-entrance into those scenes which my conscience so severely condemned. I once heard Mr. Newton remark, that as our dangers often spring out of our comforts, so the greatest blessings sometimes grow out of our heaviest afflictions. The correctness of this remark I can _now_ attest from experience. It was on our return from Devonshire that I met with the accident which has confined me a close prisoner for more than two months; but to that accident which I called disastrous, I owe all my present happiness and my prospect of eternal glory.