"MY DEAR LOUISA,--I am fearful lest you should construe my silence into indifference; but I flatter myself, that the following explanation will protect me from such an imputation. I was from home when yours of last month arrived; and since my return, family matters so engaged my attention, that I have been prevented replying to it. It is impossible for words to express the pleasure I felt on the perusal of your first very interesting letter; and though the degree of that pleasure was somewhat diminished on the reception of your second, yet I cannot refrain from offering you my sincere congratulations, on account of what the Lord has done for you, and is still doing. Clouds and darkness are often round about him, while he is silently and unobserved carrying on his own work; and when it is not in our power to trace the operation of his hand, we are required to stand still, and he will show us his salvation. In the early experience of the Christian there are many circumstances which perplex and confound him, and which appear to place his good hope in the most imminent danger; but it is the province of faith calmly to wait the issue, which is certain, and will be glorious. "I am not surprised, my dear Louisa, that you should regret having made what you call a premature disclosure of your Christian experience, especially as you begin to entertain some strong doubts of its being genuine. This is very natural, and very common. If the experimental influence of the truth fell under the immediate observation of our senses, we should be able to mark its progress with the most perfect accuracy; but as the seat of its first and most powerful operations is the heart--that province which the eye can never penetrate; and as it merely diffuses itself over the exercise of our intellectual and moral faculties, without acting alone, and independently of them, we almost necessarily, at times, suspect whether we have ever felt it. It is true, we may see a change in our conduct, and a change in the disposition and temper of our mind; but as this uniformly takes place in consequence of our full conviction of its propriety, we may, especially in a gloomy hour, be incapable of tracing it up to a supernatural cause.