"There is one point of resemblance between my experience and that of my friends, too striking to pass unnoticed; yet, when reading the Scriptures, it has merely served to involve me in a still more perplexing labyrinth of difficulty. It is this--they maintain 'that our hearts undergo no moral improvement when the great renovation takes place, but remain as impure and deceitful as before.' I certainly did anticipate, when I first felt the influence of the truth, that I should grow in grace as well as in knowledge; and that I should attain to a more near conformity to the image of Jesus Christ; but on a close and impartial examination, I am compelled to believe that I have made no progress: indeed, I fear I have made a retrograde movement. I do not feel that calm satisfaction, or any of the blissful emotions I felt, when my attention was first arrested by the unseen realities of eternity. I do not feel that indifference to worldly objects, which I felt when confined to a couch of pain and languor. I am not so deeply affected by the unparalleled love of Christ, as I was when I first viewed him bearing away the iniquities of the people by the agonies of his death; nor does sin appear so exceedingly sinful, as when I first experienced its bitterness. I am neither so grateful for my mercies, nor so abased on account of my transgressions, as I was when the light of a supernatural manifestation first threw open to my view my neglected obligations and concealed defects. I feel, if possible, more fully convinced of the absolute need of a Saviour, than I was when I first felt the burden of guilt upon my conscience, but yet I am less able to exercise faith in him; and instead of that peace which was diffused through my heart when I first believed, I am sometimes driven to the verge of despondency. "I have not yet communicated to my dear parents the present perturbed state of my feelings, as I am unwilling to give one pang of sorrow to their tender bosom; and though I sometimes pray that the Lord would be pleased to turn away from me the face of his anger, and comfort me, yet I cannot pray in faith. Surely no one else ever felt what I feel, or suffered what I suffer. There are two verses in a favourite hymn, which, I believe, was composed by the venerable Newton, which I can repeat with intense earnestness:-- 'Lord, decide the doubtful case; Thou who art thy people's Sun, Shine upon thy work of grace, If it be indeed begun. 'May I love thee more and more, If I love at all, I pray; If I have not lov'd before, Help me to begin to-day.'