Diverted as I had been from my usual occupation, during the time that I had thus devoted to study and meditation; obliged to maintain myself and you by the sweat of my brow, and having no other immediate subject of perplexity, I returned to my daily labour, and discontinued the perusal of the Gospel. My New Testament had certainly gained much in my esteem; but without stopping to consider exactly in what way I valued it, I think I may say that it was _not_ as containing the Word of God, and the knowledge which is unto salvation. Thus not being really or heartily interested in it, I replaced it a second time on the spot it had so long occupied on the chimney-piece of my room, and eighteen months or two years passed without my thinking of consulting it anew. During this period I married again: your tender age, and the care you required, which my business and absence prevented my giving you, were the motives which induced me to take this step. God in his fatherly kindness mercifully directed my choice, though I had never thought of asking him to do so; and you have found a second mother in her who has ever been to me the most estimable and best of friends. During this period also, I thought more of religion than ever before. Though I had read the Gospel only to satisfy my curiosity on the three points of doctrine that I have mentioned, and although my attention had been exclusively directed to these points, it is probable, notwithstanding, that I had almost unconsciously imbibed some of the impressions which the word of God is calculated to produce, and that even then I was in some measure under its secret influence. One thing I am sure of, that from that time some idea of religion, although then comparatively vague and confused, never left me; I frequently caught myself musing on the origin of the universe, on the vicissitudes of nature, and on the future condition of those numerous beings, who are seen for a short time on the earth and then disappear. My own destiny, also, frequently engaged my thoughts. But I was far from referring it to Him, on whom I now see that it entirely depends. In all these thoughts God was excluded from the place he ought to have held. With nothing but false and uncertain notions of him, I was far indeed from regarding him as the vivifying principle, which, to the eye of the Christian, animates and embellishes every thing, and as that pure light "which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."