I am ashamed I have been so dilatory in answering your kind letter of the 10th instant. I read it with most exquisite delight. I intended a very long epistle for you, but I must still remain that in your debt, which I will faithfully pay the earliest opportunity. Yesterday I was just sitting down to drop you a line, but was suddenly surprized to hear of your indisposition. I fear your daily vexations have hurt your nervous system, and distressed your mind; nor have you much power to bear them—we all want strength to endure tribulation. We want power to stand in the evil day, that we may not fall before it. I have often been pleased, edified, and comforted with that very precious Promise, xliii. Isa. “When thou passest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; when thou passest through the waters, they shall not overflow thee, for I am with thee.” I trust this promise will be fulfilled in our experience _till_ death, and _in_ death. I feel anxious about your health of body. I judge your feelings. I know your state of mind. We need Divine keeping in every thing we do, and in every step we take. Hence, David prayed: Preserve me, O God, for in thee do I put my trust. Leave me not destitute. Does not this prayer suit you well? it does me. Yet I feel happy the Lord is leading you to see the vanity of all things below the stars; the emptiness of the creature, the sin of your nature, in hewing out cisterns, yea, broken cisterns, that can hold, retain, no water. No sooner are creature comforts in, but they run out again. Yet, alas, how awful for mankind to forsake the living fountain which never will be exhausted, or run dry! The adorable Trinity in unity, is that fountain, each glorious person is so represented, because they are equal in power, majesty, glory, and goodness. God is love, and this glorious God-head includes the three Holy Ones. What a mercy for us, _they_ divinely condescended to enter into covenant about us, such hell-deserving sinners as we are, and in the prospect of our miseries, made ample provision for us, that we might be infinite gainers by the fall, and God for ever glorified in that great business of redemption and grace.—In this glorious covenant our sins were made over to Christ, and his righteousness made over to us. This was secured by the promise, and the oath of God; confirmed by the blood of the dear Saviour; made known in the Gospel, and brought to the faith of an humble believer. After the sense and assurance of this blessing, we being first convinced of sin, and fearing God’s wrath, the day of death, the last judgment and eternity, we doubt, fear, pray, hope, aspire, desire, long, and then grow careless, lukewarm, indifferent, dead, till guilt is felt again, or trouble arises, or affliction comes on; then we get alarmed, quickened, and anxious again to read our title clear, to see the interest Christ has in us, and the interest we have in _him_; to know that our sins are