Your’s, _Ruhamah_. I once read an excellent letter on this subject, in the Gospel Magazine. I wish you could procure it for me; it was written many years ago. LETTER XV. _Valley of Achor_, _May_ 2, 1819. MY DEAR MRS. F. My heart feels truly grateful, that you remember me in my low estate. There are thousands in a profession, who boast much of their morality, and good works, and who may boast in the last day, that they have done many wonderful works; but God lays this to their charge, they are not grieved for the afflictions of Joseph! Such hypocrites are generally the most godly, where there are the most lookers on. My deep tribulations have tried many, and they have fled in the day of evil. What would such persons do, should persecution ever visit our land; and when it becomes a disgrace to profess religion? Nothing but the love of Christ in the heart, and that love kept up, and manifested under the sacred power of the holy Spirit, can enable a person to go on in the midst of opposition, or in the summer of prosperity; for it is a well known truth, that trials have slain their thousands, but prosperity its ten thousands. I well know _now_, what these words mean, “It is my happiness below, not to live without the cross:” this cross galls the old man of sin, but it is the means of the spiritual growth of the new man. Hence, the afflicted king once said, Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit. Faith, if genuine has something to do in the furnace; but when all is calm, she is inactive, and dull; hope is languid, and love is not seen. I feel assured in my own, my _right_ mind, that this event _will_ be for the glory of God, and for much good to me, and to many: but enemies will no doubt, always triumph, and say, Ah! there, so we would have it! yet their joy is but as the crackling of thorns, under a pot; it will not last long; only a blaze and a noise, and then it will evaporate, like smoke. I hope I shall love God for this rod, as well as for every other blessing. I never fully understood the Psalmist till I came here, when he said, Thy rod, and thy staff, they comfort me. Solomon explains it thus; To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet, because this rod is as much an evidence of our adoption, as any promise can be. They shall all pass under the rod, and they will say at last, our Jesus has done all things well. Ezekiel and John were to eat a book; this was sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the belly. So it is the case with us; the promise of fatherly correction is sweet to faith, but bitter to the old man of sin. Nature flinches, but grace strengthens the mind; bows the will, and resigns the soul to the will of God. _His_ will and our wills are then in sweet unison; we are agreed, and though we sigh,