I should be very glad to see you when your affairs will permit, for I have not had one help from without since I saw you last; nor have I had _many_ of those joys and comforts from within which have sometimes been indulged me. And indeed my animal frame would have been too weak to have borne them, unless God had in a particular manner supported it: for every faculty of my soul has been weighed down by continual sickness. I have not only been incapable of any outward application, but also of intense thinking or fervent prayer. But in the midst of this _my_ weakness, the strength of God has more abundantly been made manifest, that I might be abased even to the dust, and his free grace exalted; so that I well understand what St. _Paul_ meant, when he said, _Therefore will I glory in weakness, in distresses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me_.――But I must finish this already too long letter. Farewell! May the dew of heaven continually refresh you! **** * * * * * _January 19, 1756._ _Dear Sir_, I AM much obliged to you for your letter, from which I have learnt a very useful lesson, viz. Never to fancy that the particular circumstances of others would be more advantageous to me than my own. You are ready almost to envy _me_ my _many_ hours of retirement; when at the same time, I am continually complaining that I have so _few_, and often crying out, when _shall_ I have a _whole day_ to myself? And then I frequently think, were I a man and in the ministry, my time would then be _all_ spent for God; but _now_, what an inundation of trifling flows in upon me, which ’tis impossible for me to avoid, without altogether going out of the world.