thing, what blessings would you receive, in body, soul, and spirit! Oh farewel, farewel! And when your soul is most carried up to God, remember to pray for, _Your grateful and affectionate_, **** * * * * * _April 2._ _Dear Sir_, I RETURN you many thanks for writing so soon, and particularly for filling two sides of your paper. My soul was as much enlivened by your letter, as the earth, the birds, and flowers, are by the rays of the sun, after a long and heavy rain. May your blessed Master reward you for all your goodness to me! I thank God, I have in some measure learnt that grand lesson, “Not as I will, but as _thou_ wilt;” and I continually pray that he may teach it me more and more. The present idle and half-dying life I am obliged to lead, greatly needs this temper of mind; and it is all owing to the free mercy of my Redeemer, that I can _now_ say, his grace is sufficient for me. In regard to temporal blessings, I have now and then a little dispute with some of my religious friends, and I want your authority to strengthen my arguments.――They say, Whatever temporal blessing God gives, you are to rejoice and take a pleasure in it, as his gift. And I say, Whatever temporal blessing God bestows, the motive for your rejoicing should be _merely_ the _will_ of God: for if you rejoice in the blessing, considered as a happiness in itself (though referring it to God with a thankful heart) you are building on the sand, and your happiness will be shaken, if not overturned, by the first storm that beats upon it. But if the will of God be the motive of your rejoicing, you build your happiness on a foundation which never can be moved. The present blessing, indeed, may vanish away, but your cause of rejoicing still remaineth sure and stedfast, in time and in eternity.――Some people think the _way_ I am in at present a prodigious happiness, and the greatest of worldly blessings, and will ask me, “Are you not pleased?”――I answer, I am pleased with every thing which is the will of God; and the answer is thought an odd one: but I cannot help it, I dare not make any other. *You want me to say something upon Christian love ripened in eternity. But this is a theme for angels; my soul is too low, too dull to attempt to write upon it; I can only wish and pray to be a partaker of it. Farewel; may the sweetest streams of redeeming love ever fill your soul. _I am unalterably your’s_, **** * * * * * _July 18._ *_Dear Sir_,