“MADELEY, _September 9, 1763_. “MY DEAR SIR,—I see that we ought to learn continually to cast our burdens upon the Lord, who alone can bear them without fatigue and pain. If Maxfield returns, the Lord may correct his errors, and give him so to insist on the fruits of faith as to prevent antinomianism. I believe him sincere; and, though obstinate and suspicious, I am persuaded he has a true desire to know the will and live the life of God. I reply in the same words you quoted to me in one of your letters,—‘Don’t be afraid of a wreck, for Jesus is in the ship.’ After the most violent storm, the Lord will, perhaps, all at once, bring our ship into the desired haven. “You ask me a very singular question with respect to women; I shall, however, answer it with a smile, as I suppose you asked it. You might have remarked that, for some days before I set off for Madeley, I considered matrimony with a different eye to what I had done; and the person who then presented herself to my imagination was Miss Bosanquet. Her image pursued me for some hours the last day, and that so warmly, that I should, perhaps, have lost my peace if a suspicion of the truth of Juvenal’s proverb, ‘_Veniunt a dote sagittae_,’ had not made me blush, fight, and fly to Jesus, who delivered me at the same moment from her image and the idea of marriage. Since that time, I have been more than ever on my guard against admitting the idea of matrimony, sometimes by the consideration of the love of Jesus, which ought to be my whole felicity; and, at others, by the following reflections. “It is true that the Scripture says that a good wife is the gift of the Lord; and it is also true that there may be one in a thousand; but who would put in a lottery where are nine hundred and ninety-nine blanks to one prize? And, suppose I could find this Phœnix, this woman of a thousand, what should I gain by it? A distressing refusal. How could she choose such a man as I? If, notwithstanding all my self-love, I am compelled cordially to despise myself, could I be so wanting in generosity as to expect another to do that for me, which I cannot do for myself—to engage to love, to esteem, and to honour me? “I will throw on my paper some reflections which the last paragraphs of your letter gave rise to, and I beg you will weigh them with me in the balances of the sanctuary. “Reasons for and against matrimony. “1. A tender friendship is, after the love of Christ, the greatest felicity of life; and a happy marriage is nothing but such a friendship between two persons of different sexes. “2. A wife might deliver me from the difficulties of housekeeping, etc. “3. Some objections and scandals may be avoided by marriage.