“If, hitherto, my dear brother, you have beguiled yourself with prospects of the same visionary nature, never expect to be more successful in your future pursuits. One labour will only succeed another, making way for continual discontent and chagrin. Open your heart, and there you will discover the source of that painful inquietude to which, by your own confession, you have been long a prey. Examine its secret recesses, and you will discover there sufficient proof of the following truths: ‘_The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked_;’ ‘_All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God_;’ ‘_The thoughts of man’s heart are only evil, and that continually_;’ ‘_The natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit of God_.’ On the discovery of these and other important truths, you will be convinced that man is an apostate being, composed of a sensual, rebellious body, and a soul immersed in pride, self-love, and ignorance; nay more, you will perceive it a physical impossibility that man should ever become truly happy till he is cast, as it were, into a new mould, and created a second time. “For my own part, when I first began to know myself, I saw, I _felt_ that man is an undefinable animal, partly of a bestial and partly of an infernal nature. The discovery shocked my self-love, and filled me with the utmost horror. I endeavoured for some time to throw a palliating disguise over the wretchedness of my condition, but the impression it had already made upon my heart was too deep to be erased. It was to no purpose that I reminded myself of the morality of my conduct; it was in vain that I recollected the many encomiums that had been passed upon my early piety and virtue; and it was to little avail that I sought to cast a mist before my eyes by reasonings like these: ‘If conversion implies a total change, who has been converted in these days? Why dost thou imagine thyself worse than thou really art? Thou art a believer in God and in Christ; thou art a Christian; thou hast injured no person; thou art neither a drunkard nor an adulterer; thou hast discharged thy duties not only in a general way, but with more than ordinary exactness; thou art a strict attendant at church; thou art accustomed to pray more regularly than others, and frequently with a good degree of fervour; make thyself perfectly easy; moreover, Jesus Christ has suffered for thy sins, and His merit will supply everything lacking on thy part.’