breathes faith, humility, and love, and pours into my soul comfort and instruction. Soon after, with another professed Christian, who will maintain that truths, for which martyrs suffered the loss of all things, even of life, are unimportant. These things perhaps, as I have already remarked, would not affect, so as to destroy his peace and his confidence in God, one who possessed that strong faith which views every thing, moral as well as natural evil, as under the divine direction and control. But, alas! though I know that God reigns, and that not a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Father, I sometimes sink into despondency and unbelief.

When are S. and E. to be married? Dear girls! I hope they will be happy in this state, which must be very happy, or very miserable. I am no advocate for cold esteem only, between those who are to live together, and in so close a connection through life. But I believe extravagant, misjudged attachment, misleads more than that of an opposite character. If the understanding and judgment condemn what the passions only approve, and if this is the substance of the love which is to unite husband and wife, there is great danger of its proving like a fire of dry stubble, which, though it may burn to the skies for the present moment, soon dies away, to be enkindled

no more.

TO A FRIEND AT N. Y.

I AM happy that privileges so highly.

Boston, January 14, 1810. you estimate your religious I believe your remark, that

they are equal, if not superior, to those of any other place, is correct; it is unquestionably correct, if the comparison extends to other parts of America only. And perhaps there is not another place in the world that has, in proportion to the number of its clergy, so many pious, evangelical, and great men among its ministers, as N. Y. The inhabitants ought to feel that their mercies are peculiar, and strive, by earnest endeavours, to improve them, to secure their continuance. But though religious privileges are greater in some places than in others, thanks be to God they are unspeakably great wherever the Gospel emits its unerring light. With this infallible guide in our hands, and the grace of God in our hearts, there is fear of nothing but remissness in searching out its divine truths, and of embracing errors; not because we have not the means of knowledge, but for the want of a disposition to improve them.

My dear friend, when we think of the various spiritual privileges with which we have been blessed from infancy, with what contrition ought our hearts to be filled, that we gained so little with the talents entrusted to us! I speak of us both, because I am sure my dear N. will not say, I am not culpable here;' and though I hope she is far less so than I am, I know we must all consider ourselves as mere cumberers of the ground compared with what we should be. I hope, my beloved friend, we are not entirely blind to the concerns of eternity. I hope God has taught us by his grace, that happiness is in him alone; and not only taught us this, but enabled us, through faith in his Son, to lay hold on it for ourselves. This hope is a presumptuous one, like

the hope of the hypocrite which shall perish, unless we have those evidences of its genuineness which are mentioned in the Scriptures; such as habitual communion with God, daily seeking, in faith, from Christ, forgiveness for the past and strength for the future, voluntary denying of ourselves, abstraction from the world, &c. And when I behold in how small a degree these evidences are in myself, I sometimes fear that I am yet without God and without hope in the world. Remembering, therefore, that many come almost to the kingdom of heaven who never enter it, and that there is great danger of our being deceived, let us examine ourselves whether we are indeed in the faith, and strive to make our calling and election sure, lest, when weighed in the balance, we be found wanting.

I

You ask my opinion of Thornton Abbey.' regret that I am unable to give it. Through some misunderstanding between Mr. Huntington and myself, when I was in Connecticut, each of us thought the other had subscribed for it. It is doubtless a fine work. We may reasonably presume so from its having the recommendation of Andrew Fuller. You have probably seen 'Cœlebs,' the late fashionable work of Miss Hannah More. It has been highly celebrated, and I think justly. Perhaps books of this sort, in which religious sentiments are inculcated under the form of a story, are calculated to do more good to a certain class of society than any other, I mean to those who read merely for amusement. They would fly from any thing exclusively didactic, but, being allured by the fictitious part of a work like this, might read it, and perhaps meet with that

conviction which, notwithstanding its promises to amuse, it is calculated to produce.

TO A FRIEND AT N. H.

Boston, March 14, 1810.

WHEN the faith of Christians meets with much opposition, when they feel that there is no middle ground; that they must, with firmness, declare for Christ or the world, and resolve to give up God or Mammon, they are apt to live more near to God, and to experience more of the power of divine grace, than when religion is respectable in the estimation of the world. And the reason is obvious; they feel more the necessity of maintaining continual intercourse with Him from whom they know they must derive strength against temptation, and grace to help in time of need. Happy, thrice happy, those on whom opposition produces this effect! Some such Christians there are here, who have long stood firm in their attachment to the truth, and in devotedness to the service of Christ.

Critics

I have been reading Milner's Church History this winter, and am highly pleased with it. would say Mosheim's is the most learned; but Milner's is by far the most evangelical, and will be far more useful, at least to private Christians. When one reads church history, he expects to find a history of the Church, and not a tiresome detail of ecclesiastical heresies, wars and divisions, intermixed with much entirely secular information. Something of this is unavoidable, as heresies have been frequent in the church, and ecclesiastical and profane history

are intimately connected; yet the reader's attention should, as often as possible, be directed to the real church, that he may see that there has always been such a church, which he will be very likely to forget in reading Mosheim and some other church historians.

TO ANOTHER FRIEND AT N. H.

you

Boston, March 16, 1810.

YOUR situation, my dear friend, is certainly on some accounts a distressing one. The fear you express, lest should be left to depart from Him, under whose banner you have enlisted, by reason of temptation, is a fear which Christians, I believe, often feel. When we reflect on the disinclination of our hearts to the pursuit of our highest good, and the opposition to holiness which remains in them, after its governing power has been destroyed by grace, it should humble us. And when we feel its influence, it may lead us to doubt whether we are in Him who is the true God and eternal life. Yet, let us not be discouraged, for we can do all things through Christ strengthening us.

How prone we are, my dear Miss S. to exclaim with the Patriarch, "All these things are against me!" when under affliction; and yet every Christian will at last find, with him, that God meant it for good. If, as is undoubtedly the fact, we are inclined to look to, and be satisfied with, the things which are seen and temporal; and if this disposition is not only our sin, but our misery, then what reason have we to bless God that he has so disposed things, that no