I have nothing particularly pleasing of a religious nature to communicate. The day of small things we are commanded not to despise, and such is our day. It is matter of great joy when any are hopefully brought to the knowledge of the truth; and we have had several instances of young, thoughtless, pleasureseeking sinners, laying down the weapons of their rebellion, and enlisting under the banner of Christ. Our lectures and public exercises are better attended than I have ever known them before. The most fixed attention appears on the faces of most of the congregation. God has bestowed the hearing ear; he is equally able to give the understanding heart. Nothing seems to be wanting but that effectual fervent prayer of the righteous, which availeth much. For myself, I sometimes feel as if my heart was enlarged to pray for the upbuilding of Zion. And when I am lifeless in the duties of personal religion, I feel as if I had some yearnings of soul over Christless sinners. But my heart is deceitful above all things; and I am almost afraid to think I feel, lest I should delude myself. Oh! my dear friend, how infinitely vile and abominable must we appear in the eyes of Him who can fully realize what our feelings in relation to him, to ourselves, and to sin, should be, and knows exactly what they are! Surely we must be stupid if the thought does not cause us to exclaim, It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed! I know nothing in which I am so deficient as in my apprehensions of sin. God grant it may be more and more opened to my view in all its odiousness, and more and more embittered to my soul! I believe the want of clear views of this, the nature and vileness of sin, is the rock on which thousands split. It is the want of this that makes the Arminian think he can save himself, the Unitarian deny the necessity of an atonement and the divinity of a Saviour, and the Universalist the eternity, and perhaps the reality,

of future punishment. It is the want of this, that produces those restless replyings against God which are ever found upon the lips of the unregenerate. And, may I not add, it is the want of this, which sometimes clouds, distresses, and agonizes the Christian, when contemplating the tremendous wrath, denounced in Scripture, against the finally impenitent? Oh! how much should professing Christians pray for each other! And when we reflect that there was an unhumbled Judas even among the twelve, how should it excite us to seek, with anxious solicitude, to make our calling and election sure.

TO MISS L., OF N. H.

Boston, August 30, 1811.

There is nothing so astonishing, my dear M., nothing that places the thorough, universal and malignant depravity of our nature in so clear a point of view, as our neglecting to improve the dealings of the blessed God with us, which are all calculated to lead us to repentance, and then finding fault with him for not giving us ability to love him (when all our inability lies in a criminal aversion, the most unreasonable and unjust, to his perfect character) and making that inability an excuse for not loving him. Oh, could we view this subject as angels view it, and as we shall one day view it, it must fill us with wonder and astonishment,-wonder at the forbearance and mercy of God, astonishment at the moral degradation and turpitude of man. When I look into my own heart, and behold those endless replyings against God which lurk there; when I think what must be the fountain from which they spring; it would seem as if I should be filled with repentance, as if I should mourn, with deep and penitential sorrow, over my unspeakable, my amaz

ing guilt. But still I am freezing with impenitence! The law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good; man is bound to comply with it; God must not relax his requirements; if he should, his law would not be strict enough to check the progress and influence of sin; and sin, unrestrained, would soon disorganize his whole moral system, and banish happiness from the universe. This I know and believe; and yet I rebel! Yes, the worm lifts her unrighteous head, and asks, 'what doest thou? and why doest thou thus?' This is what troubles me. I am afraid I have never been brought truly to submit all things to the disposal of God, especially to submit to his righteousness in the condemnation of sinners. I fear I have never yet seen aright the dreadful evil of sin, and that this is the source of the misgivings I sometimes experience; as to its just desert of eternal punishment. But Jehovah is, I know, he is, righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works; and he has said, that "the wicked shall be turned into hell; where their worm dieth not, and the fire shall never be quenched." Hush, then, every murmuring, doubting thought, every rebellious, discontented feeling! Oh, for deeper views of the vileness, the exceeding vileness of sin, for stronger and more abiding confidence in the rectitude and the goodness of God! Pray for me, my dear M., in particular; and pray for false professors, for it is to be feared there are many such.

My mind, I ought to add after what I have said, is generally tranquil. I am comfortable in hope; and this is my hope, that I have received something of the grace of God, and he who has begun the good work, will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. I cannot but feel, with the wife of Manoah, that if the Lord had not intended good for me, he would not have shewn me all these things.

Is it common for minds to recur, with something like melancholy, to past scenes of a pleasant character? Or is my doing it, owing to a constitutional disposition to attach gloom to every thing? I have tried long and hard to arrive at the true answer to this question. I am inclined to think that the emotion to which I refer, is peculiar to persons whose feelings have more of the sensitive and enthusiastic in them, than those of the rest of the world; and such are mine. This, added to a natural propensity to pensive reflections, will perhaps account for the effect of which I have spoken. Dear M., when I look forward to the trials I may meet with, and realize my own impotence, I feel that, if I am supported, it will be a glorious instance of the power of God's grace to overcome and subdue constitutional infirmities, and bear up the spirit, when every thing seems combined to counteract its influence. I know that extreme sensibility is generally considered an excellence in our sex. But why should we, whose bodily weakness and necessary trials subject us to a larger portion of misery than men, be led to consider that as amiable, which only relaxes those energies of the mind which will prepare us for suffering? I cannot sufficiently deprecate the influence which such a sentiment may have upon the mind. Women are too generally brought up to think resolution useless, and led, by false notions of delicacy, to glory in their weakness. But the voice of the world changes when circumstances require the exercise of fortitude. Then the very sensations, which before excited pleasure, are considered as indications of weakness and folly. I wish women would endeavour, in all proper ways, to strengthen their more vigorous powers, as reason, judgment, &c., and pay less attention to the cultivation of their imagination, which in most of our sex, has naturally sufficient vigour.

TO A FRIEND AT M.

Boston, September 9, 1811.

I am pleased to learn that your present situation is so agreeable, and your health so good. You have indeed mercies in the midst of judgments, and mercies of a peculiarly delightful kind. Nothing with respect to your departed mother, could afford you so much satisfaction as the reflection that she lived not in vain; and that she has only been removed from an inferior station, (where indeed she made it her constant effort to act the part of a good and faithful servant, but where her sphere of action was comparatively contracted, her powers cramped, and her conflicts many,) to one where she can serve God without weariness or imperfection, and constantly witness his approving smile. I am not so much a stranger, my dear E., to the nature of your sorrow as to suppose that you grieve for her who is gone. You feel that her departure from this world is her gain, though it be your loss. But when you look to yourself, and reflect upon your impotency, your need of counsel, and your exposure to temptation, you feel the want of that friend to whom you have so long been in the habit of going for direction and support; and, though you would not recal her, you cannot forbear to mourn. "It were no virtue," says one, "to bear calamities, if we did not feel them."

The mind which is peculiarly susceptible of impressions, though I have sometimes thought it needs more grace to enable it to sustain afflictions than one of a different mould,-has, perhaps, some peculiar advantages. In such a mind, if it be a sanctified one, the sense of dependence must be much stronger, and, of course, application to Him, whose grace is sufficient in every time of need, more frequent. And whatever leads us to God for strength is a great