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TO MRS. W. OF KILLINGWORTH, CONN.

Boston, July 15, 1812. I NEED not tell you, my dear sister,* that the melancholy tidings of your beloved husband's death, communicated in my father's letter of the 6th, were very unexpected and distressing. You know too well the peculiar attachment I have always felt for you, to make such a declaration necessary. Yet my feelings constrain me to try to console you, by endeavouring to express how much I feel for you, how tenderly I sympathize with you. Dear S., I feel that human friendships are all insufficient to soothe grief like yours. I can only bid raise your eye and your heart to Him who has inflicted the wound. Remember that not a sparrow falleth to the ground without his notice; much more then must we feel that man's appointed time is in his hand. And, my dear sister, shall we complain of God? Is not his time the best time? Has he not a right to dispose of his creatures as he sees fit? Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Oh, yes. Let us bow with submission to his will, and ascribe righteousness to our Maker. I doubt not this solemn providence seems dark and inexplicable; but, I conjure you, have no hard thoughts of the blessed Jehovah. All his ways are perfect, are merciful. He afflicts, not for his own pleasure, but for our profit. And if, by this mournful dispensation, you are brought to realize that we are probationers for a future state, that this is but a short journey (we know not how short) to an interminable existence; if you are led to prepare for death; if you are made more like God, and more meet for his presence; will you not have reason to rejoice? The desire I have that this end may be

3

The lady addressed was a child of the same mother, but not of the same father. Mrs. Mansfield's first husband was the immediate predecessor of Mr. Mansfield in the pastoral office in the first church in Killingworth.

answered, is unutterable. Pray, strive, wrestle, that, when it shall come your turn, the awful message may not find you unprepared. God forbid that this should be the case!

And now, my dear sister, let me once more beg you to cast your burden on the Lord. Do you fear for the little children?" I will preserve them alive," says 'our merciful God. Do you fear for yourself? "Let your widows trust in me," says the same almighty and graci ous Being. None ever did, none ever shall, trust Him in vain. Go to him, and say, "Here am I, Lord! cast down, but not destroyed; hold thou me up, and I shall be safe; subdue, consecrate and sanctify to thyself, this life, and these members, which have, too long and too devotedly, been the servants of the world!" Remember your mercies. Many, my dear sister, are left in circumstances of want and wretchedness, as well as of sorrow; but God has mercifully supplied all your temporal recessities. I hope this will find you resigned: free from grief it will not find you, it should not; Jesus wept at Lazarus' grave.

And now I must bid you adieu. Dear sister, you have our sympathy and our prayers. God bless you, and make you one of his dear children; and then all things shall work together for your good." it bot

July 22. Yesterday my little son appeared very sick. I was awake with him most of the night, and was appre hensive of two disorders, one in consequence of a bad fall, the other the effect of having been exposed to an infectious disease. But, blessed be my gracious Lord, he has disappointed me. Instead of putting the cup of mourning into my hand, he has dissipated all my fears, and caused me to rejoice in his sparing mercy. My heart failed me. I thought I should sink under the affliction of a separation from my child; not because God had not a perfect right to do what he pleased with his own, but from the extreme natural sensibility of my dis

position, which is my snare. But I must, I desire to trust my blessed God; believing that, when I am called to trials of this or any other kind, he will support me; and if he holds me up, I shall be safe.

25. I have great reason to be humbled before God, for the improper emotions I experienced to-day, on account of the imputation, to my husband, of a certain trifling error, which imputation I thought unjust. I called it, at the time, a wound of my feelings; but, on reflection, I believe it was a wound of my pride. And, what is worse, I fear that, by yielding to my sinful desire of mentioning it to him, I may have disaffected him toward the offender. May God give me the sorrow I ought to feel, and teach me the lowliness of mind to es teem others better than myself.

August 11. Oh, how miserable I should be, could I not repair to an unchanging God! In Jehovah's love, I find a never-failing spring of comfort. Disap pointed in the creature, what should I do without my Almighty friend? And how good is it in him, thus to embitter my earthly cistern, that I may not sit and sip, to my everlasting regret and destruction! It is, thy hand, it is thy hand, dear Lord; and I bless thee. Re turn, therefore, my soul, unto thy only sure rest. O God, thou adorable, thou perfect Being, may my spirit spring forward with delight to thy bosom as its restingplace, its covert from the storm! And shall I never, never, thus fly to thee, but when disappointed, and driven away from the creature? Then come disappointments; come any thing, every thing; and let God be all in all to my wayward soul!

August

1812.

t 20, 181 bo I am not in a mood very well adapted to dissipate or enliven solitude this evening; and I write, more to let you know I think of you, than any thing else. I

have seen something so like war to-day, that I cannot get rid of the gloom it has thrown over my spirits. A regiment of soldiers, with a large number of baggagewaggons, passed through the streets, just before we went into church this afternoon, on their way to Albany, it is said. The confused noise of fifes and drums, heavy cannon, and loaded waggons, combined with the various sounds of human voices, within four yards of the temple of God, and on his holy day, was new to my ear, and as painful as new. I could not help thinking how many distracted countries are continually witnessing similar, or worse scenes; and my heart almost fainted at the idea of our precious Sabbaths being converted into days of bloodshed and death, and our sacred temples destroyed, or devoted to the promotion of infidelity and wickedness. We have forfeited our Sabbaths, and all our mercies; and it becomes us to take heed to ourselves, and ascribe righteousness to our Maker. I hope you will remember us at the throne of grace, that we may be prepared for all the changes which are in God's right hand, and enabled in every situation to glorify him. May we evermore be found in Him who is a covert from the storm, a very present help in time of trouble! May he take us all into his secret chambers, till these calamities are overpast.

I AM glad you are pleased with Miss. She is a remarkable instance of the sovereignty of divine grace ; and her experience is, to my mind, an argument of no small weight in favour of those views of religion, usually termed evangelical. That the mind of a young person should be led, by the influence of no external cause, to embrace opinions, which she had been taught from infancy to reject as absurd, if not impious, and to which the whole current of her preconceived sentiments and

carnal prejudices was entirely opposed, can be accounted for on no other ground than that she was irresistibly led, in a way she knew not, by Him in whose hand are the hearts of all men, and who turneth them as the rivers of waters are turned.

You ask me to remember you in my prayers, that you may be kept from falling. I trust, my dear girl, you are founded on the rock Christ Jesus; and if so, you are safe. Christians may indeed, like Peter and David, and Thomas, and others, fall into temptations and a snare, and against this we should continually watch and pray; if left to themselves, they would fall away and perish, and against this they should continually watch and pray: but none shall be able to pluck them out of the hand of Him who has died to redeem them, and pledged himself to raise them up at the last day. No; Christ has prayed for them, that they may be kept in the Father's name; and they may say, Rejoice not over me, O mine enemy, for when I fall, I shall rise again.

T

It appears to me, that the charge of licentiousness, so often alleged against the orthodox, is occasioned by an ungodly world eagerly catching at those slips and falls, which are unallowed and adventitious, and which may have been afterwards bewailed with many a bitter tear, while the aggregate of their conduct is overlooked. It is not the existence, but the indulgence of sin, that proves a professor unsound. It is not a single action, but the habit of conduct, that determines the character. While a scoffing world exultingly spread the news of a professor's fall, which he may be lamenting in his closet, with no witness but His eye who looketh on the heart, are they equally solicitous to report his benevolence, his heavenly-mindedness, his disinterestedness, his zeal for God, which may for the leading traits in his character? Ah, no. But they forget that we are as accounttable for principles as for actions, for the desire of sin as for the commission of it; and that vicious desires,