DEAR COUSIN, DC. July, 1808. My long silence is not owing to forgetfulness, slight, or want of respect; no, far from it, for you are often on my mind, and have a place in my heart, and are an object of my best wishes; but I cannot move unless the well springs and the cruse of oil anoint the understanding; then, my dear Penny, the cup overflows, and the overflowing contents are to refresh the bowels of others. I had conceived a notion that thou wast of a very proud and lofty spirit, of a forbidding and reserved cast, and a great admirer of thyself: but your open conversation when in my company removed all these injurious conceptions from my mind, and I found a love to you in my heart, and a most earnest desire for your soul's welfare. This hot weather has relaxed me not a little; and, getting old and feeble, I am less able to cope with it. But O, my dear Penny, the new and living way is cast up and made gate of life are both displayed. No flaming sword, no frowning justice, no unappeased wrath, no broken law, no envenomed curse, no cloud of unpardoned transgressions before my eyes, no consuming fire, no inexorable judge, no sin-avenging God, appear in all the way of life, and path of peace. The dark valley of the shadow of death is exalted. The mount Sinai, the mountain of God's eternal election, and the mount of my inbred corruptions, are brought low; a thousand crooked things are made straight, and the rough path of tribulation a little more smooth; so that my defenceless soul sees for herself the salvation of her God. And this is all the comfort, happiness, quietude, or peace, that I have ever known since I have been in the land of the living; while the humiliation and unparalleled condescension of my God lay me under the deepest, strongest, sweetest, most noble and most lasting obligations to love, gratitude and thankfulness, for his superabounding, unexpected, undeserved, and unimplored grace. But he will be gracious to whom he will be gracious, and will display his power in the behalf of poor, frail, conscious, sensible and heavy-laden sinners, by shewing them what superabounding grace can perform. Such souls are the greatest debtors, and such will never dispute with the Almighty about who shall save, nor about who shall have the glory of a sinner's salvation. Pen, adieu! W. H. S. S. DEAR PEN, DCI. THE Doctor sends grace and peace to his cousin. The little bishop dined with me on Thursday last: he was frank, open, and very communicative. He is weathering the Cape of Good-hope, and crossing the line, and I think one more healing beam of the Sun of righteousness will bring him under the torrid zone; when the veil, the yoke, the chains, the grave-clothes, the mufflers, the strait waistcoat, and the buckram, will all fall off together, and be bequeathed to the moles and to the bats. We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts, no means, no wet nurse to suckle her, nor to deal out the sincere milk of the word, for there is a lion in the way. All mountains must become a plain. God will work, and who shall let it?" All that the Father hath given me," says the dear Redeemer, "shall come to me." A thousand shall fall at thy right hand, and ten thousand at thy left; but no plague shall come nigh them who make the most high their habitation. And," as we have heard, A few weeks since a professing husband persecuted his poor wife for hearing the word where the power is, and went many miles off to seek work at some powder-mills, taking his wife and family with him. In a short time these powder-works blew up, and not a limb of that man was to be found. The wife went back, and found favour with the parish officers, and now sits undisturbed under the word. "With my body I thee wed," and that is all; the conscience is left free for the reception of a better bridegroom and a better husband, who has dearly bought his own bride, and declares, of all that his Father gave him he will lose nothing, but raise it up at the last day, and not a hair of our heads shall perish. I admire the poor woman's firmness, fortitude, and magnanimity; she is safe enough in her alliance with God. Let her render all due benevolence to her husband; but where God and conscience are concerned, there let her stand firm, and give no place to the devil. "They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved." "Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but ours must be with burning and |