DEAR SIR,

TO MR. JOHN MASSEY.

Nov. 20, 1726.

I HEARTILY thank you and am exceedingly obliged to you for so speedy an answer to my last, and for the pains you have taken in transcribing the valuable memoir of your late brother. I read it with incomparable pleasure as being, not only the undoubted evidence of the grace of God in his own heart, but as the probable means of awakening religious impressions in others, who, when they review it, will necessarily form a most delightful idea of the excellent friend whom we have lost. Let it be our care to improve it as an additional engagement, most diligently to cultivate those gracious dispositions which appear so amiable in him, that so we may be prepared for the enjoyment of his society in that state of supreme felicity where he shines in new beauties of character, far superior to those which the most intimate, or the most ardent of his friends, could discover while he blessed our lower world.

You urge me to send you some directions upon the management of your studies. It argues a true generosity of soul, to desire knowledge, and a great deal of humility to suppose that I am capable of giving you any assistance in its pursuit. I might very justly excuse myself from the task by pleading my own incapacity to suggest any thing which a person of so much good sense, and so large an acquaintance with books and things, will not easily meet with, to

considerable improvement, and that, if there be any thing valuable in it, it will be peculiarly agreeable to you, not only as I am your most affectionate friend, but as I am a writer whom you have contributed to form. Go on, my dear friend, still to improve me by your inimitable letters and sermons, and you will be secure of this, that as I shall be growing still more worthy of your friendship, so I shall still set the greater value upon it; for the wiser and better a being I am myself, the more charms shall I discern in my friend.

I am yours most affectionately,

P. DODDRIDGE.

Tuesday, one o'clock in the morning.

How well must I esteem a friend that keeps me out of a warm bed, in such cold weather, at so late an hour.

Mrs. Jennings, and twenty other friends at Harborough, who are acquainted with your name, give their service to you and long to see you.

Mrs. Hannah Clark sends me word that she heard you preach at St. Albans the last time she was there, and that it was as she ever met with in her life.

brilliant a sermon as What right have you It is well that your

to charm my female friends! reputation is as dear to me as my own, or else I know not how I should have borne it, and yet, how could you help it. To speak seriously, I should have little opinion of a woman whom you did not

charm!

DEAR SIR,

TO MR. JOHN MASSEY.

Nov. 20, 1726.

I HEARTILY thank you and am exceedingly obliged to you for so speedy an answer to my last, and for the pains you have taken in transcribing the valuable memoir of your late brother. I read it with incomparable pleasure as being, not only the undoubted evidence of the grace of God in his own heart, but as the probable means of awakening religious impressions in others, who, when they review it, will necessarily form a most delightful idea of the excellent friend whom we have lost. Let it be our care to improve it as an additional engagement, most diligently to cultivate those gracious dispositions which appear so amiable in him, that so we may be prepared for the enjoyment of his society in that state of supreme felicity where he shines in new beauties of character, far superior to those which the most intimate, or the most ardent of his friends, could discover while he blessed our lower world.

You urge me to send you some directions upon the management of your studies. It argues a true generosity of soul, to desire knowledge, and a great deal of humility to suppose that I am capable of giving you any assistance in its pursuit. I might very justly excuse myself from the task by pleading my own incapacity to suggest any thing which a person of so much good sense, and so large an acquaintance with books and things, will not easily meet with, to

much greater advantage in reading or contemplation. But, lest you should think this, only a civil way of declining the trouble of writing, I will offer such plain hints as occur to my thoughts at present, for I had rather of the two, that you should censure my weakness, or if you please my vanity, in so readily yielding to your request, than that you should suspect me of an unwillingness to give it. Nay, I will honestly confess, that I have a little self-interest in the affair, as I hope to receive some considerable advantage by submitting my thoughts to your examination and correction. I beg, therefore, that you will send me your free sentiments upon every particular, so that if a friend, who really needs assistance, should ask my advice hereafter, I may suppress what Mr. Massey condemns, and propose the rest with the greater confidence when it has passed the approbation of so judicious a critic.

I am going to open a magnificent palace, of which I myself have as yet taken but a transient survey, without visiting half the apartments, or examining half the curiosities contained in either. But when I consider how rich the furniture is, and how exquisite a relish you have for the entertainment it contains, methinks I am afraid you should grow too fond of it, and therefore, sir, I must earnestly entreat you to endeavour to bring your studies under such regulations as that they may not be injurious to your health, your business, or your devotion.

I do not apprehend your constitution to be athletic, and if you should bear hard upon it by too close an

attention to books, the consequence would probably be, that, as soon as you had begun to adjust your ideas, and to fix your schemes for your future employment of life, you would find yourself incapable of prosecuting them, and must languish away the remainder of your days in an absence from your books, when a small acquaintance with them had made you sensible of their external charms, and perhaps allured you to expect a great deal more satisfaction in them than you would ever in fact have found. I may add, that by impairing your health you would become, in a great measure, unfit for that other sphere of life in which Providence has placed you.

Let us remember, my dear and prudent friend, that we are to place our point of life, not in an attempt to know or do every thing, which will certainly be as unsuccessful as it is extravagant, but in a care to do that well, which Providence has assigned us in our peculiar sphere. As I am a minister, I could not answer it to God or my own conscience, if I were to spend a great deal of time in studying the depths of the law, or in the more entertaining, though less useful pursuit of a nice criticism of classical writers. I would not entirely be a stranger to these things, and there are twenty others I would just look into, although each of them alone, or indeed any single branch of either, might be the employment of a much longer life than I can imagine Providence has assigned to me, and should I suffer my few sheep in the wilderness to go astray, in an