Madam, I must presume so far as to say that it is neither the part of a Christian, nor a friend, to keep me in such a continual uneasiness. You unfit me for business, devotion, or company, and in short make my very life burthensome by the inconsistency of your behaviour. Let me therefore most earnestly entreat you-not entirely to dismiss me, which God forbid, but resolutely to remember your promises, and not to allow yourself those unbounded liberties of saying every thing that the vanity of your own dear excellent heart may sometimes prompt you to utter, without considering how I am able to bear it.

As for what you said at parting, that I have "a relish for the vanities of life," I own that I regard them too much. But, I bless God, such is not the governing temper of my mind, and that I can say with a full assurance, that I know how to postpone them, not only to my duty to God, but to my affection for you. And I think you may easily believe it, when I now give it under my hand, as you had it yesterday from my mouth, that I will willingly and thankfully take you with what your father and mother will give you, if by any means there be a prospect of the necessary comforts of life.

I remain, dear Madam,

Your sincere Lover and respectful Servant,

P. DODDRIDGE.

VOL. II.

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MADAM,

TO MISS KITTY.

June 29, 1725.

It is no new thing for me to begin my addresses to you upon such occasions, with a declaration of my surprise at the late change of your behaviour. I think it a great misfortune to be suspected of any deficiency of that affection which I owe you; and of the sincerity of which God and my own conscience are witnesses, and I wish I could not add indeed, to its excess. You complain of late of a change in my conduct. Permit me in one word to tell you what it is, and to give you an account of the occasion and degree of it. My heart for a considerable time had been so entirely swallowed up with affection for you, that you became in a manner my all. In every moment of leisure you engrossed my thoughts and my discourse. Even when you were absent, you mingled yourself with all my studies. You determined by your smile or your frown whether I should be either sprightly and cheerful, or distracted with care and anxiety, unfit for devotion, for study, for conversation, or usefulness; nay, God forgive me, when I confess, that where his blessed self, and the most important objects of religion, and the brightest hopes a creature can form had one thought, you at least had ten. The hope of obtaining you and the fear of losing you affected me more sensibly than the thoughts of a happy or a miserable eternity. And was this, madam, the temper of a Christian or a

minister? Was this a proper course to engage the favourable interposition of Providence to determine this dear affair according to my wishes. When I read Mr. Baxter's excellent treatise on Self-Denial, and being Crucified to the World, and examined my temper by it, though, I bless God, I found a great deal to be thankful for upon other accounts, yet when I turned my thoughts to you I could not but continually condemn myself; not that I loved you better than any other friend-not that I rejoiced in every thing that looked like an excuse of your love to me, and made you the greatest of my creature-comforts. That, madam, I always allowed, and I allow it to this moment. But I condemned myself for this, that I put you almost in the place of heaven, and thus clouded the evidences of my own sincerity, and sacrificed the pleasures of an habitual communion with God, to at best an inferior happiness, and too frequently to those tormenting agonies that arose from the suspicion of your love to me, or the fear of being otherwise deprived of you. This, madam, was one of the greatest faults I found to charge upon myself in my self-examination before the last sacrament; and this was what I solemnly engaged to endeavour to reform. And will you then condemn me if I have not entirely forgotten an engagement of so sacred a nature? May God forgive me, that I have forgotten it so far! If upon the whole you have less of my thoughts than you had some time ago, it is only that God, and my Redeemer, and heaven may have more, and that

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the divine Being might not be provoked to take away a friend of whom I had made an idol.

Once more, madam, I do seriously assure you (and as I have often done before, I profess in the presence of God,) that I love you with greater tenderness than I can express; and that I have never permitted any friend upon earth to rival, or even approach you in my regard. I am daily praying that if it be the good pleasure of God, I may be so happy as to enjoy you; and that it may be my daily and delightful care to make your life easy and pleasant, to promote your present and your future happiness. May God say Amen to this petition. And may you, madam, join your consent. But if you will barbarously and ungratefully despise my love, and banish me from your heart and from your sight, though I have never deserved it from you, I shall own it as a just punishment from God for the excessive fondness I have bestowed upon you. I cannot certainly say I should have strength and virtue to undergo so severe a trial; but I must submit myself to the determination of Providence; and this I can confidently affirm, that if I were to lose not only you, but every other friend whom I have in the world, many of them deservedly dear and valuable, though not one of them equally beloved with yourself, yet while I have a sense of the Divine favour, the present entertainments of a scholar, a minister, and a Christian, and the future hopes of everlasting glory, it will be my folly and my crime if I am utterly inconsolable: and yet I cannot

but often fear that I may be found so foolish and so wicked, if I am brought to the trial. My dear creature, let your goodness prevent it, and restore the peace of

Your anxious Lover and faithful Servant,

DEAR SIR,

P. DODDRIDGE.

TO MR. THOMAS FREEMAN.

Burton, July 21, 1725.

I AM informed your ship is still anchored in the Downs, and that I may have one opportunity more of paying my respects to you, and wishing you a happy voyage, which I do with the greatest sincerity. I am sorry to think how much you must necessarily be straitened for room and tormented with noise. However it is some pleasure for me to reflect, that the boisterous rudeness and impious profaneness of the crew will give you a greater relish for that rational and polite entertainment which you may meet with from those excellent books you took on board, and those sober companions in whom you tell us you are happy.

We have most of us here at Burton, so dreadful an idea of the dissolute manners of the generality of seamen, that we cannot but have some tender apprehensions on your account. But it is a comfort to us that we are daily recommending you to the grace, as well as the protection of that Almighty Being who