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I may, I am not a whit nearer home, unless a dungeon be called so. This is no very agreeable theme, but in so great a dearth of subjects to write upon, and especially impressed as I am at this moment with a sense of my own condition, I could choose no other. The weather is an exact emblem of my mind in its present state. A thick fog envelopes every thing, and at the same time it freezes intensely. You will tell me, that this cold gloom will be succeeded by a cheerful spring, and endeavour to encourage me to hope for a spiritual change resembling it, but it will be lost labour. Nature revives again; but a soul once slain lives no more. The hedge that has been apparently dead is not so it will burst into leaf, and blossom at the appointed time, but no such time is appointed for the stake that stands in it. It is as dead as it seems, and will prove itself no dissembler. The latter end of next month will complete a period of eleven years, in which I have spoken no other language. It is a long time for a man, whose eyes were once opened, to spend in darkness; long enough to make despair an inveterate habit; and such it is to me. My friends, I know, expect that I shall yet enjoy health again. They think it necessary to the exist ence of divine truth, that he who once had possession of it should never finally lose it. I admit the solidity of this reasoning in every case but my own, and why not in my own? For causes which to them it appears madness to allege, but which rest upon my mind, with a weight of immovable conviction. If I am recoverable, why am I thus? why crippled, 'and made useless in the church, just at the time of life when my judgment and experience, being matured, I might be most useful. Why cashiered, and turned out of service, till according to the course of years, there is not life enough left in me to make amends for the years I have lost; till there is no reasonable hope left that the fruit can ever pay the expense of the fallow I forestall the answer-God's ways are mysterious, and he giveth no account of his matters an answer that would serve my purpose as well as theirs that use it. There is a mystery in my destruction, and in time it will be explained.

"I could easily, were it not a subject that would make us melancholy, point out to you some essential difference between the state of the person you mentioned and my own, which would prove mine to be by far the most deplorable of the two. I suppose no man would despair if he did not apprehend something singular in the circumstances of his own story, something that discriminates it from that of every

other man, and that induces despair as an inevitable consequence. You may encounter his unhappy persuasion with as many instances as you please, of persons who, like him, having renounced all hope, were yet restored, and may thence infer that he, like them, shall meet with a season of restoration-but it is in vain. Every such individual accounts himself an exception to all rules, and, therefore, the blessed reverse that others have experienced, affords no ground of comfortable expectation to him. But you will say, it is reasonable to conclude that as all your predecessors in this vale of misery and horror have found themselves delightfully disappointed, so may you. I grant the reasonableness of it; it would be sinful, perhaps, as well as uncharitable to reason otherwise; but an argument hypothetical in its nature, however rationally conducted, may lead to a false conclusion; and in this instance so will yours. But I forbear, and will say no more, though it is a subject on which I could write more than the mail could carry. I must deal with you as I deal with poor Mrs. Unwin, in all our disputes about it. Cutting all controversy short by the event."

To a request from Mr. Newton that Cowper would favour the editor of the Theological Magazine with an occasional essay, he thus writes: "I converse, you say, upon other subjects than that of despair, and may therefore write upon others. Indeed, my friend, I am a man of very little conversation upon any subject. From that of despair, I abstain as much as possible, for the sake of my company, but I will venture to say that it is never out of my mind one minute in the whole day. I do not mean to say that I am never cheerful. I am often so; always, indeed, when my nights have been undisturbed for a season. But the effect of such continual listening to the language of a heart hopeless and deserted, is, that I can never give much more than half my attention to what is started by others, and very rarely start anything myself. You will easily perceive that a mind thus occupied, is but indifferently qualified for the consideration of theological matters. The most useful, and the most delightful topics of that kind, are to me forbidden fruit; I tremble as I approach them. It has happened to me sometimes that I have found myself imperceptibly drawn in and made a party in such discourse. The consequence has been dissatisfaction and self-reproach. You will tell me, perhaps, that I have written upon those subjects in verse, and may therefore in prose. But there is a difference. The search after poetical expression, the rhymes, and the numbers, are all af

fairs of some difficulty, they amuse indeed, but are not to be attained without study, and engross, perhaps, a larger share of the attention than the subject itself."

In the spring of 1785, his friends became more sanguine in their expectations of his ultimate recovery, and they felt persuaded, it would take place at no very distant period. It appears also, by the following extract, that Cowper was not himself, wholly destitute of hope, on the subject. Writing to Mr. Newton, he says:-"I am sensible of the tenderness and affectionate kindness with which you recollect our past intercourse, and express your hopes of my future restoration. I too, within the last eight months, have had my hopes, though they have been of short duration, cut off; like the foam upon the waters. Some previous adjustments, indeed are necessary before a lasting expectation of comfort can take place in me. There are those persuasions in my mind, which either entirely forbid the entrance of hope, or, if it enter, immediately eject it. They are incompatible with any such inmate, and must be turned out themselves before so desirable a guest can possibly have secure possession. This you say, will be done. It may be; but it is not done yet; nor has a single step in the course of God's dealings with me been taken towards it. If I mend, no creature ever mended so slowly, that recovered at last. I am like a slug, or a snail, that has fallen into a deep well; slug as he is, he performs his descent with a velocity proportioned to his weight; but he does not crawl up again quite so fast. Mine was a rapid plunge; but my return to daylight, if I am indeed returning, is leisurely enough. Were I such as I once was, I should say that I have a claim upon your particular notice, which nothing ought to supercede. Most of your connections you may fairly be said to have formed by your own act; but your connection with me was the work of God. The kine that went up with the ark from Bathshemesh, left what they loved behind them, in obedience to an impression which to them was perfectly dark and unintelligible. Your journey to Huntingdon was not less wonderful. He indeed, who sent you, knew well wherefore, but you knew not. That dispensation, therefore, would furnish me as long as we can both remember it, with a plea for some distinction at your hands, had I occasion to use and urge it, which I have not. But I am altered since that time; and if your affection for me had ceased, you might very reasonably justify your change by mine. I can say nothing for myself at present: but this I can venture to foretell, that should the restoration

of which my friends assure me obtain, I shall undoubtedly love those who have continued to love me, even in a state of transformation from my former self, much more than ever."

It is gratifying to know, that, while such was the melancholy state of Cowper's mind, and while he steadily refused all religious comfort, come whence it might, he nevertheless afforded the most pleasing proofs by his amiable and consistent conduct, of the firm hold which religion still had of his affections. The excellent remarks that are to be found in his letters, written at this period, show that he had some lucid intervals, and that occasional gleams of light shot across the darkened horizon of his mind. "It strikes me," (he says on one occasion,)" as a very observable instance of providential kindness to man, that such an exact accordance had been contrived between his ear and the sounds with which, at least in a rural situation, it is almost every moment visited. All the world is sensible of the uncomfortable effect that certain sounds have upon the nerves, and consequently upon the spirits and if a sinful world had been filled with such as would have curdled the blood, and have made the sense of hearing a perpetual inconvenience, I do not know that we should have had a right to complain. But now the fields, the woods, and the gardens, have each their concerts, and the ear of man is for ever regaled by creatures, who, while they please themselves, at the same time delight him. Even the ears that are deaf to the gospel, are continually entertained, though without appreciating it, by sounds, for which they are solely indebted to its author. There is somewhere in infinite space, a world that does not roll within the precincts of mercy, and as it is reasonable, and even scriptural to suppose, that there is music in heaven, in these dismal_regions perhaps the reverse of it is found; tones so dismal, as to make woe itself more insupportable, and even to acuminate despair."

In a letter to Mr. Newton, the following serious reflections occur:-" People that are but little acquainted with the terrors of divine wrath, are not much afraid of trifling with their Maker. But for my own part, I would sooner take Empledocles' leap, and fling myself into mount Etna, than I would do it in the slightest instance, were I in circumstances to make an election. In the scripture we find a broad and clear exhibition of mercy, it is displayed in every page. Wrath is in comparison, but slightly touched upon, because it is not so much a discovery of wrath as of forgiveness. But had

the displeasure of God been the principal subject of the book, and had it circumstantially set forth that measure of it only which may be endured in this life, the Christian world would perhaps, have been less comfortable; but I believe presumptuous meddlers with the gospel would have been less frequently met with."

To Mr. Unwin he thus writes: "Take my word for it, the word of a man singularly qualified to give his evidence in this matter, who having enjoyed the privilege some years, has been deprived of it more, and has no hope that he shall live to recover it. Those that have found a God, and are permitted to worship him, have found a treasure, of which, highly as they may prize it, they have but very scanty and limited conceptions. These are my Sunday morning speculations—the sound of the bells suggested them, or rather gave them such an emphasis, that they force their way into my pen in spite of me; for though I do not often commit them to paper, they are never absent from my mind."

"You express sorrow, that your love of Christ was excited in you, by a picture. Could the most insignificant thing suggest to me the thought that Christ is precious, I would not despise the thought. The meanness of the instrument cannot debase the nobleness of the principle. He that kneels to a picture of Christ is an idolater; but he in whose heart, the sight of such a picture kindles a warm remembrance of the Saviour's suffering, must be a Christian. Suppose that I dream as Gardiner did, that Christ walks before me, that he turns and smiles upon me, and fills my soul with ineffable love and joy. Will a man tell me that I am deceived, that I ought not to love or rejoice in him for such a reason, because a dream is merely a picture drawn upon the imagination? I hold not with such divinity. To love Christ is the greatest dignity of man, be that affection wrought in him how it may."

No person ever formed more correct views of what really constitutes Christianity than Cowper, nor could any one ever feel a greater aversion to a mere profession of it. In a letter to one of his correspondents, the following remarks occur: "I say amen, with all my heart, to your observations on religious characters. Men who profess themselves adepts in mathematical knowledge, in astronomy, or jurisprudence, are generally as well qualified as they would appear. The reason may be, that they are always liable to detection, should they attempt to impose upon mankind, and therefore take care to be what they pretend. In religion alone, a profes

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