WE have heard that you have been sick, and I. write in hopes of obtaining an answer, to inform me that you have experienced the help and power of the great Physician, and that you are now better. I know indeed beforehand, that, whether sick or well, you are just as you should be, and that what the Lord chooses for you is always the best. But the Gospel, though calculated to form us (rebellious as we are by nature) to a cheerful acquiescence in his will, and to regulate our sensibility, is not designed to suppress it. The same love which rejoices in the comforts of others, will likewise sympathize with them in affliction. We are directed to pray for one another in this view, that, if it be the Lord's pleasure to prolong life and to restore health, our sense of the mercy may be heightened by the consideration that it is bestowed in answer to prayer. You do not properly need my prayers and wishes, you are safe in the hands of infinite wisdom and love; and if you were in a wilderness remote from all society, you could not be sick or afflicted an hour longer than the Lord saw necessary to answer some gracious purpose in your favour. But this is

his institution, that as members of the same body, we should maintain a fellowship and sympathy, helping together by prayer, that so for the gift bestowed by means of many persons, thanks may be given by many on our account. It pleases me to think that, though I am much and often surrounded with noise, smoke, and dust, my friend Mrs. C— enjoys the beautiful scenes of rural life. O how I long sometimes to spend a day or two among woods, and lawns, and brooks, and hedgerows, to hear the birds sing in the bushes, and to wander among the sheep and lambs, or to stand under the shadow of an old oak, upon a hill top! Thus I lived at Olney; how different is London! But, hush! Olney was the place once, London is the place now. Hither the Lord brought me, and here he is pleased to support me, and in some measure (I trust) to own me. I am satisfied. Come, I hope I can make a good shift without your woods, and bushes, and pastures. What is the prospect from the finest hill in Essex, compared with the prospect I have from St. Mary's pulpit? What is the singing of birds, compared with the singing our hymn after sermon on a Sunday evening? What the bleating of lambs, compared with the lispings of inquiring souls, who are seeking after Jesus? No, welcome noise, and dust, and smoke, so that we may but be favoured with his gracious presence in our hearts, houses, and ordinances. This will make all situations nearly alike, if we see the Lord's hand placing us in it, are enabled to do his will, and to set him before us, as our Lord and our Beloved. You will please to present my good

wishes to Mrs. B

and likewise Miss D if she is with her. He in whose presence is life, whose loving kindness is better than life, be with you all, Though we do not see each other, we are not far asunder. The throne of grace is a centre, where

thousands daily meet in spirit, and have real though secret communion with each other. They eat of one bread, walk by one rule; they have one Father and one home. There they will shortly meet to part no more. They will shine each one like the sun. They will form a glorious constellation, millions of suns shining together in their Lord's kingdom. How pleased is Satan when he can prevail to set those at variance, who are in so many respects united! but such is his subtlety and such their weakness, which he practices upon, that he has often prevailed thus.-Sometimes he shuts them up so close within the paper walls of a denomination, that they cannot see an inch beyond the bounds of their own party. Sometimes he holds his magical glass before their eyes, and when they thus view each other through the medium of prejudice, they seem so mutually and so strangely metamorphosed, that perhaps both leaders and people are shocked, disgusted, and terrified at the sight of those who are as near the Lord as themselves. Here and there oné escapes the general delusion; these wonder at the bustle around them, and endeavour to persuade the rest to peace and love as becometh brethren, and perhaps are requited with the reproaches of both sides, as neutrals, time-servers, and cowards. But these peace-makers are blessed, approved of God, and beloved by all men who are in possession of their spiritual senses. Through mercy, my dear madam, neither you nor I are to be scared by such words as Methodist or Calvinist. We see there is both wheat and chaff among all parties, and that they who love the Lord Jesus Christ, are a people scattered abroad at this time, as they were in the apostles' days, 1 Pet. i. 1. We are much as usual. Accept our cordial love. Shall I beg you to pray for me and mine? I know you will. Believe me to be,

Your affectionate and obliged.

MY DEAR MADAM,

LETTER II.

November 27, 1784.

WHAT shall I say to the intelligence which Mr. C (judging rightly of our affection for you) was so kind as to bring me this morning? May I not say, without sinning, that I am sorry, very sorry? If I said otherwise I should be a hypocrite. If Mrs. or I could have prevented it, you should not have fallen. Our gracious Lord, who condescended to take our nature upon him, took it with all the feelings belonging to it which are not sinful. He was truly a man, and sympathized like a man with the afflictions of his friends. Instead of sharply rebuking Mary and Martha for their tears when their brother died, he kindly wept with them, though he had determined to raise him again from the dead. I allow myself, therefore, to be sorry for your fall and hurt, and to feel a solicitude till I hear farther of you. Perhaps Mrs. B. may favour me with a line of information, if, as I apprehend, you may not be able to write yourself. But now, to use the apostle's expression, "I have spoken as a man,” let me look at you in another point of view. The Lord, who by his grace has enabled you to devote and intrust yourself to him, has engaged by his promise, to take care of you, and to keep you in all your ways. Under his protection you have been safe a number of years; and did he fail you at last? Far from it: his eye was as directly upon you, his arm as certainly with you when you fell, as at any other moment of your life. And you would no more have fallen than the planets can fall from their orbits, without his permission and appointment. This event must work for your good, because he has

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promised that all things shall. If I could assign no other reason for those dispensations to his children, which upon the first impression are apt to startle us, this ought to be a sufficient reason, not only to silence but to satisfy us, that, It is the Lord. For can infinite wisdom mistake, or infinite goodness do any thing that is unkind? But I see other reasons why, in the present state of things, all things should ap pear as happening alike to all; and that his own people, who are freed from guilt and condemnation, and to whom he manifests himself as he does not unto the world, should not be therefore exempted from a share in any of the outward afflictions to which sin has rendered mankind liable. I can see many inconveniences which would follow, if they who loved the Lord, were distinguished from the world around them by a visible mark in their foreheads. But if his providence universally preserved them from the calamities which others feel, so that it should be notorious and generally known that their persons were always safe, and that no true be. liever ever suffered by falls, fires, broken bones, and the like; such an exemption, in this calamitous state, would distinguish and point them out, almost as plainly as if they were surrounded with a glory, as the apostles are sometimes represented in popish pictures. Besides, how should it be known that the Lord whom they serve can make them cheerful and comfortable, under those trials and sufferings which the flesh naturally shrinks at, unless they were now and then put into such circumstances. I trust,

madam, you are of the same mind with a good woman I heard of about thirty years ago. She was very aged and very poor. One day, in attempting to cross the way in Whitechapel, a cart threw her down, and she broke her thigh. She was taken into a house, and many people were soon about her, ex