"[September 28, 1796.]

"Your letter, my friend, struck me with a mighty horror. It rushed upon
me and stupified my feelings. You bid me write you a religious letter; I
am not a man who would attempt to insult the greatness of your anguish
by any other consolation. Heaven knows that in the easiest fortunes
there is much dissatisfaction and weariness of spirit; much that calls
for the exercise of patience and resignation; but in storms, like these,
that shake the dwelling and make the heart tremble, there is no middle
way between despair and the yielding up of the whole spirit unto the
guidance of faith. And surely it is a matter of joy, that your faith in
Jesus has been preserved; the Comforter that should relieve you is not
far from you. But as you are a Christian, in the name of that Saviour,
who was filled with bitterness and made drunken with wormwood, I conjure
you to have recourse in frequent prayer to 'his God and your God,' the
God of mercies, and father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I hope,
almost senseless of the calamity; the unconscious instrument of Divine
Providence knows it not, and your mother is in heaven. It is sweet to be
roused from a frightful dream by the song of birds, and the gladsome
rays of the morning. Ah, how infinitely more sweet to be awakened from
the blackness and amazement of a sudden horror, by the glories of God
manifest, and the hallelujahs of angels.

"As to what regards yourself, I approve altogether of your abandoning
what you justly call vanities. I look upon you as a man, called by
sorrow and anguish and a strange desolation of hopes into quietness, and
a soul set apart and made peculiar to God; we cannot arrive at any
portion of heavenly bliss without in some measure imitating Christ. And
they arrive at the largest inheritance who imitate the most difficult