their strong hold? Should Satan endeavour to hinder you from entering this chariot of love, by a representation of your weakness and unworthiness, tell him, if you think proper to reply to such a foe, "That you can do all things through Christ strengthening you."

Do you love Jesus Christ? Feed his sheep. Behold, they are wandering in the wide waste wilderness where there is no way. They are following the voice of a stranger, and endeavouring to fill themselves with the east wind. Teach them, for the love of God, teach them to understand the voice of the good shepherd. Direct them, I beseech you direct them to the fertile plains, that they may go in and out, and find good pasture. Let your voice be heard in this dry desert, crying out, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come to the waters of life and drink freely." Who knows but through your instrumentality many may be led to the river of life, the streams whereof maketh glad the city of God. What, shall the God of this world have so many to proclaim his destruction, so many ready servants, and will not you utter a word for your God; nay, will you not exalt your voice to proclaim his salvation?

I am in this new world nearly alone; I have long been a speckled bird in the wilderness, a sparrow upon the house-top. I supplicate the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth labourers into his vineyard. Does not this Lord of the harvest, in effect, say to you, Why stand you here idle? Does he not say unto you, Go, go forth? Hath he never, by his spirit, directed you to publish glad tidings of good things; to tell the inhabitants of the earth that the Lord reigneth? I expect to be indulged with a scrious answer. Let me know if I may expect you will be a fellow labourer in our Lord's vineyard? Whether you will consent to put on the armour of God, and to unite with me in fighting the good fight of faith, that so we may together inherit the kingdom prepared for us when we lay hold of eternal life?

Present, to as many as are of the household of faith, my christian regards. I long to see them, and to labour with them in the Lord. Farewell. The God of peace and truth be with you.

I am with great regard, &c. &c.

LETTER XXXVII.

To the Rev. Mr. W. of Macclesfield, Cheshire, Great Britain.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

WITH ITH a heart warmed by the effusions of grateful affection, I sit me down immediately on my arrival, to write to you. Grateful to my soul will be the remembrance of the momentary opportunities which I enjoyed with you; and much do I regret, that, I could not be indulged with the continuance of those enjoyments, those refreshing enjoyments. I flattered myself, some time after my departure from your residence, with the soothing hope that I should once more visit you, before I took my final leave of a country always dear to my heart; but now doubly so, since my introduction to friends, to those Christian friends, which my Father, God, provided for my solace during my last visit to my native Island. "I was a stranger;" the merciful High Priest of our profession will say to you, and your ever dear brethren, “I was a stranger, and ye took me in; and should you reply, Lord, when saw we thee a stranger, &c. &c." he shall answer, "Forasmuch as ye treated that least of my brethren thus kindly, ye did it unto me.” I have been for many years a dependant upon divine favour, without any certain prospect from whence or through what channel that divine favour was to flow; and permit me to assure you, that very few events have taken place in the course of divine providence, in favour of a being whom indulgent heaven has condescended to take under his special care and direction, which ap pear more worthy of that providence, and more grateful to my soul than what took place on my first landing in England; nor then, nor there alone; the presence of my almighty, my neverfailing friend was with me; his goodness opened the hearts and houses of his children, in every place where he was pleased to conduct me, even to the moment of my departure from Portsmouth. Taking a retrospect of my very short tour, I am constrained to exclaim, O, my God, my everlasting, my almighty friend, how great is thy goodness. God only knows whether he

has been pleased to make me, in any sort, useful to his people; but this I know, that he has been pleased to make them very useful and very pleasant to me; and more, much more so, in a spiritual than a temporal sense.

On my arrival in Exeter, I received letters from London which totally deranged my little plans, and occasioned my departure much earlier than I had contemplated. My plans, I have frequently been induced to suspect, are not well laid, since they are generally disconcerted. "But I ought never to forget that the way of man is not in himself; that it is not in man who walketh to direct his steps;" and this also is right:

"Since all the downward tracts of time,

His watchful eyes survey,

O, who so wise to choose our lot,

Or regulate our way.

"Since none can doubt his equal love,

Unmeasurably kind,

To his unerring, gracious will, /

Be every wish resigned."

My heart at times, and my head at all times, must say Amen to the sentiment contained in this quotation.

Judging of your heart by the feelings of my own, I conceive it will give you pleasure to know where I have been, how I have been, and what I have done since we parted. Our mutual friend Mr. P. can tell you where we stopped, and what we did from Truro to Plymouth; there the good man left me, and, let me add, his goodness to me rendered his departure extremely painful to me. At Plymouth I tarried longer than I intended, attempting, in many places of worship, the investigation of divine truth, "that truth which is indeed of sovereign aid to peace," that truth, first delivered to the apostles by their, by our divine Master, in the character of the ministry of reconciliation, and which we commonly call the gospel of the grace of God; the believing of which brings the sinner into a state which gives him a consciousness of that complete redemption which was perfected when our Saviour exclaimed on the cross, "It is finished."

At Plymouth I took the stage for Bath, stopping one afternoon at Willington, where I preached in Mr. D's. church. I tarried a few days in Exeter, preaching alternately in the Baptist and Inde

pendent meeting-houses, and proceeded from thence to London. On my arrival in London I found myself exceeding ill, and, as soon as I was able, I accepted an invitation from a respectable friend in Hampstead, where I rapidly recruited, and was enabled to preach twice in Mr. Whitefield's meeting-house in that place. Letters received from New England determined me to return by the first opportunity. The ship in which the American ambassador was to return was on the point of sailing. I engaged a passage, which I did with the greater avidity in consequence of information from the captain, that his ship would stop at Falmouth, for the purpose of taking in the ambassador's family. But after my things were put on board, and I had pleased myself with the hope of embracing my greatly valued friends once more, the ambassador changed his purpose, and ordered the ship to Portsmouth; to which place I set out by land, and waited there two weeks before the arrival of the vessel. But here our divine Master was graciously pleased to open for me many doors in Portsmouth, Common, and Gosport, until, by repeated exertions, I got so very ill, that for some time after my embarking, with the addition of sea sickness, I really suffered much distress. However, I was soon well enough to be able to speak, on the Sabbath, to the company on board; but to what purpose I have spoken there, or in any other place, he who sent me can best determine.

I should be both ungenerous and unjust, which I pray God I never may be, if I did not add, that in every place where I have been called to speak, the very worthy characters who statedly laboured in the several churches, treated me with brotherly affection, and true, christian regard; for which I pray God abundantly to reward them. Thus have I hastily sketched a tour upon which my heart delights, to dwell, and upon which I could with pleasure dilate through almost countless pages.

To each of those dear, christian friends, whose names are collected at the bottom of the paper you put into my hand at parting, I beseech you present my warmest regards. For although I had no occasion to make any use of that paper, I am nevertheless much indebted to the kind intention with which it was furnished; not only for that, but for many other instances of their unexpected, unmerited attention. To good Mrs. D. say every thing your own kind heart can dictate. I shall, I do assure you, ever remember that truly excellent lady, with sentiments of the most grateful and re

spectful regard. To your good lady, and the amiable family under whose roof you dwell, I beg you to tender my warm regards.

To learn that each of my friends are in possession of health of mind and body, will afford inexpressible satisfaction to the heart of your greatly obliged friend, &c. &c. &c.

LETTER XXXVIII.

To the same.

THIS HIS time, three years since, I was happy in the company and affection of the friend, the brother with whom I now sit down to converse. To your obliging favour of July 28th, I am indebted for the pleasure I now enjoy; a pleasure, next to that I am indulged with a repetition of, by retrospection; but a pleasure, with which, the delay of your responses to my last letter, induced me to fear I should never be favoured.

My voyage to England, my stages through it, my connexions in it, my return from it, all appear, to me, corroborating proofs of the truth of that part of the shorter Catechism which assures us that "God's works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions." But, thus steadfastly believing, I am considered by many who adopt this very Catechism, as an erroneous enthusiast. Yet I must, of necessity, receive every sentiment precisely as it appears to me; and, suffer me to add, that it is a source of very sincere satisfaction to me, to believe that the infinitely great, but as infinitely gracious God, interests himself in my concerns; that he hath so often encouraged me to cast my care upon him, by giving me, in a great variety of instances, proof positive that he careth for me.

I never shall think of Falmouth, of Macclesfield, of Mr. R. and Mr. W. or of any one of my much loved friends in England, without experiencing a lively, grateful sense of the divine goodness. vouchsafed toward me during my sojourning there. For although England is the place of my nativity, yet my natural friends were