Chapter I: AM glad to write to you once more under the name of ****, and I hope

God will give me strength to say all I wish at this important juncture. Important it is indeed to you; and the nearer the time approaches, the more I feel for you. Alas, you are now plunging into difficulties, which you can have no notion of until you experience them. You will have need of more than double watchfulness. Oh cry earnestly to God for grace and strength to keep your soul from sinking under the delusive arguments, which your three grand enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil will be continually attacking you with in your new state of life. You know, my love, in all our intercourse, I have not failed to set before you the disadvantages and distractions you must necessarily meet with in a married life. This I thought it my duty to do, though your intentions in regard to marriage were always founded upon Christian motives. Had I found you inclined to dedicate yourself more particularly to God in a single state, I should doubtless have encouraged that inclination; but as this was not the case, and I did not dare absolutely to dissuade any one from marrying, I have therefore only strove to guard you against the evils attending that condition, and pray God grant you may find them overbalanced by the good. The first evil, which people are apt to fall into when they marry, is an extreme selfishness: this I have seen most flagrant instances of, but then the people were not Christians. Oh my friend, remember you have taken upon you the sacred name of Christian. The next thing which our sex in particular is very subject to, is a pretty indolence of soul, and a kind of hugging themselves as though they were become people of vast consequence; and then all they say or do, and every thing which belongs to them, is of importance. You will think perhaps there is no danger of your falling into any thing so low and silly as this; but do not think so, for without extreme watchfulness it will steal imperceptibly upon you, and if you once grow important, the flood-gates of worldly-mindedness will be set open, and your faith, your love, and peace, will be borne away by the impetuous torrent. The Lord Jesus bless you and keep you, and grant that in all the changes of this mortal life, your heart may there be fixed where true joys are to be found.

_Your ever-affectionate_

****

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_My dear Friend_,