Chapter I: RETURN you many thanks for your letter. Just before I received it

I was thinking of you, and to tell you the truth, with some fear, (occasioned by your long absence) either that you were grown cold to me, or, what was infinitely worse, were grown cold to the ways of God. But your letter dispelled all my fears, and I rejoice and give thanks to our heavenly Father for his great and manifold mercies to your soul!――I wish I could have seen you often in your last illness, but that you know was impossible: however, the small time I was with you gave me the utmost satisfaction, and I cannot be enough sensible of the goodness of my God, that I (weak and unworthy as I am) should be made an instrument of such increase of comfort to you. Had you then died, you would doubtless now be singing praises to God and the Lamb; but as you are suffered to continue longer upon earth, it is to this end, that you should approve yourself a faithful servant to God, in the midst of this crooked and perverse generation, that you should shine as a light in the world, and by spending yourself in the service of God here, increase your capacity of happiness hereafter. God is merciful to you in a peculiar manner. To be kept as you are, when so much engaged in business, and with so few opportunities of attending the means of grace, calls for the utmost gratitude; therefore let no occasion pass of shewing your love to that Redeemer, who has thus saved you from sin and the love of the world. All you can do, is by far too small a return for such unbounded goodness. Your present state of mind is a glorious and happy one indeed; but suffer not yourself to be off your watch for one moment, for Satan is always watching to hurt a soul that is thus happily escaped from his snare. But your certain help lies in Christ; keep therefore the eye of the mind fixed upon him, and you will still go on conquering, and to conquer.

_I am, your ever-affectionate friend_,

****

_Sunday, December 8, 1754._

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_My dear ****_,