MY DEAR CHILD,

LETTER XIII.

January 27, 1785.

;

WANT of leisure, and not want of inclination, prevented my writing before you left home; and I now take the first opportunity that has offered since you went from us. If I had no more correspondents than you have, you would hear from me very often nor can I expect to hear from you so often as I wish, because I consider you likewise have your engagements; and though, perhaps, I am not willing to allow that your business is so important as some of mine, it must, and ought, for the present, to take up a good deal of your time. You have not only reading, and writing and arithmetic to mind, but you work sprigs and flowers, and maps, and cut bits of paper to pieces, and learn a strange language, so that you are very busy to be sure; for idleness and sauntering are very great evils, and doors by which a thousand temptations and mischiefs may enter. Your mamma and I are well pleased with you, on the whole; your affection is not lost upon us; we think we can perceive an improvement in you, and we believe the things in which you yet fail, proceed rather from inattention than from the want of a desire to please; and we have a good hope that, as you grow older, you will outgrow that heedlessness which you sometimes discover. You are not yet a woman, but neither are you a child; you are almost fourteen, and at that age a certain degree of thought and forecast may be hoped for, which it would have been unreasonable to expect from you some few years ago. It has pleased God to give you a capacity for improvement; and, as you see we are

so situated, that neither your manma nor I can bestow that time and attention upon you, when you are at home, which we would wish, I hope you will make the best use you possibly can of the opportunities you have at school. It is no pleasure to us that you should live so much from us, for we love you dearly, and love your company; but it is what we submit to for your advantage.

You desired me to send you news, when I should write; but I have little to tell you. The public news you will hear, I suppose, from twenty people; it is very important. The Lord is about to give us the blessing of peace. Neither you nor I can tell the value of this blessing, because we have not known the want of it. It is true, we have heard much talk of war, and we have heard of the calamities which war has occasioned; but we have heard of them as things which have happened at a distance: had we lived in America, we should probably have seen and felt them. We should have seen towns, villages, and houses in flames; have heard the groans of widows and orphans around us; have had every thing we call our own torn from us, and perhaps have been glad to hide ourselves in the woods, to save ourselves. Such has been the lot of thousands in the course of the war. If you remember the hurry, confusion, and terror which prevailed at the time of the riots, it may give you some apprehension of the case of those who live in a country which is the seat of war. Our apprehensions were over in a few days; but they live in such alarms, or greater, from the beginning to the. end of the year. I hope, therefore, you will be thank ful to God, if he is pleased to sheath the sword of war, and to put a stop to the devastations and the slaughters which have so long prevailed. Though you yourself have not been a sufferer, I wish you to cultivate a feeling and benevolent spirit, a disposition to com→

passionate, if you cannot relieve, the distresses of others. This, next to the grace of God, is the brightest ornament of human nature; or rather, when genuine, it is one of the best effects and proofs of grace. It was the mind of Jesus the Saviour; they who love him, will in a degree resemble him, and they only. A hard-hearted, unfeeling, selfish Christian, is a contradiction.

When you think what multitudes of mankind are suffering by war, famine, sickness, storms, earthquakes, and other calamities, let it lead your thoughts to the evil of sin, which brought all other evils into the world. But what is sin? I endeavoured to tell you last Sunday, from Jer. ii. 11. Sin is presuming to do our own will in opposition to the will of God, who is our Creator, Lawgiver, and Benefactor. By sin we affect independence of our Creator, affront the authority of our righteous Lawgiver, and are guilty of base and horrid ingratitude against our greatest and kindest Benefactor. If you could form a little creature and make it live, if it hated you and opposed you, slighted your kindness, and took a pleasure in displeasing you, would you not soon be weary of it, and, instead of feeding and taking care of it, be provoked to tread it under your feet? But, O the patience of God! though he could destroy rebellious men much more easily than you can kill a spider or a beetle, yet he waits to be gracious, and has so loved them as to send his own Son to die that they may live. Sin has not only filled the world with woe, but it was the cause of all the woe that Jesus endured. He groaned and wept and sweat blood, and died upon the cross, only because we had sinned. May I live to see you duly affected with the evil of sin, and the love of Jesus; and what more can I ask for you? I am, dear child,

Your most affectionate father. ·

MY DEAR CHILD,

LETTER XIV.

March 8, 1783.

IT would please me if I could either visit you or write to you, or both, every week. But it cannot be ; I am behindhand with every body. Yet I think I

send you six letters for one. You stare at that; but if you please to count the lines in one of your epistles, and the letters in every line, and then compare it with one of mine, you will find that you receive many more words and letters than you return.

You sometimes intimate that you are afraid of death; and I wonder not at it. For you are a sinner, but I hope to see you a believer, and then you will not greatly fear it, while it is at a distance; and whenever it comes very near, you will not fear it at all. Mr. — is gone, and so is Mr.

and neither of them was more afraid of death than you would be afraid of a coach that should stop at the gate to take you home to us. Jesus died to make death safe and comfortable to us. Balaam was not a good man, but he spoke well when he said, "Let me die the death of the righteous.” Make that prayer for yourself; it is a good one, though short. Entreat the Lord to number you amongst the righteous, that you may live their life; then your death will be like theirs. The Scripture in many places speaks of the righteous and the wicked, as two characters which divide and comprehend all mankind; and yet it tells us that there is none righteous, no not one-that is, there are none righteous by nature: sinners are made righteous by the grace of God. The grace of God teaches them to understand what they read of a Saviour,

and of their own need of a Saviour. When they put their trust in him, their sins are forgiven them for his sake; and when they rightly consider his love to them, his dying for their sakes, they learn to love him, and they who love him, must and will hate what is evil; they learn to resemble him, and study to please him; and thus they are not only accepted as righteous in the Beloved, but they are really made so; the love of righteousness is implanted in their hearts; they believe what the Lord says, they heartily strive to obey his commands, to avoid what he forbids; they place their happiness in his favour, and in doing his will. They cannot but speak of their Saviour, and what he has done for them; they love to hear others speak of them, and they love to hear those ministers who preach concerning him; but their religion does not all consist in talking and hearing; they are upright, gentle, and loving; they imitate Him who went about doing good. The evil tempers of self-will, impatience, pride, envy, anger and malice, are put away; they cannot allow themselves in such things; if they feel the rising of such things in their hearts, they are grieved and ashamed, and are glad to fly to the throne of grace for mercy and help against them. On the other hand, they no longer seek pleasure in the vanities and follies of the world; they have better things to mind. These trifles they lay aside; as we forsake, when we grow up, the play-things which pleased us while we were children.

Look

But you must not expect all this at once. at a great tree; an oak, for instance. How tall it is! how wide its branches spread! and if you were to dig, you would find it has deep and wide-spreading roots in proportion! Yet this great tree sprang from a little acorn; but not like a mushroom in a single night : it has been years in growing, and had