engagement which might unnecessarily divert them from your present pursuit. I am, truly, Yours, &c.

Mistaken views-Danger of reliance on feeling-The duty of avoiding unnecessary association with the World-Counting the cost-On the opposition of others-A melancholy instance-Advice-An instance of the happy effects of Christian prudence-Discouragements from luke-warm Christians-The folly of relinquishing the subject in con sequence of external difficulties-Encouragement.

THAT ardour and perhaps vehemence, of feeling, which exist in some Inquirers, frequently preclude all suggestions of the judgment or understanding. To such a one no obstacle in the matters of the world appears of magnitude: No temptation seems worthy of thought. He believes himself fortified against all the seductions of common life. The great end of salvation he conceives to engage, not only the emotions of his heart, but the faculties of his mind. Without a single fear from external impressions, he is ready to encounter any temptation: and thinks himself prepared to

oppose the feelings of his present anxiety to all that could be set in array against it. The allurements of time have disappeared. All that belongs to earth has assumed a character of insignificance.

But is such a state always one of safety? May there not be danger in this overweening confidence? There is, certainly, imminent danger. The same susceptibility of temperament that exposed his bosom to its present agitation, lays it open to insidious encroachments from a quarter whence he apprehends but little danger; and the strong holds of his security are, generally, his weakest and most vulnerable points.

Nor is this a matter of surprise when we recollect that there is no state of mind more deceptive, or more treacherous, than that which is produced by certain kinds of serious impressions. The recession of the world is not, as may be imagined, the effect of a love of holiness: and the disinclination to pleasures recently dear, does not arise from a positive taste for piety. There is no new principle planted in the heart; and the powerful feeling which is supposed to govern it, is without any rule of control, or any defined place of direction."

The scenes of a single hour may produce a rapid and perceptible return of the current.

Is there, then, any thing more unwise, or more hazardous, than a confident reliance on a condition so precarious, in the midst of temptations that present a strong appeal to the natural heart? And yet it is to this we are to attribute the failure of many an Inquirer, whose earnestness had inspired us with every hope of his success: but who, in mistaking an unorganized feeling for a substantial principle, was taken in the snare which presumption had placed in his way. And then his astonishment is, that a state of mind which he considered the dawn of religion, should have passed off so easily, and all that is unspiritual resumed its sway in his bosom again.

If the remarks which I communicated in my last letter, have increased your apprehensions from the circumstances under which Providence has placed you, I trust there will be no reason to regret that they were written. There is, indeed, much to excite a jealousy of ourselves. And it is well to discover its operation upon our conduct; when that operation is not carried to an exclusiveness of the very object we are labouring to reach. And yet such

an effect, my dear friend, is more than possible: We may exert our whole efforts to keep up a certain condition of feeling, without any direct or practical reference to its ultimate design. The evil of this shall be the subject of a future page: At present, I have only to express my hope, that, while you entertain such serious. fears lest your anxiety be diminished, and while you retain "this unaccountable timidity," on the subject, you may be enabled at once to cast yourself upon him who will understand all your infirmities, and who beholds not without much concern, a single one of his Creatures in the gall of bitterness."

That you should abandon all unnecessary intimacies which are unfavourable to your spiritual welfare, is not only the dictate of imperative duty, but it is the prescription of ordinary policy. A judicious physician would always, if practicable, remove his patient from an infected district, and place him where the air is more favourable to his recovery. But the atmosphere of worldly associates is as inauspicious to spiritual life, as is the spot of infectious disease to the health of the human frame. The gaiety, or even indifference to religion, which prevails in the society of

worldly men, will not always give intensity, by the contrast it furnishes, to the convictions of the awakened sinner: Its more legitimate effect will be, that of unsettling all that gave promise of future good. He should remember that the tone of his mind, unformed as it is, subjects him to a more positive effect from the society in which he moves, than from other and more suspected causes: and that he requires every possible check upon dispositions which are now restrained by a rein that is weak at the best.

"I am a companion of all them that fear thee," said one of old, in evidence of his delight in the counsels and commandments of God. Such, too, should be the language of the sincere Inquirer, when he enters up his resolutions to espouse the cause of the Redeemer as his own: a resolution which he is likely to make in the outset; and which he is to con. nect with the discharge of every sacred duty: For if there are certain duties which he supposes can be accomplished only by the Christian, he is persuaded there are others which it is in the power of the unrenewed man to complete. But the simple truth is and it de

*Psalm, cxix. 63.