ing of characters,
offer you any advice with respect to outward means; but if you know
any truly pious, spiritual minister, I should think it your duty to
lay open your mind to him. You may find in books matter as good as any
man living can speak; but it is the Lord's appointed way, and he often
honors his servants, his ministers, by making them messengers of peace
and comfort to his children. 'Are any sick, let them call for the
elders of the church, and let them pray over them.' See how the
Christians of old associated with one another. I am now doubly
yours, etc.,

"I.G."

"APRIL 14, 1797.

"Eternity seems very near. I have often thought so without any
visible cause. Well, it will come; a few more rolling years, months,
weeks, or days will assuredly land me on Canaan's happy shore. Then
shall I know and enjoy what ear hath not heard, eye seen, nor heart
conceived, even the blessedness that is at God's right hand. I have
desired, though I know not that I have asked, to glorify God on my
death-bed, and to leave my testimony at the threshold of eternity,
that not one word of all that my God has promised has failed. He has
been--O what has he not been?--in all my trials, all my afflictions,
all my temptations, all my wanderings, all my backslidings, he has
been all that the well-ordered covenant has said. Let this Bible tell
what God in Christ, by his Spirit and his providence, has been to me;
and let the same Bible say what he will be to me 'when flesh and heart
fails;' yea, when 'the place that now knows me shall know me no more.'
Perhaps when the messenger does come I shall not know him, but depart
in silence. Well, as the Lord wills; he knows best how to glorify
himself. Jesus shall trim my lamp and perfect his image on my soul,
sensible or insensible. I shall enter into his presence, washed in his
blood, clothed in his righteousness, and my sanctification perfected.
I shall 'see him as he is,' and be like him.

"Mourn not, my children, but rejoice; gird up the loins of your
mind,' and set forward on your heavenly journey through this
wilderness. So far as I have followed Christ, so far follow my
example; still living on Christ, depending on him for all that is
promised in the well-ordered covenant. O stumble not into the world
except when duty calls; at best it is a deadly weight, a great
hind