ance of the business not weigh anything with
me?--the interest and esteem I would carry with me?--the nice journals
and letters I should write and receive? Why would I so much rather go
to the East than to the West Indies? Am I wholly deceiving my own
heart? and have I not a spark of true missionary zeal? Lord, give me
to understand and imitate the spirit of those unearthly words of thy
dear Son: 'It is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master, and
the servant as his Lord.' 'He that loveth father or mother more than
me, is not worthy of me.' _Gloria in excelsis Deo!_

"_Aug. 13._--Clear conviction of sin is the only true origin of
dependence on another's righteousness, and therefore (strange to say!)
of the Christian's peace of mind and cheerfulness."

"_Sept. 8._--Reading _Adams' Private Thoughts_. Oh for his
heart-searching humility! Ah me! on what mountains of pride must I be
wandering, when all I do is tinctured with the very sins this man so
deplores; yet where are my wailings, where my tears, over my love of
praise?"

"_Nov. 14._--Composition--a pleasant kind of labor. I fear the love of
applause or effect goes a great way. May God keep me from preaching
myself instead of Christ crucified."

"_Jan. 15_, 1834.--Heard of the death of J.S., off the Cape of Good
Hope. O God! how Thou breakest into families! Must not the disease be
dangerous, when a tender-hearted surgeon cuts deep into the flesh? How
much more when God is the operator, 'who afflicteth not _from his
heart_ [[Hebrew: meilivo]], nor grieveth the children of men!' Lam.
3:33."

"_Feb. 23_, Sabbath.--Rose early to seek God, and found Him whom my
soul loveth. Who would not rise early to meet such company? The rains
are over and gone. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy."

_Feb. 24._--He writes a letter to one who, he feared, was only
sentimental, and not really under a sense of sin. "Is it possible,
think you, for a person to be conceited of his miseries? May there not
be a deep leaven of pride in telling how desolate and how unfeeling we
are?--in brooding over our unearthly pains?--in our being excluded
from the unsympathetic world?--in our being the invalids of Christ's
hospital?" He had himself been taught by the Spirit that it is more
humbling for us to _take what grace offers_, than to bewail our wants
and worthlessness.

Two days after, he records, with thankful astonishment, that for the
first time in his life he had been blest t