s at command,
yet I cannot recollect that I ever saw any one in which there was not
some trace of piety; and the Rev. Mr. Webster, who was employed to review
great numbers of them, that he might select such extracts as he should
think proper to communicate to me, has made the same observation.[*]

[*Note: His words are these: "I have read over a vast number of the
colonel's letters, and have not found any one of them, however short,
and writ in the most passing manner, even when posting, but what is
expressive of the most passionate breathings towards his God and Saviour.
If the letter consists but of two sentences, religion is not forgot,
which doubtless deserves to be carefully remarked, as the most
uncontested evidence of a pious mind, ever under the warmest impressions
of divine things."]

The major, with great justice, tells the good lady his mother, "that when
she saw him again she would find the person indeed the same, but every
thing else entirely changed." And she might easily have perceived it of
herself by the whole tenor of these letters, which every where breathe
the unaffected spirit of a true Christian. They are taken up sometimes
with giving advice and directions concerning some pious and charitable
contributions, one of which, I remember, amounted to ten guineas, though
as he was then out of commission, and had not formerly been very frugal,
it cannot be supposed he had much to spare; sometimes in speaking of
the pleasure with which he attended sermons, and expected sacramental
opportunities; and at other times in exhorting her, established as she
was in religion, to labour after a yet more exemplary character and
conduct, or in recommending her to the divine presence and blessing, as
well as himself to her prayers. What satisfaction such letters as these
must give to a lady of her distinguished piety, who had so long wept over
this dear and amiable son as quite lost to God, and on the verge of final
destruction, it is not for me to describe, nor indeed to conceive. But
hastily as these letters were written, only for private view, I will
give a few specimens from them in his own words, which will serve to
illustrate as well as confirm what I have hinted above.

"I must take the liberty," says he, in a letter dated on the first day of
the new year, or, according to the old style, Dec. 21, 1719, "to entreat
you that you would receive no company on the Lord's day. I know you have
a great many good acquai