truth. The preceding pages bear ample testimony to this. In the conversion of his children, he tells us, he took hold of the promise, and retired to make known his wishes and his confidence to the Searcher of hearts. Once while I was very far distant from him, he gave me some reason to think there was more reality in this matter than I was at first ready to admit. He laboured and delighted much in the duty of intercessory prayer; and as the "fervent effectual prayer of a righteous man availeth much," it is not unlikely that it will at last appear, many have been more indebted to his benevolent interposition on their behalf, than they were aware of. Above twenty years ago, a little before the Lord poured out his Spirit in an extraordinary manner on the people, and multitudes were converted from the error of their ways, I remember hearing him speak of the agony he felt in secret, while engaged with God for sinners. "The weight of their awful state," he observed, "is so laid on my soul, that even my body seems crushed with the load, and I can scarcely stand upright."

There was one thing remarkable, which he often mentioned it was the communion of spirit, and familiar intercourse, which he held with those for whom he prayed much, if they were persons enjoying spirituality of mind. As by this peculiar kind of communion or intercourse of spirit with his very intimate friends when absent, he

sometimes seemed to get a knowledge of their state, whether depressed or joyous, it supplied to him in a great degree the blank occasioned by their personal absence. On my landing at Falmouth, after an absence from England of ten years and ten months, knowing his strong feelings, and the struggle which it had occasioned him to give me up, I sent a messenger before me to prepare his mind for our first interview, lest my sudden and unexpected appearance might occasion something disastrous. But to my no small astonishment he received me with as much tranquillity and, composure of mind, as if I had returned from a neighbouring Circuit after an absence of one month only. Standing before me, bending under the weight of more than fourscore years, and, like another patriarch, leaning on the top of his staff, and surrounded by his family, one of his first observations was, addressing himself to others who were present, and speaking apparently to account for the absence of all perturbation of mind," Ever since he left me, my spirit has been daily as familiar with his at a throne of grace, as if he had been always in the same room with me." The following extract from his letter to me on receiving the communication informing him of my safe arrival at my destination, will be an interesting appendage to these remarks. I should observe, that, in the long interval of thirteen months from the time of our sailing, many rumours

had spread of the vessel having foundered at sea. My father says, "With much pleasure and satisfaction, my dear son, we read your letter over; yea, again and again, with ten thousand thanks to the God of heaven for preserving you and your dear wife from all the storms and raging billows you were exposed to.

All honour and glory to Jesus alone!'

Surely he is the God of the sea as well as of the land. Yes, blessed be his name,

'He rides upon the stormy skies,

And calms the roaring seas.'

I felt much for you both. One day in my closet when pouring out my soul to the God of heaven, that he would preserve and bring you safe to land, he answered me and said, 'They are got safe there already.' I knew his voice, and believed it; yes, I as much believed what God told me, as if I saw you landed. I informed your sister of it, and took care to mark the day. It was the 30th of April, 1820; and, on reference to your journal, I see you landed on the 25th. My dear children, I write you this to strengthen your hands, and to give you to see what the prayer of faith will do. We must carry every thing to the Lord, and spread it before him. Yes, tell him every thing, open your whole souls to him, all your hopes, all your fears, all your trials, and all your cares. For these things he will be inquired of, and nothing will have a greater

tendency to increase our faith than this. Indeed, we are told not only to tell him our cares, &c., but to cast them all upon him. Now, we ought to think it a great privilege to be permitted to cast a portion of our cares upon him: but, O how amazing it is to think of his condescension towards his children! in that he hath told them to cast ALL their cares upon him; yes, upon the great eternal Jehovah : for 'salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.' The night I received your letters, I had another answer in prayer for you: I was entreating the Lord to strengthen you, that you might be able to encounter all the difficulties you have to surmount; and he graciously condescended once more to answer my prayers for you. He spoke, and spoke with power: every nerve in my body felt the effects of it. The words which were applied to my mind with much force were these, 'I will be with them, and my presence shall go before them.' I was overwhelmed and satisfied; I was constrained to cry out, This is enough, Lord, this is enough!""

One other department of useful and benevolent exertion, in which the subject of these memoirs laboured with uncommon assiduity, was his pious epistolary correspondence. Whether he was herein more useful, or less useful, than in any other department, I have no doubt many who did not personally know him will regard this as the most extraordinary trait in his character; when they

are informed that, at the age of sixty-five, his utmost performance with a pen was barely to subscribe his name. Up to this period, I cannot discover that he had ever attempted to put to paper a single thought; and, according to what he told me in his last sickness, he then deemed himself quite ignorant of the art of writing. But he was naturally a man of an active mind, and was armed with much patient resolution in pursuing any object he took in hand; and the circumstances in which he was now providentially placed made writing a most desirable acquisition. I was removed from him at the distance of fifty miles, our sweet intercourse was dissolved, and he longed for the ability to tell me his thoughts and feelings by letter. He took a sheet of paper, and sat down for the first time, to speak by such a medium; and though the performance was humble, yet, I doubt not, he succeeded far better than he expected. It answered a valuable purpose to him, and was the occasion of much gratitude to God. After this, when he became the father of many spiritual children in different parts of the county, he was moved to exhort, and to counsel, and comfort them by letters. Thus, in the course of a few years, he had a circle of correspondents more numerous than that of most men: and if he never attained the character of a complete scribe, he learned to communicate his thoughts, with ease and comparative perspicuity, to any part of the globe, in a