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be carried into accomplishment by prayer for the promised aid believingly preferred, and daily persevered in. But if by a resolution you understand a purpose accompanied with a vow, this is a matter of very great caution, and postponing the full discussion of it to our personal interviews, I shall just observe, in a hurried way, that there is one set of such resolutions which it appears to me to be safe and competent for a man to make and to adhere to, and another set which it would be extremely hazardous. I shall illustrate the two sets by examples: I could, on a deliberate view of all the effects on my moral character produced by attendance on the theatre, resolve to give up that attendance, and keep by the resolution. I could, on my experience of its effects upon my health, resolve never to sup out at night, and keep by that resolution. These two cases represent a number of others where I might resolve with success, and where the kind of resolution taken might be of the utmost subserviency either to my temporal or eternal interest.

But, again, I would not resolve never to be angry. It is my wish to be delivered from this work of the flesh; but I think I shall the better bring this about by fearfulness, and watchfulness, and humble persevering prayer to God in Christ, that He would root this evil thing out of me more and more.

I see symptoms of uneasiness in your letter, which most powerfully interest me in the state of my dear and much-loved friend. Should the uneasiness be grounded on any failure in the first set of resolutions, which I believe not to be the case, I would construe it into the token of a declension, from which it should be my most strenuous attempt to recover you. Should it be grounded on any failure in the second set of resolutions, then this uneasiness is an essential step in the progress of a Christian. You are rising in your conceptions of the spirituality and extent of the requirements that lie upon you; and you are making purposes to fulfill them; and you are experiencing your own incompetency to the task; and God is humbling you into a closer dependence on the aids of His

grace, and on the promises and provisions of His Gospel. Never let go your aspirings, but know that you must be shut up unto Christ, as all your sanctification and strength, ere you shall ever succeed in realizing them. You come short of your aspirings, or, in other words, you come short of duty and contract guilt. A sense of this will lead you daily to Christ for forgiveness; and, going to him on the other errand of obtaining reformation also (1 John, i., 9), you will make constant progress in the joys of the Christian faith and in the diligence of the Christian practice. Be not restlessly or excessively anxious; and if I have not cleared up your difficulties, look forward to our conversations. Yours, &c.,

THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. XV.-MR. THOMAS SMITH TO DR. CHALMERS.

GLASGOW, 5th January, 1816.

MY DEAR SIR-I am glad you have said so much of resolutions; those which I ever formed were not attended with enough of solemnity in the making, and thus, perhaps, it is that they have been less binding, and I have more readily found the means of avoiding them. I never made a resolution or purpose, accompanied with the determination of carrying it into effect, and at the same time sealed it with a solemn vow. My resolutions have been made and noted in my journal; I have often the reading of them to remind me of them; I have my prayers to God to enable me to fulfill them; and I have the attempts which I make to resist the habits which might lead me to forsake them; and to all these combined I trust for the accomplishment of my purpose. As to the subjects of these purposes, they are such as may be accomplished by perseverance; and, by the attention of a few weeks, I have sometimes found myself in a much higher state of obedience to God's will, in so far as one particular transgression was concerned. These kind of trials have been my employment for some time past; but now I have made a general determination to examine my conduct as a whole,

composed of those things I have attempted to root out of it, and I find that, examining each separately, there is a sad want in it, that I have only reached the mere surface of the business, and in many respects have remained satisfied and consoled that I had done as much as I could accomplish. This has caused me uneasiness, which I am not unwilling to suffer; but, like a person who knows his accounts are in confusion, examines them, and finds them ten times worse than he expected, so, though I knew the examination might be painful to me, yet the extent to which it has been was never calculated on. And it is in this state of the case that I was induced to give way to my resolution in some degree, although its consequences might have been, and still I hope will be, more productive of good than any I ever yet made. I do not wish to exculpate myself; but since I have told of the uneasiness which the putting of this resolution into effect as a cause of my in part having relinquished it, I must also mention, that a great deal of business, and an anxiety to have it finished, has operated heavily upon me, and withdrawn my mind from its more serious occupation. Yours most sincerely, THOMAS SMITH.

No. XVI.-MR. THOMAS SMITH TO DR. CHALMERS.

STOCKWELL STREET, January 8th, 1816. MY DEAR SIR-This has been a most pleasant day with me, it brought so long a letter from you-the longest I have yet received; and to procure another, I shall continue to write to you, trusting in my good fortune to say something which may call forth an answer.

I

When I sit down to write to you, it is not any thing I have previously arranged and thought of which forms the subject, but merely the idea which is uppermost at the moment. write to you generally in the evening, when I have leisure to review the events of the past day, and it is the impression of this review which is generally communicated to you. After *For this letter, see Dr. Chalmers's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 30–34.

a quiet, retired, and pleasant Sabbath, I find its beneficial ef fects often during the week, but more especially on the day immediately following it. This has been my condition today, confirmed to me by your letter, which left me in the exact state in which I have found myself after some of our most agreeable conversations, and I have enjoyed this under a heavy and gloomy atmosphere such as generally has a depressing effect upon my spirits. I have been successful also to-day in contracting my thoughts, and bringing them to bear on the subject I chose from my chapter this morning: "If ye had faith as a grain of mustard-seed," &c.; and when I am successful in confining my thoughts to a good scriptural text, it generally happens that all goes smoothly and successfully along with me; and the reason of this is obvious. Should a man direct his mind to a state superior and independent of this, it places him high above all the adverse fortune which can beset him, and enables him almost to rejoice in the midst of it, while, on the other hand, it allows him to enjoy as much as he possibly can the success which may attend him. It will not, indeed, permit him to exult immoderately; were it to do so, he would feel discontented when the novelty and first charm of his prosperity wore off; but when he enjoys the present happiness subordinately to a greater in store for him, then, should his present joy be converted into grief, he still possesses the ulterior prospect, and where his treasure is, there-bursting through the surrounding objects-will his heart be also. This is a temporal reward which is worthy of being purchased at great expense. It is an insurance against losses of all kinds, and there is less danger of failure on the part of the guarantee than in any ever made on earth. Yet this is only a subordinate and one of the most trivial advantages afforded by the Christian religion. It is, indeed, a religion which ought to be highly venerated, and an interest in it is to be desired in preference to every thing else.

There are several topics in your letter of to-day which I should like to write you about, but it would branch out into

a correspondence too extensive to be carried on at present, and must therefore be declined. I anticipate with much pleasure the renewal of our personal interviews, which have appeared to me far more valuable since I have experienced their absence. This will be the last opportunity of my writing to you at Kilmardinny, as I understand you return on Wednesday; until then, and thenceforth, I remain, my dear sir, yours very affectionately, THOMAS SMITH.

No. XVII. DR. CHALMERS TO MR. THOMAS SMITH.

KILMARDINNY, 9th January, 1816.

MY DEAR SIR-Your letter received this day forms a most delightful finish to this series of our correspondence. I could have seen in it the happy Christian frame of the writer, though he had not announced it to me. In point of expression, it is free and powerful; in point of spirit, it breathes a most serene and tranquil elevation. I am charmed with the growing intelligence it discovers on the highest of all subjects; and, above all, do I inwardly rejoice in observing that my excellent young friend is realizing the peace and the pleasantness which are to be found even here on that way which leads to the felicities and the glories of Paradise.

Will you believe that, for the last twenty-four hours, I have been the victim of a most distempered melancholy, and that you have been the subject of it? I hesitated for some time whether I should reveal this to you, on grounds which I shall afterward mention; but I have now resolved on the clear and simple maxim of keeping back from you nothing; and I do find that we have got greatly too far on in our intimacy to stop short of the most entire, unbounded, and universal confidence in each other. The ground of my disquietude was an expression in your note of the 5th, probably ill understood by me, and which I shall explain more fully to you at meeting. All I shall say further about it at present is, that your note, received this evening, has chased from my agitated bosom all its fears and all its anxieties; and it is with tears of grati

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