your infirmities, your groans, and your tears, and all his dispensations are just and right, conducing to your good and his glory. This affliction may be sent for your benefit; and tho no chastening seems joyous but grievous, yet hereafter it may yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness, and redound to the glory of God, Then may you adopt the language of the psalmist, "It is good for me, that I have been afflicted." Sanctified "afflictions are blessings in disguise," the value of which we rarely ap preciate as we ought. The most eminently holy and useful servants of God have common. ly been most inured to trouble, and trained up. in this important school for the most arduous and honorable stations. You will not fail to look through all secondary causes to the grand procuring cause of all your woe. Sin has changed this once Paradisaical garden into a "waste howling wilderness." All the evils which abound may be traced up to this hydramonster as the great original. Blessed be God for Jesus Christ, whose immaculate obedience and meritorious death have purchased the salvation of our souls, every comfort and every privilege, which smooth the rugged path of life, and "an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away." Come, my dear sisters, direct your weeping eyes to yonder peaceful world of light and love. There all sin is forever excluded, and consequently all trouble, There, on a refulgent majestic throne sits the King of kings, infinite in perfection and glory, and communicating emanations of the same to his surrounding blissful worshippers. There angels and arch

angels, and all the bright company of the re. deemed harmoniously coalesce in one universal and melodious concert of praise to Immanuel. There those who were poor and afflicted in this world, who were despised, hated and ridiculed by men, friendless, helpless and forlorn, but rich in faith, are exalted to an equality with angels, their heads encircled with crowns of glory, their hands graced with unwithering palms, and their souls satisfied with durable riches, unalienable and substan. tial, as Omnipotence can make them. There, my dear sisters, when your wanderings in this wilderness are terminated, there may you shine as stars of the first magnitude, find a sweet release from every woe, and tune your golden harps to Immanuel's praise. "Therefore comfort one another with these words."

You will recollect that striking passage of Young, "For us they languish, and for us they die." Such monitory calls speak emphatically to our inmost souls, "Be ye also ready; for in such an hour, as ye think not, the Son of man cometh."

I commend you to God, the Father of the fatherless, the Fountain of living waters. May he comfort and support you under all your trials, calm the bursting sigh, check the swelling tear, and be your immutable, ever present refuge in time and eternity.

Present my respects to your remaining parent, accompanied with my best wishes for divine strength and enjoyment in her heart-rending trial.

Do, my dear friends, each of you, write me a long letter, and be assured, I should esteem

your friendship, your prayers and your correspondence a valuable acquisition. Yours with sympathizing affection. F. WOODBURY.

Extract of a Letter to Miss N. J. of Beverly.

March 5, 1815.

You ask how we may know that we love Christians aright? and, if we love them in subordination to God, whether we can love them too much? Tho I do not feel myself qualified to decide, yet I offer a few thoughts. I appre hend we love Christians aright, when we love them in a peculiar manner, with a love of complacency, different from that love of benevolence, which we ought to bear to all mankind

when we love them, because they are disci ples of Christ, bear his image, and belong to his holy kingdom. And when we feel most attached to those who are most heavenly, and display most the fruits of the Spirit, have we not increasing evidence, that we love them from evangelical motives? If we give God the first place in our hearts, love him supremely, perhaps our love to Christian friends may not be inordinate. But alas, as Mr. Newton says, we are prone to undervalue or overvalue all our mercies and enjoyments. I do think, that among professing Christians this love does not prevail as it ought. Is it possible that Christians can censure, injure, and hate one another, and, instead of opposing the common enemy, turn their arms against each other? O, these things ought not so to be. When shall it be said, "See how they love one another?" I long to see a universal revival of primitive Christianity, when all shall be of one heart and

one soul, and grace, mercy and peace be multiplied every where, quibus

My ideas respecting the duty of impenitent sinner correspond with yours. It is important that our sentiments be scriptural, and that we should meekly counteract the multiplied er rors, which abound at the present day. Wishing you a seat at the feet of Jesus, I am yours with sisterly affection, F. WOODBURY.

Letter to Misses B. K. and R. K. of Bradford. " My dear Betsy,

WHEN We meet with afflictions, we feel most sensibly the insipidity, vanity and instability of sublunary things, and the insufficien cy of all created good to ensure felicity of tranquillize our distressed souls. But religion shines with peculiar refulgence in the darkest night of adversity. Its sublime and heavenly consolations penetrate the deepest gloom, disperse the thickest clouds, and bind up the bleeding heart, while the aspiration to Heaven ascends, "Not my will but thine be done.” Possessed of this invaluable treasure, we might smile even under the pressure of the most complicated disappointments, sorrows and calamities. The deprived of friends and health, and banished to Siberia's frozen clime, or groaning under the galling yoke of an Algerine despot, yet in the enjoyment of God, our hearts would vibrate with rapture and grati tude, and dictate songs of praise to Immanuel's name. How many of the eminent servants of God, of whom the world was not worthy, have wandered about in dens and caves of the earth, and been conversant with scenes of the

most heart-rending anguish; yet have experi enced an overbalancing joy and peace.

How

many immured in dungeons, have found their prison walls could be no barrier to communion with God, and the illuminating rays of the Sun of righteousness. How many, who have embraced the martyr's stake, have had a vision as it were of the third heavens, and of the stupendous glories of the slain Lamb, causing them to triumph over agonies, flames and death, and filling their souls with glory unut terable. Surely if we compare our trials with the trials of these illustrious champions of Christianity, they so dwindle into insignifican cy, that they scarcely deserve the name. The apostle Paul styles all his acute hardships, dan gers and sufferings, light and momentary. And shall we sink and despond under our more triv. ial griefs? If we are Christians, tho subject to painful vicissitudes and diversified afflictions, yet with our expiring breath we shall bid them all an everlasting farewell. When we land on Canaan's peaceful shore, and unite with the blessed around the throne, our bliss and gior will be equal to the capacities of our immortal souls, and durable as the perfections we cele brate. O with what admiring gratitude and rapturous wonder shall we perceive the devel. opement of all these mysterious dispensations of Him, whose way is in the deep, causing us joyfully to exclaim, "He hath done all things well." O with what delightful and amazing extacy, shall we expatiate on the emanating sun-beams of Deity, and gaze on the superia tive beauties and unparalleled excellencies of the Purchaser of our salvation. And how shall