Letters to Mrs. Keith Dunlop

Edinburgh, 2.d February 1829.

MY DEAR MADAM, — I have great pleasure in assuring you of the success and the great benefit that attended the institution of the Catholic schools in Glasgow. The priest, on the one hand, insisted that they should be taught by schoolmasters of his own persuasion; but, on the other hand, he consented that the Bible should be one of the school-books. I have repeatedly visited one of these schools, and rejoiced in the opportunity of such an approximation to a sect with whom I hold it most desirable that we should have free and frequent intercourse. I always experienced a most cordial reception, and have even been asked to address the children, which I did, and was after wards thanked by the teacher for doing so, although the address was in the very spirit and sentiments that I should have reckoned the most appropriate for the children of any Protestant school.

In short, I hold an institution of this sort to be in every respect a wise and a hopeful one in every neighbourhood where you have a number of uneducated Catholic children. I would rather have a reading than a non-reading Catholic population at any time; insomuch, that even did they refuse our Bible as a school-book, I should esteem the setting up of a school a step in advance in the cause of philanthropy. — I have the honour to be, my dear Madam, yours most respectfully, No. CCCXC.

28^ July 1842.

MY DEAR MADAM, — We are still in Ireland, where we expect to remain a few weeks longer; but if God will, I trust we shall be in Scotland before the expiry of the month of August.

Your letter came to me some time ago; and I was much interested by the perusal of it. I should like you to attain a settled comfort, and that, notwithstanding the defects of which you complain, in sanctification and personal meetness for Heaven. It is the very faith which gives the first sensation of peace with God that must ever be recurred to and kept hold of in order to perfect our holiness. “Hold fast your confidence and the rejoicing of your hope firm unto the end,” I wish that you could fall on the habit of repairing daily and currently to the atonement by Christ, for keeping up your peace with the God against whom you daily and currently offend. It is not one great act of mercy alone that Christ hath purchased for us; it is mercy in every time of need — a piecemeal and ever recurring mercy through Him who is our daily, morning, and evening sacrifice.” If any man sin, we have an

2 u advocate with the Father in Jesus Christ, who is the propitiation for our sins.” It is thus that we should draw from His mercy as well as from His grace, as we stand in need of it. And let us not be afraid lest under this economy of a daily forgiveness for our daily offences, we shall he encouraged to sin afresh that we may be pardoned afresh. “These things,” says the Apostle John, “I write unto you that ye sin not.” (See 1 John i. and ii.) The man who is truly desirous of mercy to pardon, is as truly desirous of grace to help him. Let us have faith for both, and we shall have the fulfilment of both. The great secret, it has been said; of practical godliness, or of the Christian life, is to keep up peace in the heart, yet along with it a vigilant care of our walk and conversation. Thus do we combine the security of the Christian faith with the diligence of the Christian practice.

I am very glad you have written me; and I shall be most happy to reply as I can to all your communications. I feel that I have still much to say, which, at present, I have neither time nor space for. Let me at present conclude with the Apostolic blessing, “The very God of peace sanctify you wholly.” I have often been struck with “the juxtaposition here of peace and sanctification. There is a way of combining and harmonizing both. — I ever am, my dear Madam, yours very truly and with much regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.

[Largs, 12th June 1844. — MY DEAK SIR, — The last day I was in your house, a trifle occurred that gave rise to feelings I would in vain attempt to express. I noticed two beautiful salvers on the table, and said some thing about them to one of the little girls, who said, — “Yes, papa got them in remembrance of somebody near Glasgow,” and turning one up she read, — “Mrs. Glasgow of Mountgreenan.” What delight would it have given my dearest earthly friend to have known she was so affectionately remembered by one she looked up to as the means of her present peace, her hopes for eternity! I have ever since determined to tell you a circumstance that occurred two days before her death. She said to those attending her, — “Let my situation be a warning to you; you see that the moment the agony of pain is relieved, I am so exhausted that sleep overpowers me — had I now my peace to make, what would be my situation? But I know in whom I have trusted, and my heart is at ease.” Oh! my dear Sir, how often have I wept with gratitude to you on thinking over this scene! Before her knowledge of you her mind was quite at sea, and domestic affliction quite unhinged her; you brought her peace and fortitude to turn to other objects; and I have often wished to tell you what I was sure would give you pleasure, but I could not without a degree of emotion one does not like to exhibit. I got, however, a message two days ago, to be ready to go home at a moment’s warning, being deprived, not of my consciousness, but of my physical power at once. The Doctor was with me almost immediately, and I am now nearly well, but put on very short allowance of meat or drink for some time; yet I have little doubt I shall soon be well again, and only wish that I may retain the still, solemn, confidential feeling of immediate dependence that at present soothes every emotion of my mind, and diffuses over it something deeper than the tranquillity of a summer evening, — I could almost say something holy. Think of me, dear Sir, where the prayers of a good man avail much, and believe me, under every circumstance, with the most grateful respect and affection, yours, KEITII DUNLOP.]

No. CCCXCL

JSdinburyh, Jforninyside, l-ith June T844.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — I received your deeply interesting letter this morning.

I have long cherished the recollection of dear Mrs. Glasgow, as being indeed among the kindest and truest friends I ever had in this world; and rejoiced in her growing congeniality with all that is most spiritual and substantial in the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is nothing which I have oftener recurred to in looking back upon the past, than the delight wherewith one of her elegant and cultivated literature could peruse the homeliest authorship of the good old Puritanic writers, whom she at one time would have recoiled from as utterly distasteful. Her dying testimony to the faith is indeed most precious. It is new to me; and I feel peculiarly grateful for your statement of it, which I shall reserve as one of the most valued memorabilia in my possession.

We are all greatly concerned to hear of your illness; and shall be most interested to hear, by however short a notice, of your state of health; only do not make any exertion beyond your strength. I rejoice to hear from you of your mental and spiritual state — that of still and confidential dependence. Be assured that the stronger and simpler your reliance is, the more acceptable to God. He likes to be trusted. Without faith it is impossible to please Him; but, on the other hand, the more unfaltering our faith, or the more like it is to the unstaggering faith of Abraham, the better is He pleased. In other words, our comfort and His glory are at one. In quietness and confidence then may you have strength. “Be still, and know that He is God.” (Ps. xlvi. 10.) “May the God of hope fill you with all peace and joy in believing.” (Rom. xv. 13.) “Acquaint thyself with Him, and be at peace.” (Job xxi. 21.) I have often thought of a verse in Deuteronomy as peculiarly applicable to the case of one who is physically helpless, but still in that condition is thus encouraged to trust in God: “The Lord will repent himself for His servants, when He seeth that their power is gone, and that there is none shut up or left.” (Deut. xxxii. 36.)

It is my earnest prayer that whatever may befall in the wise and merciful providence of God, you may be upheld in the gospel attitude of looking unto Jesus. One apostle tells us of the meekness and gentleness of Christ; another tells us that God is love. Surely in the face of such declarations it were wrong to refuse that confidence for which so deep and solid a foundation has been laid. “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.” (Phil. iv. 4.) May the 6th and 7th verses also be abundantly realized upon you; as also Romans v. 11 — “joying in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom you have received the atonement.”

Our whole family, including Mrs. Hanna, who is with us, unite in kindest and most affectionate remembrance. “The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.” — I ever am, my very dear Madam, yours with the utmost regard, No. CCCXCII.

Edinburgh, Morningside, 2Sd June 1844.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — We have great pleasure in sending our two girls to you, and are sure that they will be quite happy if they can contribute in any way to your help and comfort.

Any benefit or gratification you may have received from my last letter must have been in the proportion of its being charged with precious and pertinent Scripture. I could have no hope of saying anything effectual apart from that volume, which is indeed the Book of Life to all who read it with the docility of little children; but it does give one a confidence in writing when he feels that all which he ventures to state or to affirm is solidly grounded on the Word of God.

There is no continuous passage which I read with greater delight than the fifty-third of Isaiah; I remember when I made at least one perusal of it a daily task. The very cadence of its sentences is dear to me; and I feel something inconceivably sublime in that strain of older inspiration first uttered in distant antiquity, and coming down through successive generations to elevate and sustain the faith of those on whom the latter ends of the world have come. There is to my mind an inexpressible charm in the substance of evangelical doctrine couched in the phraseology of those holy men of God whose writings served to irradiate those periods of an earlier dispensation.

Instead of particularizing certain verses as I did in my last, let me specify two or three more of those continuous portions which I would signalize by a particular recommendation.

The next then which I would mention is our Saviour’s discourse to His disciples in John xiv.-xvi. There are many individual germs in it which I forbear pointing out. The passage in it which interests me most is the first half of the fifteenth chapter. Again, nothing can be more overpowering than His prayer in the seventeenth chapter.

The substance of the gospel condensed within the space of a few verses we have in the last half of 2 Cor. v. Nowhere are the calls to reconciliation more free and open; and nowhere is the regenerating effect of our compliance with these calls affirmed more distinctly or more peremptorily.

My especial favourite is 1 John iv. The love of God, the manifestation of that love in sending His Son to be the propitiation for our sins; the belief of the apostle and His disciples in the reality of the object thus presented (verse 1 6); and, lastly, the effect of this belief in working a love unmixed with terror; — these all evince the precedency of faith to love, and they imply, moreover, the faith of appropriation, a lesson further and very decisively told us in the next chapter, verse 11, — a precious lesson truly, and which I rejoice to observe that you so prized in the reading of Anderson’s “Essay.”

“Now, the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through comfort of the Scriptures and power of the Holy Ghost.”

I think Clarke’s “Scripture Promises” a very precious collection; and I know not a more satisfying evidence of th< Spirit being at work with us than when the power of Scriptui is felt by us.

All here join in best and most affectionate regards. Mrs. Hanna is with us. She is better; and Mrs. Chalmers convalescent from a late attack. — Ever believe me, my very dear Madam, yours most truly and with great regard, No. CCCXCIII.

Edinburgh, fiforningside, 2lst July 1844.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — I feel exceedingly interested by your last letter, and all the more, that it makes me feel so gladly and hopefully of your spiritual state. There is not a more satisfactory evidence of the Holy Ghost having been at work with the soul, than that the Scriptures come home to it with a feeling of weight and preciousness greater than wont to be expressed in other days. It is not Nature that effects such a manifestation, but a light from on high — not a light which beams direct upon the mind, so as to evolve upon it other truths than those which are to be found in the Bible, but a light which shines through the Bible as the great medium of conveyance between the Spirit of God and the spirit of man. It was evidently such a light that shone upon the Psalmist, and of which he tells so much, both of its power and its enjoyment, throughout the whole of the 119th Psalm. In this view the 19th Psalm too is exceedingly to be prized. It is true that there is no direct or palpable mention here made of the Saviour; but there are manifold recommendations of that word which testifieth of the Saviour. For when it is said that the Spirit taketh of the things of Christ and sheweth them unto us, I understand by this that He taketh of the things which are told of Christ in Scripture, and sheweth them unto us. And it is truly delightful to meet with so much of Christ in the Old Testament — as in Psalm lxxxiv. 9, where the Psalmist prays substantially just as we do for justification; and Psalm lxxxiv. 11, where lie looks just as we do to the right quarter for sanctification. “The Lord will give grace and glory” — grace here and glory hereafter — the “earnest of our inheritance” (Eph. i. 14) on this side of death, and the inheritance itself on the other side of it. See also Acts xxvi. 18. Then we have Psalm lxxxv. 10, where we have the blessed union of the attributes in the work of our redemption; and in the alliance between peace and righteousness we recognise the doctrine of God being just while the Justifier of them who believe in Jesus. (Rom. iii. 26.) Or which is identical with this, and going back again to the Old Testament, we read of God being at once a just God and a Saviour.

I exceedingly rejoice in that the Scriptures which I last pointed out have come so powerfully home to your heart — which they could not do unless in your mind there was a sense of their reality. You are right in the conclusion, that such feelings and emotions could not have been awakened without faith in the glorious truths by which they have been called forth. Some talk of the reflex act of faith, and try to ascertain its existence by a sort of direct consciousness. They may succeed in this, though I should apprehend, that we are not so sensible of faith itself as of its fruits or effects; and that the Saviour’s test is applicable to this too: — “By its fruits shall ye know it.” May the love, and the peace, and the joy, and all the other fruits which are enumerated in Gralatians v. 22, 23, grow every day upon you in brighter and more discernible characters. At the same time, never forget that it is not by looking for them that you create them, but by “looking unto Jesus.” (Heb. xii. 2.) In other words, while not forbidden, but the opposite, to look inwardly, (2 Cor. xiii. 5,) I would still say, look much oftener outwardly than inwardly. Look more to the object of faith than for the act of faith. Or, in the language of good Richard Baxter, for every look you cast inwardly and downwardly upon yourself, cast ten looks outwardly and upwardly upon the Saviour.

All here unite in most cordial regards to you. — Ever believe me, my dear Mrs. Dunlop, yours with great esteem and regard, No. CCCXCIV.

Morningside, Edinburgh, 8th September 1844.

MY DEAR MADAM, — I have not been in church for four weeks, with the exception of the afternoon of this day. But there is something very enjoyable in a Sabbath at home, though I do not think that even it is an enjoyment that should be courted at the expense of duty — I mean the duty of not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. But when one can have a quiet and solitary Sabbath with a clear and quiet conscience,

1 know few things more exquisite. The chapter which chiefly engrossed and interested me has long been a favourite one —

2 Cor. v. It ranks with me among what I call the superlative passages of the Bible. I know not where a greater richness of evangelical truth is to be found condensed within narrower limits than in its eight concluding verses, where we are pre sented with the principle of Christian obedience, the mighty transition which all undergo who are in Christ, the free and urgent entreaties of God Himself to enter upon this blessed union, and lastly, the firm and sure guarantee of our safety, and of His favour in that double exchange which He has instituted between the sinner and the Saviour, by which they were made, as it were, to change places — our sins laid to His account, and He bearing the full burden of them — His righteousness laid to our account, and we admitted to the full reward of it. What stupendous blessings are thus placed within our reach. “Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it,”” Ask and ye shall receive; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be

5L4 CORRESPONDENCE OF DR. CHALMERS.

opened unto you,” Other assurances equally precious are to be found in 2 Cor. vii. 2, 17, 18, Isaiah i. 18, 1 John v. 11, with innumerable other passages in the Psalms and Prophets of the Old, and in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament.

The Hannas, including Tommy, and accompanied by my daughter Margaret, are now on their Fife expedition, whither I meant to have gone too had I been quite well. I find that I do not agree with locomotion, and the necessity under which I am laid to refuse applications for all sorts of service wherever I go, is excessively irksome to me. Grace is now in Kirkaldy. Mrs. Chalmers is in her ordinary health; and all unite in the expression of their warmest regards to you.

I had a very agreeable call the other day from Miss Maria Vans Agnew, who has kindly undertaken to aid us in the West Port. — I ever am, my dear Madam, yours very gratefully and truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCXCV.

Edinburgh, Morningside, 22d September 1844.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — I am gradually coming round by repose and retirement; but it is altogether out of the question that I should again so implicate myself in public business as I have done hitherto.

I rejoice that your theological views should be so clear and satisfactory; or, instead of using a term so scholastic as theological, I should rather say, I rejoice that you are enabled to make such a confident personal application of the undoubted truths of Christianity to your own case in particular. And be assured that there is the fullest warrant for this in Scripture, which abounds in such terms as fully entitle the reader to transmute the general into the particular and the personal; as, “Whosoever will, let him come and take of the waters of life freely,” — therefore may I so come. Or, “Whosoever calleth on the name of the Lord shall be saved,” — let me therefore thus call. Or, “Look unto me, all ye ends of the earth, and be saved,” — let me therefore confidently look unto Jesus for sal vation. Or, “Every one that asketh receivcth,” — let me there fore ask in the full belief of the truth of this saying; and, according to my belief, so will it be done unto me.

The same thing is admirably made out by Dr. Anderson, author of the first of the “Three Essays on Saving Faith,” which you so much liked. And the mention of him suggests Cudworth, the author of the third of these Essays, and which consists of so many aphorisms. If you have access to the “Free Church Magazine,” and I think there should be copies of it in Largs, then let me recommend an article in the present number (September) on the Religious Experience of this Mr. Cudworthj who, late in life, underwent a remarkable enlargement in his views; and that on the strength of that very faith which, in all its simplicity, he so well expounds in the aphorisms which you have read.

The dread of Antinomianism has led some to cast an obscuration on the freeness of the Gospel, and to view with jealousy the representations of those who set forth this freeness in all its simplicity and fulness. It is thus that many speak suspiciously and with apprehension of a Tract, recently written by Horatius Bonar of Kelso, entitled, “Believe and Live.” I confess that I do not sympathize with them. Should you get the Tract, I am persuaded you will find the same comfort and refreshment in it that you derived from the “Essays on Saving Faith,” which I put into your hands.

But it is a great thing that we have Scripture itself at all times to repair to, whether we have these human expositions of Scripture or not. It alone is able to make wise unto salvation through the faith that is in Christ Jesus. May you ever continue through the comfort of these precious records to abound more and more in hope by the power of the Holy Ghost, being filled with all peace and joy in believing. — I ever am, my dear Madam, yours very truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCXCVI.

Edinburgh, Morningside, 15th October 1844.

My DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — In the absence of all sensible tokens for good, we should not let go our confidence in the efficacy of prayer. What a large and liberal warrant is held out for intercession in the Scriptures. God willeth intercessions to be made for all men, and on this ground, too, that He willeth all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth, (1 Tim. ii. 1-4.) Were our faith equal to God’s faithfulness, we should find a glorious verification of the saying, that all things are possible to him that believeth. (Mark ix. 23.) It is my confidence in the efficacy of believing prayer which leads me to acquiesce in the prophecy of a nation being born in a day. In the same Evangelist, Mark, we have a still stronger declaration of the mighty power of faith; xi. 23, 24. There is much to be gathered from the juxtaposition of what is said in verses 25 and 26. No man who reads all the four in connexion could possibly have the faith described in the two first, if conscious that he failed in the forgiveness enjoined in the two last verses — a proof that faith, in one of the very highest of its exercises, could not possibly lead to Antinomianism.

I do hope and pray that you continue to have great peace and joy in believing, and further, that the joy of the Lord is your strength. His very promulgation of the law that we should love Him, and His assigning to this law the highest place in His code, making it the first and greatest of His com mandments, is evidence in itself that He has presented us with adequate grounds and objects for that faith without which it were impossible to love, as without which it is impossible to please Him. May your faith grow exceedingly, working more and more by love, and abounding more and more in all the fruits of righteousness. — I ever am, my dear Madam, yours with great esteem and regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCXCVII.

Edinburgh, Mornlngside, Wth November 1844.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — I cannot adequately express the amount of reflex and secondary pleasure which I feel in the recital you have given me of those manifestations that contribute so much of true, and solid, and most warrantable enjoyment to your own heart. If I have in any way been an organ of conveyance for those Scripture and scriptural views which so evidently have told upon you, and in a way so legitimate and so desirable, I sincerely rejoice in it. But it is not an unfrequent thing, that one should be the minister of a peace and an enlargement to others, of which he himself is very far short; and therefore convinced, as I am, of the sovereign efficacy which lies in the prayers of a believer, I would cast myself on the intercession of all my Christian friends, and of you in particular, that God would bestow upon me in fuller measure than I have ever yet experienced, the spirit of love, and of power, and of a sound mind; and cause His Gospel to enter my soul in the demonstration of the Spirit, and with much assurance. The kingdom of God may come to the mere theologian in word only and not in power, so as to make it a possible thing that he should deal but in the vocables of orthodoxy, and have no part in the life or substance of it. Our resort, when visited by any anxious suspicion of this kind, is in the faithfulness of God — He will not put us oif with a semblance or a counterfeit of the pearl of great price, if the pearl itself be what we honestly and earnestly pray for. On this subject I have often felt that there is great comfort in Matt. vii. 9, 10. When we ask a loaf, He will not put us off with a stone, or with a serpent if we ask a fish, or with a scorpion if we ask an egg. He will not impose upon us or mock us with a vain similitude of the thing, if we in good faith ask the very thing itself; and I very heartily rejoice in the assurance, that the good work which God has begun, and is carrying on within you, is the sacred pledge of your coming inheritance — the preparative and the precursor of heaven in your soul.

But let us never forget, that the way to be kept right inwardly is to look right outwardly. Let us ever be looking unto Jesus, that we may hold fast our confidence in Him; and that we may realize the continued fulfilment of His gracious promise, that if we abide in Him, He will abide in us, and cause us to abound in much fruit.

I feel greatly obliged by your most generous proposal in regard to the West Port. Forgive me if I do not avail myself of it, at least now. Should we be in difficulties I will let you know; but I have the comfortable expectation of being provided with the requisite supplies for this great object.

There are two things connected with this operation, each of which will give you pleasure: —

1. I anticipate as much benefit from Mr. Hanna’s proposed monthly week, as I could have had, had he settled in Edinburgh.

2. Miss Maria Vans Agnew promises to be a most useful auxiliary in the West Port — efficient and wise.

All here are in about a medium state as to health. I am tolerably well. — I ever am, my dear Mrs. Dunlop, yours with the greatest regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.

P.S. — All unite in cordial regards. Tommy goes to school, and is well enough at present for it.

lii regard to the apprehension you express of your ever learning and never being able to come to the knowledge of the truth — this I should apply to such as are carried about with every wind of doctrine, but not to such as are fixed, as I trust you arc, upon Christ as their all in all. Such will have new views and larger views of the truth as they grow in the Christian life; but this is not to be confounded with the vacillations of those who are unstable and unsettled in the faith. Progress is not fluctuation; and that progress forms a part of Christian experience is indicated by the following verses: — Col. i. 10; John xiv. 21; 2 Pet. iii. 16; 1 Pet. ii. 2; Hcb. v. 13, 14. The variety of Scripture is exhaustless; and you must not wonder at the brighter complexional manifestations you may be privileged to enjoy of its single truths at one time than another, as well as the new relations which you discover betwixt these truths, with their new applications to the desires and wants of the now awakened spirit. — T. C.

No. CCCXCVIII.

Edinburgh, Mornings ide, 5th January 1845.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — I cannot suffer the holidays to pass without sending you the compliments of the season; not formally, I can assure you, but feelingly; for I do feel the sincerest joy in believing that the unction of the Holy One is upon you — the anointing which remaineth, (1 John ii. 22, 27,) — the earnest of your future inheritance, (Eph. i. 14,) — that better part which shall not be taken away, (John x. 14.)

What a precious writer John is, both in gospel and epistle. I feel nothing better fitted to soothe and to comfort one than the gentleness and sensibility, and deep as well as tender piety of this Apostle. The whole of his First Epistle is instinct with spirituality, and in most beautiful keeping with the last discourse and prayer (the most solemn and elevating passage in the Bible) which He Himself has recorded.

I both rejoice in your experience, and have the utmost value for your prayers. I stand greatly in need of them, and there fore entreat a continued part in your intercessions. Every day convinces me more that the Spirit in the Word is the only source of light and comfort, and of all saving influences both on the understanding and on the heart. But the Spirit is given to prayer, and given too most freely and willingly; for the very ground on which God requires intercessions to be made for all men, is that He willeth all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

We have had a second West Port visit from Mr. Hanna of nearly a fortnight. He is of the greatest use to me; and there is distinct progress making in our enterprise. But here too we are made experimentally to feel our need of grace from on high; for truly when it comes to an attempt upon human souls, we are made to feel our own helplessness, and to find that man is nothing, and God is all in all.

Mrs. Hanna’s cold still lingers; and I begin to dislike it. Tommy is expanding rapidly; he has got a set of carpenter’s tools, and among other things has made a most respectable wooden stool. He has the organ of constructiveness.

All the rest of the family are in their average health, and join in best regards. — Ever believe me, my dear Madam, yours most affectionately, THOMAS CHALMERS.

P.S. — Miss Maria Vans Agnew is a most efficient member of our West Port agency. Mrs. Mowat, a very generous friend to the work, died a few days ago, to the very great grief of my self and of all who knew her. — T. C.

No. CCCXCIX.

Edinburgh, Morniayside, $th February 1845.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — There is nothing to be regretted in the felt unsatisfactoriness of human authorship on any topic of religion, if light and comfort break in upon it directly from Scripture. I could desire no better result from any embarrassment into which you were thrown by reading D wight, than that it was all cleared away by the 17th chapter of John.

Theologians often do perplex their readers, and more particularly in the handling of objections; all of which, however, might be overborne by the self-evidencing power of the Bible, when we sit down to its lessons with the docility of little children. There is a sufficiency in the Spirit and the Word which might well make us independent of all uninspired writers; and yet in their written statements from the press, just as in their spoken statements from the pulpit, there is often a very powerful influence. The reflection of inspired truths from other minds than our own, has in it a peculiar virtue, derived, I am apt to think, from the force of sympathy with the experiences and the impressions and the felt wants or comforts of fellow-sinners like ourselves. Certain it is that God has been pleased to annex a great power to human agency in the business of christianization.

The four short epistles from Galatians to Colossians are among the most precious compositions in the New Testament. I have been dwelling on them with great interest. — I am, my dear Madam, yours very truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCC.

Edinburgh, Churchhill, 23d Novemler 1845.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — The case you mention is not uncommon — that of a good man of society trenched in self-sufliciency, and inaccessible to every argument for convincing him of sin. The only way in which it can be logically treated, so as if possible to gain over his understanding, is to reason with him on the two distinct standards of morality, the terrestrial and the celestial. He will scarcely refuse that surely some thing is due from the creature to the Creator; and then he may be closed with on the question, whether that something has been really given or really withheld. The more we can convince him how much is due, and the more we can lay bare to him his deficiency therefrom, the greater is the likelihood of our carrying at least the intellect, if not the conscience and the heart. The Bible uniformly regards the world in the light of its being God’s world; and it treats the question between God and man as hinging upon this, — What has he done unto God? It views God as the Being with whom we have to do; and it resolves the controversy between the parties into this, — that throughout the vast multiplicity of our doings, little or nothing is done unto God. The charge or the complaint against us is, that it is not His will, but our own will that we follow — not His way, but our own way (Isaiah liii. 6) that we walk in. These ways are exceeding various — a way of profligacy, or business, or amusement, or science, or even philanthropy and patriotism. Some of these therefore estimable, useful, lovely, and of good report; yet what Luther would rather coarsely, and revoltingly it may be, but in substance truly, denominate courses of splendid sin, because one and all of them destitute of godliness. It is thus that a man may rank very high on the terrestrial standard of morality, and on the celestial may be at the bottom of the scale; so that, when met on the awful day of reckoning with the question, What have you done unto me? he may be left without a speech and without an argument.

This is the sort of reasoning wherewith a good man of the world might be plied; and it is right that he should be so

MRS. DUNLOr. 523

dealt with. But sensible as I am of the need of a higher illumination, he should not only be pleaded with, but prayed for, that the Spirit may convince him of sin, and cause him so to feel his need of a Saviour, as that Christ shall no longer be lightly esteemed by him, nor the preaching of His cross sound any longer as foolishness in his ears.

When looking upon ungodliness as tlic great master sin of humanity, reaching deep into the heart of man, and pervading the whole system of his habits and desires, I have often gathered from the contemplation a fresh argument for the completeness and sufficiency of the gospel; and this I would fain address to yourself for the purpose of comfort and confirmation. For, .though this ungodliness be the very acme or extremity of human guilt, I am told of a far reaching power in the gospel-remedy that overtakes as it were and goes beyond it. In this view I hold the phrase in Romans iv. 5, to be of special importance — “justified! the ungodly,” Here, then, is a justification that overmatches the deepest and deadliest of our crimes. And of kindred encouragement to this is Romans xi. 26 — “He will turn ungodliness from Jacob,” Here there is a sanctification which does away the most virulent of these moral and spiritual maladies under which we labour. Thus there is that in the gospel which makes head against both the guilt and the power of our deadliest transgression, and is commensurate to the salvation of the chief of sinners from the chief of sins.

It is my prayer and hope that you may more and more ex perience of Christ that He is the power of God unto salvation from all your distempers, erasing your name from the book of condemnation, and making you alive to the sense and the enjoyment of God as your reconciled Father. May He shed abroad in our hearts the love of Himself by the Holy Ghost; and what a precious assurance for us to pray over, that as He has already given for us His own Son, much more will He with Him freely give us all things.

I shall be most happy at all times to hear from you. Our family here are a good deal colded, and I myself am slightly. Grace will be delighted to receive a letter from you. The college enrolments are going on faster this year than they did last; and there is the promise of a larger attendance at the Hall than we have ever yet had. — I ever am, my dear Mrs. Dunlop, yours most affectionately and with great esteem, No. COCCI.

Edinburgh, Morningslde, 4th January 1846.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — I beg that you will not scruple to write me at all times. The labours of my correspondence have been greatly lightened by the employment of an amanuensis whom the Free Church kindly allows to me; so that I have far more leisure and liberty than I formerly enjoyed for writing with my own hand to my own more special and personal correspondents.

I feel greatly obliged by the kind invitation of your nephew, though I do not purpose being at Liverpool. I have the greatest desire for the object of the meetings there; but I cannot undertake any distant locomotion in its behalf. All my extra attentions are now confined to my local enterprise in the West Port — in which, if I succeed, and am followed up by the imitations of other philanthropists, I believe I shall do more good than by distracting and dividing myself between this and other objects however excellent.

From the interest which Mr. Dunlop takes in the moral and religious state of the people in Liverpool, it occurs to me that he may perhaps like to see what progress we have made in our Edinburgh attempt. I therefore beg to enclose for him the

Ci Witness” report, although it be an imperfect one, of the speech I delivered the other day upon the subject.

I most thoroughly accord with your aspirations for greater love and enlargement than you feel you have yet attained; and you have, indeed, singled out the best expedient for the accomplishment of your wishes — which is prayer, whether it be our own prayers or the intercession of others. I believe that the most advanced and cultivated Christian upon earth will persevere to the end in the very attitude which your letter evinces — not of satisfaction with present graces, but of longing expectancy for more. It was quite so with Paul. So little did he think of having yet attained, or being already perfect, that he counted all that was behind as nothing, and so pressed onward. The very progress of one’s discipleship makes him more alive than before to his yet remaining corruptions and deficiencies. And it is my belief, that Paul to the last half-hour of his history would have complained of his vile body, and said, “that in me, that is in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing;” and exclaimed, “0 wretched man, who shall deliver me?” And yet he could follow up this sad and desponding utterance regarding himself with an expression of the most grateful confidence in the Saviour: “I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord,” It is the experience of all Christians. When looking to ourselves, there may be great discomfort and disquietude — to make our escape from which, we should look unto Jesus. This was the constant habit and exercise of the Apostle. (See Phil. iii. 3; 2 Cor. xii. 8-10.) It is in the maintenance of this habit, that in spite of all our fears and all our short-comings, we are enabled to make progress — more advanced than before, and yet more humbled than before, under a sense of manifold infirmities now more clearly seen, and now more painfully felt, in virtue of the very additions which have been made to our knowledge and to our growth in grace. The summit of creatureperfection, says good old Riccalton, “lies in bringing our own emptiness to the fulness that is in Christ Jesus.”

With best and most grateful acknowledgments to Mr. Dunlop, I ever am, my dear Madam, yours most affectionately and truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCCII.

Edinburgh, 15th March 1846.

MY VERY DEAR MADAM, — I should have replied sooner, but the last month of the Session is always a busy one. I can, however, assure you that your letters are always most welcome, insomuch that I do hope you will often write, irrespective of my replies, which, at the same time, I feel the greatest pleasure in making.

Your statement of the benefit derived from what I write, and similar statements from others, is to me an experimental proof of the reality of the Spirit’s operations. I have long felt this to be a striking evidence; and many arc the clergymen who depone to the same thing, when told, and most credibly told, of the good that has been done to hearers by their sermons, and to correspondents by their letters, and a good that often outruns and goes far beyond the influence which the things said or written have had on the preachers or writers them selves. It may be all true, and most importantly true, what we give forth; yet with us it may only be the wisdom of the letter, while with those whom we address it may be the wisdom of the Spirit — as if He had taken up our utterance by the way, and given it an impression on the minds of others to which those from whom it came are altogether strangers. This has been the frequent experience of clergymen; and perhaps it is well that it should be so, to keep them humble and prayerful, under the sense of as great dependence on illumination from on high as the veriest babes in learning or intellect.

I know not if you are acquainted with the works of John

Newton. I think that you would thoroughly congcnializc with them. I am reminded of him by a passage in your letter rejgarding your deeper conviction of the sin of ungodliness now than you ever had prior to your experience of the comforts of the Gospel. Newton was consulted by an inquirer, who thought that ere he was warranted to lay hold of Christ, he should have a more tender sense and fuller view of the evil of sin than he had yet attained to. Newton told him he was wrong, bade him repair to the Saviour immediately; and stated to him what had been his own prayer — “Reveal to me Thy Son, and after that what Thou pleasest.”

It is said of Jonathan Edwards, that long after his conversion he had prayed for a more adequate sense of the malignity of sin, and got such a view of it as was like to overwhelm and unhinge him altogether, that he would never repeat such a course of prayer over again.

God knows how to temper and proportion His various manifestations in the way that is best for us, so as that we shall not be tried beyond what we are able to bear, but with the trial will provide a way to escape, that we may be able to bear. It is well that your mind was prc-occupied with the doctrine of Christ’s atonement ere getting such a view of the evils of sin. I rejoice in your felt comforts, and pray that they may more and more abound. I perfectly share in your dislike of narrow sectarianism, and do hope that the cause of union will prosper and prevail over it. There are certain points, however, of direction and management — a line of procedure which still requires to be laid down; and I do not think that it has yet been fallen upon. — I ever am, my dear Mrs. Dunlop, yours very cordially and truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.

P.S. — All join in affectionate regards, and Tommy, who is here, among the rest.

No. CCCCIIT.

Morningside, llth September 1846.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — I am reading the Diary with deepest interest; but it will require a day or two ere I can finish the perusal of it. It is all most impressive, and some of its passages are to myself peculiarly affecting. As a record of the breathings of a mind in earnest, it is one of the most touching I ever read. — I ever am, my dear Madam, yours with great regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCCIV.

Morningside, 15th /September 1846.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — I send back the Journal. I feel it a great privilege that I have been permitted to read it. It endears the writer* more than ever to my heart, and places her very high in my estimation both for her intellectual powers and spiritual attainments. Permit me to say, that it has given me a livelier interest in all her surviving friends; and now that I have identified the niece to whom she makes such repeated and affecting allusions with the present Mrs. Robertson, I can not but feel for her all the regards which are due to a relative and friend.

May the providence of God go along with you. May His grace operate powerfully and savingly within you. Do write and let me know your address, that I may have the pleasure of converse with you when replying to your letters. — I ever am, my very dear Madam, yours most cordially, * Mrs. Glasgow of Mountgrcenan.

No. CCCCV.

Edinburgh, 22d October 1846.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — I earnestly hope that my reply to your most interesting letter of October 6, is not so late, but that it may reach you by the London address. I perfectly enter into your pleasurable feelings amid the glories of such a landscape as you have described, and still more into the sentiments which you experienced on your visit to Cambridge — a place which I have now visited three times, and at each time with a more intense gratification than before, associated as it is with the highest names of English philosophy and literature; and over and above this, rich in that architecture which with me is the most impressive of the fine arts. 1 have gone over King’s College with old Simeon, and expatiated in moonlight both with fellows and under-graduates through Trinity and St. John’s, and what to me is a perfect gem, though but a miniature, Caius College. Its walks and academic groves, and all the relics and memorials of Newton, are every one of them most dear and precious to my heart.

It rejoices me to find that however dissatisfied with your own personal Christianity, you keep a firm hold of the atonement. Let nothing dislodge you from this; and I speak not merely for the sake of your peace, but for the sake of your progressive meetness in mind and heart for that inheritance which Christ hath purchased for all who believe on Him. Sure I am that it is looking unto Him, and keeping fast and firm hold upon Him, which constitutes the right attitude for receiving from Him all the needful supplies both of light and grace from the upper sanctuary. And I would not measure my own state by another man’s experience. The Spirit is exceeding various in His methods of dealing with believers; so that, instead of looking to others and measuring myself by others, I would

2 Y recommend a simple yet steadfast regard towards Him who is not only the Saviour, but the Sanctifier of men, alike able to prepare a place for us, (John xiv. 2,) and to prepare us for the place.

I know not if I ever spoke to you of “Marshall on Sanctification.” He is at present my daily companion; nor do I know an author who sets forth the gospel in a way so suited to promote the conjoint interests of peace and holiness.

I need not say how much I am gratified by your account of the English parson. You may well believe that such instances are most genial to my feelings. I would almost wish to make him more specially acquainted with our objects and views. But I perceive from your statements that he is abundantly intelligent as well as zealous; and I can perfectly understand how both he and his family should be in that state of happy enjoyment which you have so impressively described in your letter.

I forget whether you received a copy of the accompanying lithograph, which you ought to have gotten long ago, as it was prepared for my West Port subscribers. Perhaps it is well fitted to give any English philanthropist whom you may meet with some general idea of our objects and proceedings.

“We often hear of the delays of law; they are not more provoking than the delays of architecture. We shall not get into our new church till January. The masonry, however, is completed; and it really makes a fine appearance.

The services of Miss Anna Maria Yans are invaluable, and above all praise.

I do hope to see Mrs. Robertson occasionally this winter.

The Kaunas are now with us; and little Tommy, I am glad to say, goes forthwith to Merchiston.

Do, my dear Mrs. Dunlop, allow me to hear from you frequently. Your letter, as I go over it again, is a mighty solace to me; for, amid discouragements and a thousand moral discomforts, it is an immense emollient to know of truth and friendship in this world.

All join in warmest regards; and I entreat that you will ever believe me, my dear Mrs. Dunlop, yours most cordially and with the greatest regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.

P.S. — Pray, what is the name of the French town nearest to the place where Mrs. Glasgow was buried?

No. CCCCYI.

Edinburgh 22d November 1846.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — I should have replied sooner to your very interesting letter of the 6th. I beg that you will not think it too much for me to meet your letters with an early answer to each, as I have real pleasure in keeping up this correspondence, and felt an especial interest in your last communication.

But I have first to ^liank you for a small note of still later arrival than yours of the 6th, and from which I have obtained a very distinct idea of the site and geography of dear Mrs. Glasgow’s burial-place — a document highly prized by me, and which I shall place in my personal and family scrutoire beside the former memorandum that you gave me of your beloved sister.

You ask me if it is superstitious to feel the lesser movements of one’s life as if coming from on high? I think not. There is a charm altogether natural, and I am sure altogether fitted to tranquillize and reconcile us to. whatever may cast up in the minutest applications of the doctrine of a special Providence. It is well to recognise God in everything; and I know not a more memorable or precious verse in the Bible than where it is said that there is a diversity of operations, but it is God who worketh all in all.

I wish that, along with Elliot’s book on the Apocalypse, you would get Dr. Candlish’s reply to his very rash and ignorant attack on the Free Church. Altogether I hold his work to be the best and ablest exposition of the Book of Revelation I have met with. But he went sadly out of his way when he made his onslaught upon us. Dr. Candlish’s pamphlet may be commissioned from London, I should think, by your nearest bookseller; and I should be well pleased if it could be made known in your present neighbourhood.

But T am most interested of all by the expression of your self-dissatisfaction towards the close of your letter. I will not promise to relieve you of this feeling so long as you are in the body; but I think that the Gospel is very clear as to the direction which this feeling should impress on all who experience it — a lesson that has been made all the clearer of late to my mind by my perusal of a book which I think I recommended to you, “Marshall on Sanctification.” The Apostle Paul was haunted through life by the very feeling of which you complain. He called out in agony, “0 wretched man! “He counted all as nothing. He spoke of his vile body; and would, I believe, have so spoken of it to the last hour of his history. Nay, let us look onward to the judgment-day, and we then find the unconscious disciples on Christ’s right hand, asking what good thing they had ever done for Him. They forgot or made no reckoning of aught which they had rendered Him in the way of service. But He did not forget — He reckoned in their favour, not unrighteous to forget their work and labour of love. The upshot of all is, that under a sense of our own nothingness in ourselves we should cast our case upon Him as the Lord our Strength and Sanctifier. We should subordinate our holiness as much as our pardon to faith in Him who has undertaken for both, to work in us as well as to do for us. We “should put the one case, the one necessity, as much into His hand as the other, saying, “Lord, take me such as I am, make me such as I should be.” I think it was because of this attitude habitually kept up that Paul said of himself, “I am dead — nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Let us do the like, laying no confidence in ourselves, but rejoicing in the Lord Jesus; and as the sure result of this, He will put forth upon us the hand of a Sanctifier — He will perfect His own work in our souls, and see in us of the travail of His own soul and be satisfied, even as He will be on the day of judgment with those on His right hand. Let us, therefore, at all times bring our own emptiness to Christ’s fulness. Henceforth let the life which we live in the flesh be a life of faith on the Son of God; and thus will our peace and our holiness keep pace the one with the other. In quietness and confidence we shall have strength; and the very God of peace will sanctify us wholly.

Should Mr. Pope be still at Torquay, give him my best regards. I made his acquaintance at Leamington in 1835. — I ever am, my dear Mrs. Dimlop, yours very truly, No. CCCCVII.

Edinburgh, nth December 1846.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — Our Free Church Committee have, by an advertisement in the “Witness,” and I should think in other papers, given forth an invitation to all who might choose to co-operate in their work of charity, and also their willingness to merge their collections in a general fund, to be administered by a general and all-comprehensive Committee. Mean while all remittances ought to be sent to Archibald Bonar, Esq., of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Bank, Edinburgh.

What an awful state Ireland is in! They are now dying in dozens of hunger, and in a little while I believe they will be dying in hundreds. It will be the same thing in our Highlands soon, unless a far greater effort be made on their behalf than people have yet thought or felt to be necessary.

I am truly glad that you have caught the spirit and design of Marshall, and not less thankful that it has come home of late to the heart and good liking of Mrs. Chalmers. She has been very low, and though better for the present, yet I would say that hers is a frail and precarious condition.

I do not wonder, for it is by no means rare, that you should have received Christ more for pardon than for sanctification. All do so at first; and it is often much later that they recognise Him, and still later that they make habitual use of Him, as the Lord their strength. I look on 1 Cor. i. 30 as a very precious verse, in that it gives a full view of Christ’s salvation in the various parts of it. I have great value, too, for Phil. iii. 3. The order in which Paul enumerates the three habits of the believer is reverse, I think, to the order in which they take place in his spiritual history. He first has no confidence in his own strength, feeling all that he does in the way of new obedience to be so miserably abortive. He then rejoices in the Lord Jesus, (Phil. iv. 13; John xv. 4,) on perceiving that His office is to sanctify as well as to justify men. And lastly, as the effect of this compound attitude, if it may be so termed, that of distrust in ourselves and confidence in Christ, are we enabled to serve God in the Spirit, “striving mightily according to His grace that worketh in us mightily,” (Col. i. 29.)

I quite agree with you in thinking that all other collections should be postponed at present, rather than the collection for famine should suffer. They are acting practically upon this in many places. With earnest prayers for your continued peace and joy in believing, I ever am, my dear Mrs. Dunlop, yours most affectionately, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCCVIII.

EdinburgJi, Wtk January 1847.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — I am much gratified by your approval of my brief letter on the Sabbath. I can have no objections, but the contrary, to your throwing off copies of it. I doubt very much, however, if your sentiments in regard to it will be very much sympathized with, however much I agree with you in thinking that a great and vital interest for Scotland hinges on the right determination of this question.

I rejoice in your exertions for our suffering Highlanders. The public are beginning to arouse; but they are yet very far from an adequate view of how great the destitution will be ere harvest comes round, and what the extent of our liberalities, unless we can make up our minds to thousands and thousands more dying of starvation both in Ireland and at home.

May He who hath said, they who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, fulfil in you all the good pleasures of His goodness, and cause you abundantly to experience that in quietness and in confidence ye shall have strength. — With the kind regards of all here, ever believe me, my dear Madam, yours most affectionately, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCCIX.

Edinburgh, 3lst January 1847.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — Be assured that there is nothing in the mere intensity and elevation of your religious feelings, and nothing in the strength of your convictions, though amounting to assurance, which of themselves bespeak aught like illusion. For such manifestations and impressions as you now seem to experience have been often realized, and on the most solid grounds, by the most advanced and enlightened Christians of whom we have ever read in the history of the

Church. Witness the religious experiences of Doddridge and Halyburton, and Boston, and Jonathan Edwards; and, better than all, let us only bethink ourselves of the declarations of Scripture which inform us of such enlargements as are perfectly genuine, and which are occasionally vouchsafed by the Giver of all grace as the foretastes and the glimpses of our coming heaven. If we but put their inspired meaning on such verses as the following we shall not have any doubt of these spiritual illuminations: — Ps. cxix. 18; Isaiah lviii. 18; John xiv. 21; 1 Cor. ii. 10; 2 Cor. iii. 18; iv. 4; Eph. i. 17, 18; iii. 18, 19; Phil. iv. 7; 1 Thess. i. 5; 1 Peter i. 8; 2 Peter i. 19; 1 John ii. 27; Rom. viii. 16; xv. 13.

There can be no doubt of such enlightenments and enhancements of spiritual feeling, given in greater and less degree to Christians in various stages of their discipleship. Many who have the faith, and are therefore in a state of safety, are destitute of the sensible comfort which is sometimes given to others, and springs from the bright and exhilarating views that they obtain of Divine truth. They are greatly to be prized and longed after; but it were a mighty discouragement on many, of whom I believe that they are the real children of God, to represent them as indispensable, or to set them forth as indispensable.

I cannot perceive any delusion in the mental state of which you have written me. The ultimate and decisive test is Scripture; and so long as the ideas which fill and elevate your mind are scriptural truths, now seen by you more largely and luminously than heretofore by the Spirit shining still more brightly than He wont to your eyes upon the Word, you have every reason to bless God and to rejoice. Certain it is, that without going forth of the Bible there is ample material within it for sustaining and justifying all the high emotions which you have expressed — nothing more being necessary than to deepen our convictions of Bible doctrine, and to brighten our assurance of Bible prospects, in order to bring the mind to a state of elevation, nay even of ecstasy. And still the Bible is the testbook, the grand touchstone by which the spirits are to be tried; for, “to the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them,” (Isaiah viii. 20.) My judgment is, that you speak altogether according to this Word. But my observations and even references are perhaps too general for your case; and let me therefore conclude with a few more specific references, serving to prove that Jesus Christ does, by His Spirit, dwell in man, and presides over his movements, actuating, and strengthening, and directing; and in virtue of the close and intimate union which takes place between him and the believer, revives him and makes him faithful, even as the vine communicates life and fertility to all its branches.

John xv. 1-8; Rom. viii. 9-3 1; 1 Cor. vi. 19; Gal. ii. 20; Rom. viii. 3; Eph. iv. 16; Heb. viii. 10, 11; Jer. xxxi. 33. Observe that God dwelling in you is as much part of the promise or covenant under the economy of the gospel, as is the forgiveness of your sins.

Pray for all in whose spiritual state you take an interest, that they, too, may be made to experience these higher attainments of experimental Christianity, for many, many are they whose doctrine outruns their experience, or who have not verified in their own personal state and history, what, nevertheless, they know to be true. — I am, my dear Mrs. Dunlop, yours very sincerely and affectionately, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCCX.

Edinburgh, 1±th March 1847.

MY DEAR MRS. DUNLOP, — I send Mrs. Glasgow’s paper with the deepest interest, and your observations on your own state

I look upon as being exceedingly just and important. We must not expect to realize at all times the same bright manifestations. But though they come to us only in passing yet precious glimpses, the recollection of them is most helpful for the sustaining of our faith, on which faith it is that, under all the variations of our sensible comfort, our safety hinges. It is by the power of faith that we are kept unto salvation.

I know not if you ever read Samuel Rutherford’s “Letters.” There is a passage in one of them which reminds me of your present experience. He experienced, when in prison, a most remarkable season of spiritual refreshment and illumination, during which he wrote an account of it to one of his correspondents. Among other things, he says that he was quite sure the present transport and elevation and sensible comforts were not to last, but that a time was coming when they would take leave of him, and then what he should do would be, “believe in the dark,” It is quite competent to believe even in the duller and darker frames of the mind; for belief does not look inwardly upon the frames, but stays itself by looking outwardly upon the word; see Isaiah 1. 10. Nevertheless, such manifestations are mightily to be prized and longed after, as the most precious cordials on our future way; and the recollections of those which are past are confirmatory and comforting to the soul. — I ever am, my dear Mrs. Dunlop, yours very truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.