London, January 17, 1795

DEAR SIR,

I CAN say but little to you at present. This comes chiefly to cover my fourth anniversary, which is quite at your service. You will hardly admire the poetry, but it is true.

I differ from some of your friends about Mr. W***; nor do I think a whit worse of him (now I have read his confession) for his misconduct. I have no reason to doubt his veracity, nor can see why the truth should be concealed. Does not his whole case say, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall?” Have any of us a stock of inherent grace sufficient to secure us from equal and greater miscarriages? Who can equal the fervour and spirituality of David’s mind as expressed in Psal. xlii. lxiii. and lxxxiv? yet how base and complicated were his crimes in the affair of Bathsheba. It was written for our instruction; and similar declensions, with their awful consequences, are permitted for our instruction and warning to this day. The Lord preserve us in so resting in past experiences, as to go forth as supposing ourselves wise and good! I hope I shall never dare to think myself out of equal danger, an hour longer than I feel the necessity of praying, “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe,” and not otherwise.

It should excite lamentation, when a believer gives occasion for the way of truth to be evil spoken of; but if the heart be so deceitful and desperately wicked as the scripture declares, I rather wonder it does not happen more frequently. When Jude says “To him who is able to keep you from falling,” we know that he means the Lord, and his expression intimates, that no power less than that which keeps the planets in their orbits, can preserve us from dreadful things for a single day. Through great mercy I have been thus kept as to my character before men; but I can remember many turns in my experience, when, if the Lord had not watched over me when

I was sleeping, I might have proved very vile, indeed. More than once, he permitted my enemy to rob me of my spear and cruse, my strength and my comfort, by which I know to whom I owe it that I am alive at this day.

I know nothing of S. Vincent’s, but you were, certainly misinformed about Antigua. There the gospel is protected and flourishes greatly. The Moravian brethren have there near 8000 enlightened blacks under their care, whose behaviour is such, that a slave under their tuition will fetch double the price of another. It is the same in the Danish islands St. Cruz and St. Thomas, where they have still a greater number, and they have begun a good and prosperous work at St. Christopher’s. Some of Mr. Wesley’s preachers are likewise useful in our islands; but the Moravians seem almost to engross the true missionary spirit. If you read the history of the missions in North America, lately published, you will see such instances of simplicity, self-denial, wisdom, courage, patience, perseverance, and success, and so likewise in Crantz’s History of the Greenland Mission, as I think cannot be equalled in any age, or by any people since the apostolic day, excepting Mr. Brainerd, and a few others, from New-England. It is easy to form missions, but the Lord alone can form true missionaries*

My time is gone when I have commended, you to the Lord’s blessing, and desired you to give my love to all that love the Saviour, and that think of me for his sake.

I am

Your affectionate and obliged,

J. N.