To Miss Pywell

Kilkenny, April 23, 1771. My Dear Sister, — I hardly knew whether you were dead or alive, having not heard from you for so long a season. Yesterday I received yours of March 28th, and am glad to hear you are not moved from your steadfastness. Certainly it is not the will of our Lord that you should: his gifts are without repentance. Do you find no decay in faith? Do you as clearly as ever see Him who is invisible? Is your hope as lively as at first? Do you still taste of the powers of the world to come? And can you say, in as strong a sense as ever, —

“I nothing want beneath, above,
Happy in a Saviour’s love 1”

Do you feel no anger at any time? no pride? no will but what is subordinate to the will of God? And have you the witness in yourself that all your ways please him? Then expect to see greater things than these; for there is no end of his goodness.

CXXI. — TO THE SAME.

London, January 22, 1772. My Dear Sister, — You have given me clear and satisfactory answers to the questions which I proposed, and I rejoice over you for the grace of God which is in you. May he increase it more and more! How should I rejoice to see you, and to talk with you more particularly on these subjects! I hope that may be in the spring; but before then you can tell me whether you are always sensible of the presence of God? Is that sense never interrupted by company, or by hurry of business? Is your heart lifted up to God, whatever your hands are employed in? Do you rejoice evermore? Are you always happy? always more or less enjoying God? Do you never fret; never so grieve at any thing as to interrupt your happiness? Do you never find lowness of spirits? Are you enabled in every thing to give thanks?

CXXII. — TO THE SAME.

London, December 29, 1774. My Dear Sister, — I am glad you parted from our honest friend C ne upon so good terms. All the trials

you suffered while you were there are now passed away like a dream. So are all the afflictions we endured veaterday; but they are noted in God’s book, and the happy fruit of them may remain when heaven and earth are passed away. Trials you are likewise to expect where you are now; for you are still in the body, and wrestle, if not with flesh and blood, yet with “principalities, and powers, with the rulers of the darkness of this world, with wicked spirits in high places;” and it is good for you that every grain of your faith should be tried: afterward you shall come forth as gold. See that you never be weary or faint in your mind; account all these things for your profit, that you may be a full partaker of His holiness, and

“Brighter in all his image shine.”