opinion, your happiness must necessarily be unstable; for the suffrages that might content you at one time, will not at another; the rainbow recedes as you follow it; alas! it fades too that which appeared an eminence before you climbed it, appears, when climbed, a mole-hill. What seems a star sparkling in a mossy hall, attracts your eye, you run towards the bank and return with a tiny worm! To be the accredited head of your twelve schoolfellows would now content you, and like a miniature Wolsey, you would say, "I've touched the highest point of all my greatness;" but if a thirteenth appeared, superior to yourself, your past honor would be worthless, and you must recommence the old course of strife, anxiety, and emulation. My dear

fancy yourself a woman, and in the world, actuated by your present motives and desires, just as ardent for pre-eminence, and just as sensitive to opinion. You will be incapable of any deep affection, because characters will solely be estimated by one standard their appreciation of yourself. Friends will be sought and retained merely as they minister to your gratification. Sim

plicity and sincerity must be undermined. You will give praise in order to receive it back. You will pay attention, study to be agreeable, and adapt yourself to society, and form, or at least avow your sentiments,-do in short, every thing, less from feelings of natural interest, and consciousness of propriety, than from perpetual reference to the effect which pleasing others will have upon their opinion of you. Your very sacrifices will "partake of the nature of the selfishness they appear to renounce." The reaction-the receiving as much again-will form in all things the main matter of consideration. In duty, even in Christian duty, the eye of man will fearfully supersede the presence of God. You will strive most willingly against those sins and habits which most affect your estimation in the sight of others; you will engage most heartily in those occupations which bring with them the present and palpable reward of human praise-that wellnamed "opiate of the heart," the powerful stimulus of a season, which exerts eventually a benumbing, deadening, deadly influence. But I hope better things for you, my love;

things which accompany salvation: only seriously consider your feelings, not merely in their present operation, but in their future. tendency; and O beseech God to give you ability and willingness to desire the honor that cometh from Him; the glory that results from his favor; the fullness of joy which springs from his approbation, even when unaccompanied by the approbation of man. O that the day may come to you, and to myself, wherein we shall be able to feel, from the inmost soul, "He is our praise;" when we shall faithfully lay at his footstool that choicest gem, the estimation we hold in the sight of others, and say, with sincerity, "There, Lord, that is thine. It is thou hast given us power to get this wealth; not unto us, not unto us, but unto thee, and to thy grace be all the honor and glory."

LETTER XVIII.

MY DEAR

I Do tremble for you, and I would have you tremble for yourself! With subtlety the enemy of souls has prevailed against you. Blinded by his enchantments, you discern neither the path in which you are walking, nor the precipice to which it leads. In spirit you are alienated from God; you have forsaken the fountain of life; you have forgotten your resting-place; your heart is full of idols, your mind of vain fancies; you delight no longer in holy contemplations, or useful exertions; if you continue in duty, it is coldly, cautiously, grudgingly; the eye of your soul is dim, and the pulse of your soul scarcely beats. How know you that you live? Only by this you are filled with wretchedness and

remorse; for this be thankful. It were a double wo to be at once sinful and happy. My friend, you have deceived yourself; yet in thus saying, I do not impeach your sincerity, for you were in earnest, (O grief that you are not so now!) but, ignorant of the depths of your own heart, and of the deeper depths of Satan, you expected the first onset to gain the victory. You ceased to look to your Captain; carelessness induced a surprise, surprise surrender; you are now wounded and a captive; your sword is broken, your banner is torn, your strength is gone from you; and your hope, where is it? You forgot that he who girdeth on his harness should not boast like him that putteth it off. You forgot that the Christian race and warfare are to be run and fought every day, and all day, unto the end of life. You dreamed of rest here; you exulted in the past; you over-enjoyed the present; you heeded not the future one earthly delight after another (all I grant refined) stole into the secret place of your soul, and by little and little, circumscribed the dominion of God; his throne is yet there, but where is he, the king? You