ADDITIONAL EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS.

Batavia, March 9, 1837.

You speak, in your letter, of your sometimes doubting, "whether a Christian can be so selfish as you find yourself to be." Do these doubts prevent your comfort in the duties of religion? Do they cloud your vision, and prevent your confiding approach to God in prayer? If they produce this effect, they injure your Christian character, and retard your growth in grace. I was preaching yesterday, on a subject which you need to think of much :-"We have not an High Priest who cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in every time of need." Now, let us consider daily, this High Priest of our profession. He was in all things like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and sympathizing High Priest, to have compassion on them that are ignorant and out of the way, for that he himself was compassed with infirmity. He knows all our temptations, our natural defects, and our acquired habits, and when we sin, he is not surprised nor disappointed. He

expected to meet with just such treatment, when he undertook to save us. If we meet with ingratitude in a cherished friend, we cannot forget it, or bear with it, because it is unexpected, and destroys our confidence in him; but we do not feel less disposed to persevere or to give up our efforts for a child, because we see it often stubborn, ungrateful, and rebellious. Every parent expects to meet with this, and is prepared for it, and it awakens not so much anger as pity, when it is seen. So with our Saviour; he sees our defects, and our daily sins, more in pity than in anger, and he is not discouraged nor disposed to relinquish his work, because we sin so often. It is very necessary for us to keep this in view, that we may be able to come with boldness to him, for mercy and grace to help. The Lord Jesus knew that you would be wayward and selfish and ungrateful often, before he should perfect you in holiness, and yet he determined to undertake the work and overcome all obstacles. Therefore let not your inward corruptions or outward temptations discourage you, but while they make you humble and penitent, let them only keep you near to Christ, and make you depend more absolutely on him.

Every day of my life do I learn more and more, that without him, I can do nothing, and whenever in our hearts this becomes the habitual state of feeling, then we are safe.

I am glad that you do see more and more of the

sinfulness and inveterate depravity of your heart. Nothing is so needful, to make us appreciate the riches of the love of Christ, as a deep conviction of our own guiltiness, and nothing will make us so willing to spend our lives in laboring for Christ, or so completely annihilate self-esteem, and desire for worldly honors.

Batavia, April 30, 1837.

I HAVE just been preaching on one of the most delightful subjects, the love of God for his church, from Isaiah xlix. 14-16. How natural the expression of despondency in these verses! Such, I doubt not, you have often felt, and been discouraged and distressed. But how beautifully does God dispel these fears, by the assurance of the most ardent and abiding affection! The strongest tie of life, the love of a mother for her helpless and dependent infant, for whom she has suffered, and endured toil and watching, she may forget; " yet," says our God," will I not forget thee, for I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands, that thou mayest be continually before me." How can we be troubled, when we realize that God is watching ⚫ over all our interests with such tender assiduity? How much peace and joy do we lose by doubting the promises of our God! How needful it is to

bring before your mind these sweet and precious promises when you are despondent. I am sure that almost all your occasional depressions may be prevented, or removed by proper management; and as I have had no little experience in this way myself, I think I know how to meet the difficulty in your case. I recollect, when I used to suffer thus, brother E. told me, I should one day see why God afflicted me, and that one reason might be, to enable me to understand better that kind of suffering in others; and I have been glad, since then, that I was led through such seasons, for I have been able to appreciate and remove distress from others, that I could not otherwise have reached.

Batavia.

READING Mr. Finney's sermons is just the thing I would not recommend to one of your temperament, who are disposed to look on the dark side of your own character and prospects.

These sermons I have read, and they produce in me the same feelings of discouragement as in you; and the reason is, they are harsh, in their mode of presenting the truth. When you read the same truths in the Bible, and see the high standard there presented, you do not feel the same discouragement, because the mode in which they are

communicated produces, not a feeling of discouragement, but of desire and holy longing and hope. But Mr. Finney urges duty, removed from the aids which the Bible throws in to cheer the drooping heart. When the Bible requires you to do duties, it at the same time tells you, that God's grace shall be sufficient to you, and that his strength shall be perfected in your weakness. It brings before you the Lord Jesus, as your friend and intercessor, and the high priest of our profession; and thus relieves the distress of conscious weakness and guilt, by encouraging assurances of assistance, forgiveness, and love. You are apt to separate these two things, and to look only at duty to be done, your own inability, and your great deficiencies in every respect, and thus your heart sinks with discouragement. But I beseech you, remember, that the gospel system is one which, while it requires perfect holiness as the thing to be aimed at, where faith and love to Christ exist, accepts the least degree of it. It does not depend upon yourself whether you make advances in holiness and secure eternal life; if it did you might despair. But when you have given your heart to the Saviour, his language is, "I will make an everlasting covenant with you." He promises that you never shall perish, and that none shall pluck you out of his hand. This is the difference between the law and the gospel. If you were under the law, and required to be perfectly obedient, as the condition of