miles, who wishes to give you every proof in her power of her maternal love. Lady G. was with me on Wednesday, she looked well and in good spirits, and much satisfied with her intended journey. She said she had had a headache for some days; but her looks did not indicate any complaints. I saw her in the morning after she was in the chaise, and she looked well and cheerful; had a fine day, and was to be at Selkirk at night, at Longtown on Friday, and Penrith on Saturday; Mr. J. goes that length with her. Mrs. N. is just gone, after sitting an hour with me; she also is well and in good spirits. I have just received your letter; am happy to see by it you are better, and I hope that you will wax stronger and stronger in body and soul. The guinea was most unexpected; please to return grateful respects. The Lord has wonderfully succeeded my little attempt for the chairman. Your fears are caused by the weak state of your spirits and nerves, and also your bad dreams. I am no stranger to either, especially distressing dreams. An increase of faith and love is the best recipe. Keep your mind easy; be not too rigorous in your exactions from either mind or body at present. Your path of duty, just now, is to suffer the will of God; when he gives you more health and strength he will expect you should do it: rest satisfied he will never try you above what you are able. It is by no means an uncommon temptation to be cast down, instead of being animated by bright examples of the power of God. I myself have formerly felt it; but strive against it. And now, my dear daughter, farewell. May the Lord disappoint all your fears, and exceed your expectations, prays Your affectionate parent in Jesus, TO LADY H. HOPE. D. M. Edinburgh, December 6, 1780. I was afraid my dear daughter's silence was owing to her situation being no better than when she wrote before, and am sorry to see my suspicions have been too just. I have no doubt but all is in mercy, and am equally certain that the Lord will not try you above what you are able, because he hath said it; neither will he, I trust, permit you to bring any reproach upon his holy name. Resignation is what he chiefly calls you to at present, without reasoning upon what is past, present, or to come. Pray for a silent spirit. Say not, "Why is it thus ?" But, "Lord, what thou wilt, and how thou wilt, only make me altogether thine." This is what you wish, and this is the will of God concerning you. How often have you prayed for this! and if the Lord is taking his own way to answer your prayers, and carry on his work in your soul, should you not be satisfied? At present, I am persuaded, the state of your nerves and spirits is the cause of most of your distress: the former being out of order clouds the mind, depresses the spirits, unhinges the whole frame, cuts asunder the sinews of all active endeavours, either for the present world or futurity, incapacitates for just reasoning either with ourselves or others, and often leads to the most erroneous conclusions. On all these accounts, there is not only a propriety in but necessity for avoiding all investigation or examination of our spiritual state till the sky clears, and the clouds scatter, and the nerves and spirits have recovered their proper tone. The Lord, I hope, will bless the means you are using for this end. I am sorry you should apprehend that confinement will be necessary for months; if it is, should not you try a chamber horse? Is not porter too strong for your stomach, without exercise? It is for mine. Whatever does not digest creates flatulency, and greatly increases these panics and unpleasant sensations you mention. Even port wine I find frequently heavy upon my stomach. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit by a too great attachment to the creature. I used to think you quite free here. O seek and find all your happiness in God. Be satisfied to have or want the creature as he chooses. It is this only that procures the truest enjoyment of worldly good. I trust your captivity will soon be turned, and a song of praise put in your mouth. All the painful feelings you mention I have experienced at different times, and have also been favoured with wonderful victories over them when I least expected it. I mention this for your encouragement. I have been unwell since I wrote last with various complaints; and to-day much so with a headache. The school account has been ready many months, but a point of delicacy prevented my sending it; and in my last I entirely forgot to say that I wished you might do nothing in money matters but what was perfectly convenient. Your charities, I suppose, have been more extensive this last six months than usual, and therefore, I think, the £5 due to the poor at last term may be dispensed with, as my last remittance is not all expended. I must conclude, after saying I hope nothing I have here said will hurt you. You never mentioned a Miss S.'s dependent state, that I recollect. When you can easily write, shall be glad to hear how you do. Look every minute for deliverance, and ever believe me, Your affectionate parent in Jesus, TO LADY H. HOPE. D. M. December 25, 1780. I would before now have answered my dear daughter's letter, but I have had a cold, which afflicted me a good deal, and has confined me these ten days past, part of the time to bed. I could only return a verbal message by the servant yesterday; to-day I am rather better, but my eyes have been much affected, which must be an apology for a short letter. I am very much indebted to you and Lady G., as are the students, for contributing so cheerfully toward their support. I do not see I could with any propriety give them wine, as it is the necessaries, not the delicacies of life, with which I mean to supply them, and even that only in order to enable them to pursue their studies: I shall therefore pay into their stock £1 5s. which, I think you say, Lady G. values the wine at, and also the guinea and half in my hand, and may the Lord bless and smile upon the feeble attempt made for his glory. I do think it is a capital charity, and if I were rich would certainly do something toward establishing a fund for it.* Your complaints of yourself, my dear madam, may be just, and they may not: but these feelings seldom hurt us if they do not degenerate into despondency. If they do, they prove pernicious, because they then weaken our hands, and as it were cut asunder the sinews of our endeavours to get free from them; but if they prove a spur to prayer, believing, and activity, they answer valuable ends. The most holy, faithful, and fruitful Christians have reason to be ashamed before God that they come so far short of what they ought to be, and might be. Even they, while in the body, are at times in danger of sinking into supineness of spirit, and of thus becoming slothful. We must not cease crying, "Evermore quicken us, O Lord, and we will call upon thee; draw us, and we will run after thee." Now that the year is drawing near a close, may I ask, How stands your book of spiritual accounts? You have had many mercies, many helps, many trials; out of some of the latter you have been delivered; others are permitted, for wise ends, to remain. Give no answer to my query unless it suits you: but believe my daily prayer ascends for your spiritual prosperity, and that of your amiable friend. If Lady T. H. is with you, I hope she will receive lasting benefit. I find Baxter profitable. Smith's book, I think, may do good: I mean to circulate it among my young friends. In some places he is too minute, and descends beneath the dignity of his subject; in others he is hardly enough guarded, and some readers may find fault. But I must have done, after wishing Lady G. and you the possession of every blessing the birth of Christ has procured for sinners; and as many returns of the season as shall be for the glory of God, the benefit of mankind, and the profit and comfort of your own souls. So prays in sincerity, my dear madam, Your ever affectionate, D. M. This alludes to another of her ladyship's charities. She for many years contributed toward the support of some of the pious divinity students, in the University of Edinburgh, when she found their circumstances were such as to require assistance. The selection from her ladyship's papers for this year, shall be closed by the following extracts from her diary "December 4. I think my soul has suffered lately from two causes. The first, a want of full resignation to the dispensations of Providence: the second, too great fears about worldly things: this had nearly degenerated into anxiety. I detected the work ings of this evil while in the house of God. My intention was good: I wished to manage my temporal affairs with discretion, that in nothing the gospel might be blamed. But when in any thing we exceed, we err. The apostle says, 'Be careful for nothing but in every thing, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God,' Phil. iv, 6. Here is plain duty; that performed, rest there and leave all to God. But how easy to slide into anxiety. This temptation assumes the appearance of a laudable concern about worldly things, and is not easily discerned. Holy Father, in all things may I be taught of thee! For some days I have feared that I was not so zealous as usual in attempting to do good: I doubt not in this my hands have been weakened by the prevalence of the above mentioned temptation. 66 25. The Lord is good. He still favours me with delightful enjoyment of himself, and gives me to know him as the God who heareth prayer, and who performs all things for me. He has wrought out a great deliverance for me, though not in the way I expected and had attempted, and which did succeed agreeably to the views and desires I then had but from several causes my views and desires were suddenly changed, while I was kept much in prayer for direction from on high, and for submission to the divine will. Suddenly, matters took a very unlooked-for turn, and deliverance was sent me from a very unexpected quarter. My views and desires were also made entirely to correspond with that mode of deliverance appointed, I trust, by Him who cannot err. All who were immediately concerned were made willing to fall in with my inclinations, though contrary to their own interests, in so remarkable a degree, that I concluded, surely this is the Lord's doing. Yet it was so opposite to what I had thought only a few days before was the will of God, that it had almost proved a stumbling block. I plead earnestly with the Lord that I might be preserved from evil reasoning; and that the enemy might not be permitted to gain any advantage over me, by suggesting that God did not hear me, neither direct my steps; but that I was left to mistake his will, and to follow my own unsettled inclinations. In this respect my God has been tender of me; my mind has been kept in peace, free from unbelieving fears, and unprofitable reasonings. I am perfectly satisfied with what has occurred. I have also felt a grateful sense of the goodness of my God, and my trust in him is hereby strengthened. I have had sweet but short visits from Jesus, and have found him truly precious. 30. I have devoted an hour and half for the purpose of taking a retrospective view of this year-of the Lord's dealings with my soul of the mercies received-the returns made-of outward trials and inward conflicts-of deliverances from themand of my progress in the ways of God. Upon an impartial inquiry I saw I had received many mercies, had gone through many temptations, and had experienced many deliverances from them; had enjoyed a good measure of bodily health, with a sensibility of my obligations to God for it, and strong desires to improve it to his glory. I have enjoyed, in general, constant desires for an increase of grace, for the full accomplishment of the promises relative to sanctification, and these desires have been steadily breathed forth in prayer, though not always with the same degree of frequency and fervour. Through the greater part of this year a degree of uncertainty, with respect to the state of my soul, as it relates to the blessing of sanctification, has frequently perplexed me, and I believe has deprived me of much comfort I might otherwise have enjoyed. The use I endeavoured to make of this trial was, to cry more earnestly to the Lord for the full accomplishment of the promises: that he would shine upon his work in my heart, and give me to see light in his light; that I might give all the glory to him, while I took the comfort to myself. I have seen and felt more of the emptiness of the creature than formerly, and have had more power steadily to confess God than ever. Upon the whole I hope, if any thing," I have rather gained ground this year; though I am deeply conscious that I have been very unfaithful, very unfruitful, little better than a cumberer of the ground. If my God sees meet to spare me another year, O that he may quicken me in his ways; cause me to cleave to him, and to follow him fully as one of his witnesses for the truth! May he ever enable me to see the way in which he would have me to walk." CHAPTER XVI.-1781. Correspondence with Lady Hope-Miss Ritchie-The Hon. Miss NapierReflections on temptations-Diary continued. TO LADY H. HOPE. Edinburgh, February 14, 1781. I WROTE a few hasty lines last night to my dear daughter: having more time to-day, maternal affection inclines me to be more particular than I could at that time. I trust you feel the same degree of strength in body and mind that has been graciously allowed for some time. One capital stream of creature comfort is now cut off, by the wise appointment of Him that |