to come. Any dispensation which draws my heart more to relish divine things is merciful. Oh for a meek and quiet spirit! May the Lord give me humility! Let me meekly receive the chastisement. Much indeed is there to subdue, to bring down, and to humble, but, blessed be God, there is a remedy: I know there is. My faith is weak, but my hope is in Jesus Christ; he has died for me. Blessed Saviour, undertake for me, and become my wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption! Lord, I desire to be sincere in thy sight." Dec. 31st." I am one year nearer the grave. Oh that I could rouse myself from this drowsiness and insensibility! What cause have I for gratitude, love, and praise, in reviewing the events of the last year. I have been blessed in temporal things with all that I could desire: health, strength, friends, abundance. My trials and afflictions have been few but what privileges! what blessed sabbaths!-most of them spent in the house of God. ties of communion! What opportuniAnd what return have I made? alas! none: I am a poor, vile, unprofitable servant, and have need, indeed, to be humbled before God for the best act I have performed in my whole life. May divine grace operate more fully upon my heart, through the coming year! may I daily increase in humility! may the faint light shine brighter and clearer! Let thy strength, O thou gracious Redeemer, be made perfect in my weakness!" 1812, Jan. 1st." At Mrs.'s. What must I say of the day? what did it discover to me? That my heart is indeed 'deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.' Satan, my great enemy, tempted me to much vanity, and self-conceit, and forgetfulness of God. The spirit that I ought to subdue to the very utmost, was strengthened and called into action. The consequence was, that when I knelt down in the presence of God, it was the words of my lips, not the prayer of my heart which my guilty soul offered up. It was a trouble and weariness to me, and I gladly rose up to think of the friends I had lately quitted, and the good opinion they appeared to entertain of me. Alas! I am forced to confess, that in that wretched spirit of vain glory, I closed my eyes in sleep on the first night of the new year. May the Lord have mercy upon me!" Jan. 2nd." The sad effects of my dissipated and ungodly spirit accompanied me through every action, and in almost every thought. My heart was cold and dead to spiritual things. Self is the Dagon, and I worshipped it. Wonderful is the mercy and long-suffering of the Lord! Though I had grieved his Holy Spirit by my sin, he did not leave me to the uncontrollable power of my corrupt |