_To Lady H――――._
_London, January 12, 1757._
_Honoured Madam_,
WILL your Ladyship be pleased to accept a few hasty lines? They come with hearty wishes, that your Ladyship, and every branch of your honourable family, may have a very happy new year.――This can only be had in JESUS, and therefore I wish, from the very bottom of my heart, that you all may be blessed with all spiritual blessings.――These are blessings indeed. They are solid, they are lasting, commensurate even with eternity itself. I hope we have some daily foretastes of this. Indeed, honoured Madam, a wide door seems to be opening at _Tottenham-Court_ chapel. The word flies like lightning in it; O that it may prove a _Bethel_, a house of GOD, a gate of heaven! I believe it will.――As the awakening continues, I have some hopes that we are not to be given up. Alas! alas! We are _testing_ and _contesting_, while the nation is bleeding to death. We are condemning this and that; but sin, the great mischief-maker, lies unmolested, or rather encouraged by every contending party. Well, the LORD reigns;――and therefore blessed be the GOD of our salvation.――I hope your honoured sister, and her noble Lord, are well. I sometimes wish that his Lordship was at the helm, but infinite wisdom knows what is best. Happy they who can look beyond time! The christian can; the short-sighted infidel dares not, cannot. But I grow troublesome. I must therefore only add my most grateful acknowledgments, and assure your Ladyship, that I am, honoured Madam,
Your Ladyship’s most dutiful, obliged, and ready servant for CHRIST’s sake,