I AM glad to write to you once more under the name of ****, and I hope God will give me strength to say all I wish at this important juncture. Important it is indeed to you; and the nearer the time approaches, the more I feel for you. Alas, you are now plunging into difficulties, which you can have no notion of until you experience them. You will have need of more than double watchfulness. Oh cry earnestly to God for grace and strength to keep your soul from sinking under the delusive arguments, which your three grand enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil will be continually attacking you with in your new state of life. You know, my love, in all our intercourse, I have not failed to set before you the disadvantages and distractions you must necessarily meet with in a married life. This I thought it my duty to do, though your intentions in regard to marriage were always founded upon Christian motives. Had I found you inclined to dedicate yourself more particularly to God in a single state, I should doubtless have encouraged that inclination; but as this was not the case, and I did not dare absolutely to dissuade any one from marrying, I have therefore only strove to guard you against the evils attending that condition, and pray God grant you may find them overbalanced by the good. The first evil, which people are apt to fall into when they marry, is an extreme selfishness: this I have seen most flagrant instances of, but then the people were not Christians. Oh my friend, remember you have taken upon you the sacred name of Christian. The next thing which our sex in particular is very subject to, is a pretty indolence of soul, and a kind of hugging themselves as though they were become people of vast consequence; and then all they say or do, and every thing which belongs to them, is of importance. You will think perhaps there is no danger of your falling into any thing so low and silly as this; but do not think so, for without extreme watchfulness it will steal imperceptibly upon you, and if you once grow important, the flood-gates of worldly-mindedness will be set open, and your faith, your love, and peace, will be borne away by the impetuous torrent. The Lord Jesus bless you and keep you, and grant that in all the changes of this mortal life, your heart may there be fixed where true joys are to be found.
_Your ever-affectionate_
****
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_My dear Friend_,
I KNOW not how to assume to myself the character you mention, and yet I dare not neglect to do any thing, which you tell me may be of benefit to your soul. I know God can convey blessings by the meanest instrument, and relying wholly on his power and goodness, I enter again into this correspondence. You complain that I have not lately been so watchful over you as usual: In writing I certainly have not, and you know the reason; but as to speaking, if I have there failed, it is entirely owing to my being so apt to think highly of you. I fear in this I may have dealt with you as with my own heart――judged too favourably of both. May God give me a clearer insight both into you and into myself.
*I doubt not but your present condition contributes greatly to your being more in earnest, and you have need to lay up all the strength you can against what may be a time of trial indeed. I am glad you found such a blessing on Sunday. I doubt not but the greater degree of light and joy you have, the more you will be assaulted by temptations, and these perhaps not only of a strange, but also of an impertinent and ridiculous kind. The devil will sometimes play the buffoon: but I have found the best way of dealing with these temptations was not to combat them, but to let them pass through the mind, as you would let a troublesome croud of people pass by your door without regarding them.
*The speaking evil of your neighbour before you are aware, though it has not all the blackness of premeditated evil speaking, yet it is a sure sign, that you have not that spirit of love, without which the highest attainments are but as sounding brass, and as a tinkling cymbal. I often am sorry to see how much this divine temper is wanting amongst religious people. For my own part, I stand self-condemned in this, though it is a sin, which I have even a natural aversion to; and I fear there are but few hearts in which this root of bitterness does not grow almost imperceptibly. However, the Captain of our salvation can give us to tread even this enemy under our feet. Let us therefore go on, nothing discouraged, trusting in his help, and following his steps, until we apprehend, that for which we are apprehended of this divine leader.
_Your ever affectionate and faithful_, &c.
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_My dear Friend_,