(_LONGINGS FOR THOSE UNDER HIS FORMER MINISTRY--DELIGHT IN CHRIST AND HIS APPEARING--PLEADING WITH HIS FLOCK._)

MUCH HONOURED AND DEAREST IN MY LORD,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. My soul longeth exceedingly to hear how matters go betwixt you and Christ; and whether or not there be any work of Christ in that parish, that will bide the trial of fire and water. Let me be weighed of my Lord in a just balance, if your souls lie not weighty upon me. Ye go to bed and ye rise with me: thoughts of your soul, my dearest in our Lord, depart not from me in my sleep. Ye have a great part of my tears, sighs, supplications, and prayers. Oh, if I could buy your soul's salvation with any suffering whatsoever, and that ye and I might meet with joy up in the rainbow, when we shall stand before our Judge! Oh, my Lord, forbid that I have any hard thing to depone against you in that day! Oh that He who quickeneth the dead would give life to my sowing among you! What joy is there (next to Christ) that standeth on this side of death, which would comfort me more, than that the souls of that poor people were in safety, and beyond all hazard of being lost!