n last with me, healing my
backsliding; restoring my soul; leading me to the open fountain;
giving faith to wash, and joy and peace in believing; not only so, but
in this land of drought, this waste howling wilderness, this vale of
tears, where 'man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards,' my
cup with temporal comfort is full and running over; all his creatures
minister to my comfort; and as days and nights roll on, his daily
providence adds, and diminishes not.

"I had hardly hoped to see the faces of my children again; for he
commanded, and raised the stormy winds and lifted up the waves of the
sea; they mounted to heaven and sunk again to the deep; death with all
its _natural_ horrors surrounded them; the deep yawned to devour
them; but God, their own God, was at hand, their anchor of hope, their
ark of safety, their hiding-place till the calamity was past: they
cried to him, and he saved them out of their distresses; he made the
storm a calm, and the waves thereof still, and brought them to the
desired haven. This trouble was not unto death, but for the glory of
God and the exercising of your faith, for the manifestation of his
power and goodness, and the enriching of your experience.

"O then let us praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his
wonderful works to the children of men. Let us exalt him in the
congregation of his people, and praise him in the assembly of
the elders."

"OCTOBER 23, 1801.

"Surely, surely my heart feels grateful for the time, though
this, like every other good motion, will, like the morning dew, soon
pass away.

"My children not only preserved through the tempestuous storms
that threatened death with circumstances shocking to nature, but my
poor sick child preserved during a long and fatiguing journey; that
journey made comfortable, yea, delightful, by the warm reception of
many kind friends, dear to nature, and many doubly endeared by grace:
among the last, the mother and sisters of the kindest and best of
husbands; they receiving her as their own flesh and blood, as well as
their fellow-member in Christ; blest with a measure of health to enjoy
all, and a measure of grace to profit by all; eyeing by faith the dear
invisible hand of a covenant God, preserving, leading, guiding through
every step--his love the marrow of the whole, and their charter for
safety, even amidst the dangers of prosperity.

"