children, who,
could there have been room from deeper sorrows, would have shared it
with me. O that I could put my God in my place in your heart. What are
earthly friends? How few are steady against all change of
circumstances; of these, fewer still have it in their power to supply
every link of friendship's chain; a thousand unforeseen incidents
disappoint their wishes and frustrate their hopes, rendering abortive
their greatest exertions. But there is a Friend, everywhere present,
thoroughly acquainted with every circumstance of the heart and of the
life; all-powerful to relieve; whose love is invariable, and ever the
most tender when every other friend stands aloof; a friend in
adversity, 'a friend who sticketh closer than a brother,' whose love
surpasseth the love of women. This Friend receiveth sinners--casts out
none who come to him. He was never known to disappoint the hopes of
any poor sinner. He receives them into his heart; he takes all their
burdens and cares on himself, pays all their debts, answers all
demands against them, and is every way surety for them; they become
his own, no one has any thing to say to them but himself. He knows
them--how apt to err, to wander, yea, to forget him, and prove
ungrateful; all this he knows, but he has made provision for all. He
has a rod, and he will subdue their iniquities. He will heal their
backslidings, he will bring back and restore his wanderers. He will in
due time perfect what concerns them, and present them to his Father
purified, without spot or wrinkle.

"In the meantime he requires them to confide in him; to go up
through this wilderness leaning upon him; to tell him all their
complaints and griefs, and to comfort themselves: and he will impress
the comfort by means of his great and precious promises, scattered
like so many pearls through his sacred Bible, tabled there on purpose
for us to ground our prayers upon, and delight ourselves in. This is
your friend's Friend, and of ten thousand besides. This was the wicked
Magdalene's Friend; this, the persecuting Paul's Friend, wicked
Manasseh's Friend; the adulterous, murdering David's Friend. And he is
your Friend, though your eyes are holden that you see him not. He is
leading you by a way that you know not. This is one of his characters,
'I will bring the blind by a way that they know not.'

"I was happy to find your niece was to return with Mr. C----;
but, my dear, a painful dread has assaulted m