I wandered
with my beloved, idolized husband, and there has he delighted my heart
with professions of love. These were indeed moments of ecstasy; but
hush, there are you a widow with very, very different sensations, and
here am I a widow with sensations equally different. The Lord has
showed us many and sore adversities, but he will bring us up from the
deeps below; we are much nearer our Father's house, and I hope
proportionably riper for those joys which are at his right hand; and
although your letter has brought some pleasing recollections to my
mind--days of love and courtship, days, some of solitude, some of
disappointment, some of ecstasy--yet I find they were all days of
idolatry, therefore to be mourned over, not retasted, reenjoyed with
delight. No, no; Father, forgive me."

CHAPTER X.

NEW YORK BIBLE SOCIETY--ASSOCIATIONS FOR
PRAYER--HAPPY OLD AGE--LETTERS.

"In December, 1809, a Bible Society was organized in New York,
and about the same time twenty respectable persons united in a
society, to wait on the Lord, to know what their hands could find to
do to promote his glory, to advance his kingdom, to spread the savor
of the Redeemer's name, or in any way to benefit the souls of their
fellow-sinners.

"On Monday a meeting for prayer was instituted in Hetty-street,
and another in Mulberry-street, with which the Presbyterian ministers
have agreed to meet in rotation. It is the Lord. We have heard of
revivals all around, but feared lest the aggravated sins of New York
might provoke the Lord to pass by, leaving our fleece dry, while the
dew wet all around. Great have been our privileges; the gospel trumpet
has sounded in every corner of our city. The Lord's servants have set
before us life and death, assuring us, from God's word, that 'though
hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished;' beseeching us
to flee from the wrath to come, and lay hold on the hope set before
us. God in his providence has visited us with mercies and with
judgments: stricken us, and healed us; scattered us, and gathered us:
but alas, alas, we were 'eating and drinking, marrying and giving in
marriage.' Many, very many, wasting their time, health, and substance,
in all manner of immorality, and our rulers caring for none of these
things; yea, many of them practising the same things; and Oh, God's
own saved people sitting still, restraining testimo