to
his mother at all times to be in a satisfactory condition. At one time
he presses her for an opinion on Thomas a Kempis, and receives an
elaborate answer, at once philosophical and theological, in the course
of which the remark is made--"I take a Kempis to have been an honest
weak man, with more zeal than knowledge, by his condemning all mirth or
pleasure as sinful or useless, in opposition to so many plain and direct
texts of Scripture. 'Tis stupid to say nothing is an affliction to a
good man; nor do I understand how any man can thank God for present
misery, yet do I know very well what it is to rejoice in the midst of
deep afflictions. Not in the affliction itself, for then it would cease
to be one; but in this we may rejoice, that we are in the hand of a God
who has promised that all things shall work together for good, for the
spiritual and eternal good, of those that love Him." Evidently it is
from an unshaken soul the concluding words of the letter proceed--"Your
brother has brought us a heavy reckoning for you and Charles. God be
merciful to us all!"

Much earnest and deeply discriminative advice is given to John on
occasion of his entering the holy ministry. The letter then written to
him abounds with traces of the fact that he had been in the habit of
confiding much of his mind to his mother through those years. In 1727
she writes to him a profound and beautiful epistle, in terms which
indicate that he had made her his _confidante_ at the time, in his love
for a young lady whom he had lately met in Worcestershire.

"What then is love? Oh, how shall we describe its strange, mysterious
essence? It is--I do not know what! A powerful something; source of our
joy and grief, felt and experienced by every one, and yet unknown to
all! Nor shall we ever comprehend what it is till we are united to our
first principle, and there read its wondrous nature in the clear mirror
of uncreated love:"

Another letter belonging to the same year is solemnly prospective the
topic being evidently the "cares of the world."

"'Believe me, youth (for I am read in cares,
And bend beneath the weight of more than fifty years).'

"Believe me, old age is the worst time we can choose to mend either our
lives or our fortunes. Ah! my dear son, did you with me stand on the
verge of life, and saw before your eyes a vast expanse, an unlimited
duration of being, which you might shortly enter upon, you can't
conceive how all the