to God for grace to enable you to
resist those temptations. Come they will, assuredly; and never trust in
your own strength to resist them. Christ will give you strength. Fly
to Him in prayer. Go to your Bible,--read that, and you will be strong
to resist all temptations. Of course, never mind what your companions
may say or think on the subject. I ask, are you to be biassed by the
opinions of poor, weak, sinful mortals; or to obey the laws of the great
all-powerful God, who made the whole universe--the innumerable globes
you see in the sky--the world we inhabit, with all its wonders--man,
with his proud intellect--the animals of the forest, the birds of the
air, the creeping things innumerable, scarcely the nature of one of
which you can comprehend,--of the merciful Saviour, who died for you,
and who is eager to preserve you and all who believe on him? Still I
know that, with a full consciousness of God's greatness and goodness--of
Christ's mercy--man is so weak that nothing but constant prayer for
grace will enable him to keep in the right way. I feel, my dear nephew,
that I could not write too much on this all-important subject; but still
I must conclude. Keep my letter by you, and look at it at times when
you are inclined to forget its advice. Your aunt joins me in earnest
prayer for your welfare.

"Your affectionate uncle,--

"Terence O'Flaherty."

I am most grateful to my kind uncle for having sent this letter to me.
It had a very beneficial effect on my mind. I do not mean to say that
at the time I received it I thought as seriously of its contents as I
did afterwards; yet I tried somewhat to follow its advice,--not as I
might have done; but I read my Bible more frequently, and prayed more
earnestly than I had ever done before. I do not mean to say that I
knelt down by the side of my hammock to pray, as those on shore are able
to do by the side of their beds; but I found many an opportunity to
offer up my prayers during a watch on deck at night, and on those
occasions I felt more freedom and earnestness. Also I often would do so
after I had turned into my hammock, and before I turned out in a
morning. I own that when I was first observed to read my Bible I was
frequently called by my messmates a Methodist and a saint, and Dicky
Sharpe was especially liberal in his application of such epithets to me;
but Adam Stallman soon silenced him as well as others.

"Let me ask you, Master Dicky, what you