ntertainments of his love! yet how poor and cold are our services!" But
I will not multiply quotations of this sort after those I have given
above, which may be a sufficient specimen of many more in the same
strain. This hint may suffice to show that the same ardour of soul held
out in a great measure to the last; and indeed it seems that towards the
close of life, like the flame of a lamp almost expiring, it sometimes
exerted an unusual blaze.

He spent much of his time at Bankton in religious solitude; and one
most intimately conversant with him assures me that the traces of that
delightful converse with God which he enjoyed in it might easily be
discerned in the solemn yet cheerful countenance with which he often came
out of his closet. Yet his exercises there must sometimes have been very
mournful, considering the melancholy views which he had of the state of
our public affairs.

"I should be glad," says he, (in a letter which he sent me about the
close of the year 1743,) "to hear what wise and good people among you
think of the present circumstances of things. For my own part, though I
thank God I fear nothing for myself, my apprehensions for the public are
very gloomy, considering the deplorable prevalency of almost all kinds
of wickedness amongst us--the natural consequence of the contempt of the
gospel. I am daily offering my prayers to God for this sinful land of
ours, over which his judgments seem to be gathering; and my strength is
sometimes so exhausted with those strong cries and tears, which I pour
out before God on this occasion, that I am hardly able to stand when I
arise from my knees."

If we have many remaining to stand in the breach with equal fervency, I
hope, crying as our provocations are, that God will still be entreated
for us, and save us.

Most of the other letters I had the pleasure of receiving from him after
our last separation, are either filled, like those of former years, with
tender expressions of affectionate solicitude for my domestic comfort
and public usefulness, or relate to the writings I published during this
time, or to the affairs of his eldest son, then under my care. But these
are things which are by no means of a nature to be communicated here. It
is enough to remark, in general, that the Christian was still mingled
with all the care of the friend and the parent.

CHAPTER XIII.

REVIVAL OF RELIGION.

But I think it incumbent upon me to observe, that during th