k day, that He who has said,
"Light and gladness are sown for the upright in:
heart," will yet verify His promise in the day-spring
of the light of His countenance, if any measure of
integrity remain within. Oh, that He may keep, as
the apple of His eye, that which a troop of robbers
are watching to spoil, and may provide it with a
hiding-place in His pavilion of love! And for one
thing is my earnest wish directed to Him, that, unable
as I am to direct my own steps aright, He would
provide a leader for me, and a willing heart within
me, and grant me _enough_ of His guidance to keep
me in the way, and enough of a willingness to walk
therein and not stumble.

_3d Mo. 7th_, Letter to M.B.

* * * I know well that impatience will sometimes
put on the pretence of something much better, and that
we shall never run to good purpose unless we "run with
patience." Unhappily, a slow gradual progress is sadly
opposed to my inconstant nature, and after one of the
many interruptions it meets with, how prone am I to
wish for some flying leap to make up for the past! It
seems so hard a thing to get transformed, and therefore--strange
inconsistency indeed--one would be translated.
But truly it might be said, "Ye know not what ye ask."
* * * I have been interested with reading the early
part of "No Cross, no Crown," and especially the chapter
on lawful self, where the receiving back again, as
Abraham did Isaac, the lawful pleasures which had been
resigned to the Divine will, is so nicely spoken of; and I
do believe it explains the cause of half the gloom of
would-be Christians. They do not quite refuse, nor
quite resign their hearts, and so they are kept, not only
without true peace, but without the enjoyment of those
earthly goods which have been called for, not to deprive
their owners of them, but to be restored in _this life_ "an
hundredfold." How is it to be wished that these half
measures were abandoned, and that if we have put our
hand to the plough, we might not look back, as we so
often have done, to the unfitting ourselves for that kingdom
which is not only righteousness, but peace and joy.
"That your joy may be full," is plainly the purpose of
our Saviour towards His children; and yet how many,
as Macaulay says, "have just enough religion to make
them unhappy when they do wrong, and yet not enough
to induce them to do right."