pects, and to such sudden changes are they liable. But we have two comforts-first, to know that afflictions spring not out of the dust, but they are appointed by Him who does all things well, and who is all-sufficient to make up every loss. And secondly, with respect to Mrs. Cunningham, we know that our loss will be her gain. Jesus is her Shepherd and Saviour, her sun and shield, she knows his name, and puts her trust in him. Even now he supports her, and enables her to look forward with comfort; and whenever she leaves this world she will be happy in and with him for ever. Therefore I trust we shall not sorrow as them that have no hope; nor complain, because the Lord has done it. Yet it will be a trial. For we were united, not only by the ties of a natural relation, but by a long and endeared friendship, and a participation in the same faith. We had proposed much pleasure in the thought of living together a few years upon earth; and still we may hope to meet and live together in a better world, where disappointment and separation shall not be known. Surely the Lord's design, by these dispensations, is to bring us more and more into the frame of the Psalmist, when he said, My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from him. Cisterns must be broken, but the fountain of living waters is always full and always flowing. Gourds must wither, but the tree of life has shade and fruit sufficient for us all, and at all times. Creatures must die, but the Lord liveth. Creatures are like candles, while they burn they waste, and when they are extinguished, those who depend upon them are covered with darkness. But the Lord is a sun to his people, and his bright beams can well supply the want of the candle-light of creature comforts. In this world we must be often sorrowing, but we have cause likewise for rejoicing evermore. Mrs. Newton joins me in a tender of love to you, and in requesting your prayers, that our strength may be according to our day, and that if the Lord calls us to suffer, we may be enabled to suffer as Christians, and to glorify him, by a patient and cheerful acquiescence in his wise and holy will.

I could fill a sheet on the mournful subject you suggest, the profligacy and calamities of the times. The Lord's hand is listed up, but few acknowledge it, or are affected by it. Our public affairs are dark at present, and likely, I think, to be darker. I cannot but rejoice to think that an end is put to the destructive war abroad;

but I dread the effects of our dissensions and confusions at home, especially when I see how profaneness, infidelity, and all the usual forerunners of national ruin abound and spread. We seem to have little more union, public spirit, or sense of the hand of God over us, than the Jews had just before the destruction of Jerusalem. And yet I hope we shall not be given up like them to utter ruin. For though the nation at large seems wicked and obstinate to an extreme, yet the Lord has a people amongst us, and I hope upon the increase. And though too many professors are far from adorning the Gospel they profess, yet there are a number, I hope a growing number, of excellent Christians, who sigh and mourn for the evils they cannot prevent, and are standing in the breach in the spirit of wrestling prayer. For the elect's sake, I hope, the days of trouble shall be shortened and moderated, and that we shall not be utterly forsaken.

Mr. Culbert wrote to me from Coupar soon after he left you, and it is but very lately that I could answer him. If you see him, or write to him, please to mention my love.

You will perceive that I have had this letter several days in hand. Inclination would lead me to take a second sheet, but I am afraid of lengthening the delay beyond all reasonable bounds, if 1 should attempt to enlarge. Mrs. Newton joins me in love. We wish your physicians or friends would send you to London, for there are few persons whom we love without having seen them, whom we should be more heartily glad to see than Mr. Barlass. Remember us at the throne of grace, and let us hear from you when you can.

I am sincerely and affectionately yours,
JOHN NEWTON.

THE REV. JOHN NEWTON TO THE REV, WM. BARLASS. My dear Friend,

PECCAVI. I ought to have answered your last long ago. So it is, and I can make no other amends than by writing now. Perhaps, considering the terms of friendship between us, you

ought to have written a second time, to admonish me of my fault, and not have stood upon the formality of turn for turn. Since my removal to London I have been but a poor correspondent, and the causes which made me so still increase upon me, so that I hardly dare promise, or even hope, to be more punctual in future. But I wish you to believe, that, whether I can write or not, my affection and friendship suffer no abatement.

attempt to preach

I am thankful that I can still consider you as in the land of the living, (as we rather improperly call the present state, which is indeed the land of the dying) and restored to some comfortable measure of health, and ability for your Lord's service. I trust you will derive many advantages from your long illness; and, amongst others, I hope it will in time, if it has not already, make you an extempore preacher. When you wrote your last letter, which is so long ago that I am ashamed to mention the date, it had already taught you to spare one half of your labour in composing your sermons, and perhaps that half you then employed, may, by this time, be reduced to a quarter. I shall have no objection to your continuing, as long as you please, to draw up a scheme or skeleton of your discourse, with the principal heads, and divisions, and texts, but I should think all that is necessary may be written upon half a quarter of a sheet of paper. Not that I would give this advice to all: I could wish some, who extempore, would write the whole of their sermon. But you have been a student, you have a fund of preparatory knowledge, you have experience, and I think you have imagination. If you have a measure of a natural ability of utterance likewise, and really believe yourself lawfully called to the ministry, I am persuaded you want no further requisites to qualify you for an extempore preacher, than a more simple dependence upon the Lord, and a becoming indifference to the little feelings of self. Indeed, my friend, it is principally self that makes our duty difficult. We profess ourselves the servants and messengers of the Most High God; our message is of the utmost importance, both as to the subject and as to the event. Our hearers are dying sinners; it is highly probable, that every time we preach, there may be one or more present who will hear no more. Now, in such circumstances as these, to be anxious, not entirely, perhaps not chiefly, for the success of our message, but solicitously to feel for ourselves, what space we shall fill in

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the opinion of our hearers, and whether they will judge favourably or otherwise of our abilities and address; to indulge an emotion of selfapplause at one time, if we think we have gone through our work cleverly; and to be ashamed to look the people in the face at another time, not because we fear we have either suppressed or mistaken the truth, but merely because we may have given them a proof of what we profess to teach them, as a principle, that we have no sufficiency of our own-this is such an instance of depravity, and betrays such a shameful, criminal disingenuousness, that we may well wonder the Lord will ever permit us to make mention of his name any more. This undue regard to self is, I apprehend, the chief thing that makes extempore preaching so formidable to those who have a competent measure of knowledge and furniture for the work. Nor can we expect to be freed from it all at once, nor perfectly at the best; but by earnest prayer, and by habit and exercise in preaching, we may hope, gradually to acquire more confidence in the Lord, and more indifference to the desire of pleasing men any further than for their edification. And though it becomes us to endeavour, by prayer and meditation beforehand, to make ourselves masters of our subject, and to study to show ourselves workmen that need not be ashamed, yet I am persuaded we should be most likely both to please and to profit our hearers, if we could speak to them, when in the pulpit, with the same simplicity as we do when out of it. As I have touched upon this subject before, I may, perhaps, now only offer you repetitions; but you will excuse me. I trust, you can say of the Lord, His I am, and him I serve. Go forth, therefore, in his strength; believe his promise to be with his servants; put in your claim for that liberty with which I am persuaded it his pleasure to honour his faithful ministers who desire to put their trust in him, and you shall not be disappointed. I long to hear you an extempore preacher. You may study as much as you please, provided you do not hurt your health. And this method of preaching would give you more time for your studies, and more for your people.

I am not a proper judge of the question concerning patronage. believe with you, that if blind people have the power of election, they are as likely to choose blind leaders for themselves, as the blind patrons are to choose such for them. What seems principally wanting, both in Scotland and in England, is a dispensation of the

Holy Spirit. Without this, I hardly see a pin to choose among all the different modes and forms of church government. With this, the one true church of Christ would flourish with us and with you, under all the different forms which obtain amongst those who hold the head. The parishes in England, where the people choose their ministers, are comparatively few. The most are appointed by patrons. But the great Head of the church has the supreme patronage. And Gospel ministers are here and there brought into both sorts of places. Even in Cambridge we have two faithful and able parochial ministers. The number of Gospel preachers in our church is greatly upon the increase; several valuable young men are ordained every quarter-perhaps not fewer than twenty or thirty in a year. And now and then we hear of a minister awakened in his own parish, after a course of years spent without any regard to the souls of his people, or any skill to teach them. Some persons, who have taken pains to get the best information they can, think we have now more than three hundred Gospel preachers fixed in parishes-the most of them are either curates or lecturers ; but we have a good number of beneficed clergymen among them, and in some places a considerable work. London is highly fayoured. But though we have many good preachers, multitudes of hearers, and many excellent Christians, there is likewise abundance of light professors, and I think a general complaint, that the ordinances, though blessed to the edification of believers, are not signally owned to the conversion of sinners. I am still mercifully supported at St. Mary Woolnoth, and am very comfortable in my public ministry, and happy in many choice and valuable connexions.

At home, blessed be God, we are pretty well. Mrs. Newton has returns of indisposition, but not very frequent or violent. Our dear Eliza Cunningham came to us ill, and continues ill. She, however, eats and sleeps well, has not much pain, and is able to go out to church. Her physician prescribed sea-bathing; accordingly we spent the month of August at Lymington and Southampton, and he thinks her rather better for it. Her case, however, is still very dubious. If the Lord is pleased to restore her, we shall be thankful I hope, for she is a very desirable girl, and has, I think, nearly the same place in our hearts as she could have if she was our own. But I have endeavoured to resign her to His disposal who does all things well. And I trust, whether she lives or dies, she will be his.