the greatest difficulties at first; they put upon the Lord; I grew vain and trifling in forth in a storm, and are often beaten back; my conversation; and though my heart at length their voyage proves favourable, smote me often, yet my armour was gone, and they enter the port with a , a and I declined fast; and by the time I rich and abundant entrance. Some are hard arrived at Guinea, I seemed to have forbeset with cruisers and enemies, and obliged gotten all the Lord's mercies, and my own to fight their way through; others meet with engagements, and was (profaneness exceptlittle remarkable in their passage. Is it not ed) almost as bad as before. The enemy thus in the spiritual life? All true believers prepared a train of temptations, and I bewalk by the same rule, and mind the same came his easy prey; and, for about a month, things. The word of God is their compass; he lulled me asleep in a course of evil, of Jesus is both their polar star and their sun which, a few months before, I could not have of righteousness; their hearts and faces are supposed myself any longer capable. How all set Sion-ward. Thus far they are as one much propriety is there in the apostle's adbody, animated by one spirit; yet their ex- vice, "Take heed lest any of you be hardenperience, formed upon these common princi- ed through the deceitfulness of sin." O, ples, is far from being uniform. The Lord, in who can be sufficiently upon their guard! his first call, and his following dispensations, Sin first deceives, and then it hardens. I has a regard to the situation, temper, and was now fast bound in chains; I had little talents of each, and to the particular services desire, and no power at all to recover myself. or trials he has appointed them for. Though I could not but at times reflect how it was all are exercised at times, yet some pass with me: but, if I attempted to struggle through the voyage of life much more with it, it was in vain. I was just like Samsmoothly than others. But he "who walk-son, when he said, "I will go forth and shake eth upon the wings of the wind, and measures the waters in the hollow of his hand," will not suffer any of whom he has taken charge, to perish in the storms, though, for a season, perhaps, many of them are ready to give up all hopes. The myself as at other times;" but the Lord was departed, and he found himself helpless in the hands of his enemies. By the remembrance of this interval, the Lord has often instructed me since, what a poor creature I am in myself, incapable of standing a single We must not, therefore, make the experi-hour without continual fresh supplies of ence of others, in all respects, a rule to our-strength and grace from the fountain head. selves, nor our own, a rule to others; yet, At length the Lord, whose mercies are inthese are common mistakes, and productive of many more. As to myself, every part of my case has been extraordinary. I have hardly met a single instance resembling it. Few, very few, have been recovered from such a dreadful state; and the few that have been thus favoured, have generally passed through the most severe convictions; and after the Lord has given them peace, their future lives have been usually more zealous, bright, and exemplary, than common. Now, as on the one hand, my convictions were very moderate, and far below what might have been expected from the dreadful review I had to make; so, on the other, my first beginnings in a religious course were as faint as can be well imagined. I never knew that season alluded to, Jer. ii. 2. Rev. ii. 4. usually called the time of the first love. Who would not expect to hear, that, after such a wonderful unhoped-for deliverance, as I had received, and, after my eyes were in some measure enlightened to see things aright, I should immediately cleave to the Lord and his ways, with full purpose of heart, and consult no more with flesh and blood! But, alas! it was far otherwise with me: I had learned to pray; I set some value upon the word of God, and was no longer a libertine; but my soul still cleaved to the dust. Soon after my departure from L, I began to intermit, and grow slack in waiting finite, interposed in my behalf. My business When going on shore, or returning from it, in their little canoes, I have been more than once or twice overset by the violence of the surf, or break of the sea, and brought to land half dead (for I could not swim.) An account of such escapes as I still remember, would swell to several sheets, and many more I have perhaps forgot; I shall only select one instance, as a specimen of that wonderful providence which watched over me for good, and which, I doubt not, you will think worthy of notice. resolves, but cast myself before the Lord, to do | boats in the same time were cut off; several with me as he should please. I do not re- white men poisoned, and, in my own boat, member that any particular text, or remark-I buried six or seven people with fevers. able discovery, was presented to my mind; but in general I was enabled to hope and believe in a crucified Saviour. The burden was removed from my conscience, and not only my peace, but my health was restored; I cannot say instantaneously, but I recovered from that hour; and so fast, that when I returned to the ship, two days afterwards, I was perfectly well before I got on board. And from that time, I trust, I have been delivered from the power and dominion of sin; though, as to the effects and conflicts of sin dwelling in me, I still" groan, being burdened." I now began again to wait upon the Lord; and though I have often grieved his Spirit, and foolishly wandered from him since, (when, alas! shall I be more wise?) yet his powerful grace has hitherto preserv-noon, with the sea breeze, procure my loaded me from such black declensions as this I have last recorded; and I humbly trust in his mercy and promises, that he will be my guide and guard to the end. When our trade was finished, and we were near sailing to the West Indies, the only remaining service I had to perform in the boat, was to assist in bringing the wood and water from the shore. We were then at Rio Cestors. I used to go into the river in the after ing in the evening, and return on board in the morning, with the land wind. Several of these little voyages I had made; but the boat was grown old, and almost unfit for use. My leisure hours in this voyage were This service likewise was almost completed. chiefly employed in learning the Latin lan- One day having dined on board, I was preguage, which I had now entirely forgot. This paring to return to the river, as formerly; I desire took place from an imitation I had had taken leave of the captain, received his seen of one of Horace's odes in a magazine. orders, was ready in the boat, and just goI began the attempt under the greatest dis- ing to put off, as we term it; that is, to let advantages possible; for I pitched upon a go our ropes and sail from the ship. In that poet, perhaps the most difficult of the poets, instant, the captain came up from the cabin, even Horace himself, for my first book. I and called me on board again. I went, exhad picked up an old English translation of pecting further orders; but he said he had him, which, with Castalio's Latin Bible, were "taken it in his head" (as he phrased it,) all my helps. I forgot a Dictionary; but I that I should remain that day in the ship, would not therefore give up my purpose. I and accordingly ordered another man to go had the edition in usum Delphini, and by in my room. I was surprised at this, as the comparing the Odes with the interpretation, boat had never been sent away without me and tracing the words, I could understand before; and asked him the reason. He could from one place to another, by the index, with give me no reason, but as above, that so he the assistance I could get from the Latin would have it. Accordingly, the boat went Bible; in this way, by dint of hard industry, without me, but returned no more. She sunk often waking when I might have slept, I that night in the river, and the person who made some progress before I returned, and had supplied my place was drowned. I was not only understood the sense and meaning much struck when we received news of of many Odes, and some of the Epistles, the event the next morning. The captain but began to relish the beauties of the com- himself, though quite a stranger to religion, position, and acquire a spice of what Mr. so far as to deny a particular providence, Law calls classical enthusiasm. And, indeed, could not help being affected; but he deby this means, I had Horace more ad un-clared, that he had no other reason for counguem than some who are masters of the Latin tongue; for my helps were so few, that I generally had the passage fixed in my memory, before I could fully understand its meaning. My business in the long-boat, during the eight months we were upon the coast, exposed me to innumerable dangers and perils, from burning suns, and chilling dews, winds, rains, and thunder-storms, in the open boat; and on shore, from long journeys through the woods, and the temper of the natives, who are, in many places, cruel, treacherous, and vatching opportunities for mischief. Several termanding me at that time, but that it LETTER XI. DEAR SIR,-A few days after I was thus wonderfully saved from an unforeseen danger, The satisfaction I have found in this union, you will suppose, has been greatly heightened by reflections on the former disagreeable contrasts I had passed through, and the views I have had of the singular mercy and providence of the Lord in bringing it to pass. If you please to look back to the beginning of my sixth letter, I doubt not but you will allow that few persons have known more, either of the misery or happiness, of which human life (as considered in itself) is capable. How easily, at a time of life when I was so little capable of judging (but a few months more than seventeen,) might my affections have been fixed where they could have met with no return, or where success would have been the heaviest disappointment. The long delay I met with was likewise a mercy; for, had I succeeded a year or two sooner, before the Lord was pleased to change my heart, we must have been mutually unhappy, even as to the present life. Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all my days. we sailed for Antigua, and from thence pro- | done; yet, through the over-ruling goodness ceeded to Charleston, in South Carolina. In of God, while I seemed abandoned to myself, this place there are many serious people; and blindly following my own passions, I but I knew not how to find them out. In- was guided, by a hand that I knew not, to deed, I was not aware of a difference; but the accomplishment of my wishes. Every supposed that all who attended public wor- obstacle was now removed. I had renounced ship were good christians. I was as much my former follies, my interest was establishin the dark about preaching, not doubting but ed, and friends on all sides consenting, the whatever came from the pulpit must be very point was now entirely between ourselves, good. I had two or three opportunities of and after what had passed, was easily conhearing a dissenting minister, named Smith, cluded. Accordingly, our hands were joined who, by what I have known since, I believe on the first of February 1750. to have been an excellent and powerful preacher of the gospel; and there was something in his manner that struck me; but I did not rightly understand him. The best words that men can speak are ineffectual, till explained and applied by the Spirit of God, who alone can open the heart. It pleased the Lord for some time, that I should learn no more than what he enabled me to collect from my own experience and reflection. My conduct was now very inconsistent. Almost every day, when business would permit, I used to retire into the woods and fields (for these, when at hand, have always been my favourite oratories;) and I trust I began to taste the sweets of communion with God, in the exercises of prayer and praise, and yet I frequently spent the evening in vain and worthless company. Indeed, my relish for worldly diversions was much weakened, and I was rather a spectator than a sharer in their pleasures; but I did not as yet see the necessity of an absolute forbearance. Yet, as my compliance with custom and company was chiefly owing to want of light, rather than to an obstinate attachment, and the Lord was pleased to preserve me from what I knew was sinful, I had, for the most part, peace of conscience, and my strongest desires were towards the things of God. As yet I knew not the force of that precept, "Abstain from all appearance of evil," but very often ventured upon the brink of temptation; but the Lord was gracious to my weakness, and would not suffer the enemy to prevail against me. I did not break with the world at once (as might, in my case, have been expected,) but I was gradually led to see the inconvenience and folly of one thing after another, and, when I saw it, the Lord strengthened me to give it up. But it was some years before I was set quite at liberty from occasional compliance in many things in which, at this time, I dare by no means allow myself. We finished our voyage, and arrived in L. When the ship's affairs were settled, I went to London, and from thence (as you may suppose) I soon repaired to Kent. More than seven years were now elapsed since my first visit. No views of the kind could seem more chimerical, or could subsist under great discouragements, than mine had But alas! I soon began to feel that my heart was still hard and ungrateful to the God of my life. This crowning mercy, which raised me to all I could ask or wish in a temporal view, and which ought to have been an animating motive to obedience and praise, had a contrary effect. I rested in the gift, and forgot the giver. My poor narrow heart was satisfied. A cold and careless frame, as to spiritual things, took place, and gained ground daily. Happy for me, the season was advancing, and in June I received orders to repair to IThis roused me from my dream. I need not tell you, that I found the pains of absence and separation fully proportioned to my preceding pleasure. It was hard, very hard, to part, especially as conscience interfered, and sug gested to me how little I deserved that we should be spared to meet again. But the Lord supported me. I was a poor faint idolatrous creature; but I had now some acquaintance with the way of access to a throne of grace, by the blood of Jesus, and peace was soon restored to my conscience. Yet, through all the following voyage, my irregular and excessive affections were as thorns in my eyes, and often made my other blessings tasteless and insipid. But He, who doth all things well, over-ruled this likewise for good. It couraged; here and there I found a few lines became an occasion of quickening me in quite obstinate, and was forced to break in prayer, both for her and myself; it increased upon my rule, and gave them up, especially my indifference for company and amusement; as my edition had only the text, without any it habituated me to a kind of voluntary self- notes to assist me. But there were not denial, which I was afterwards taught to many such; for, before the close of that voyimprove to a better purpose. age, I could (with a few exceptions) read While I remained in England, we corres- Livy from end to end, almost as readily as ponded every post; and all the while I used an English author. And I found, in surthe sea afterwards, I constantly kept up the mounting this difficulty, I had surmounted practice of writing two or three times a week all in one. Other prose authors, when they (if weather and business permitted,) though came in my way, cost me little trouble. In no conveyance homeward offered for six or short, in the space of two or three voyages, eight months together. My packets were I became tolerably acquainted with the best usually heavy; and as not one of them at classics (I put all I have to say upon this any time miscarried, I have to the amount subject together;) I read Terence, Virgil, of nearly two hundred sheets of paper now and several pieces of Cicero, and the modern lying in my bureau of that correspondence. classics, Buchanan, Erasmus, and Cassimir. I mention this little relief I had contrived to At length I conceived a design of becoming soften the intervals of absence, because it Ciceronian myself, and thought it would be had a good effect beyond my first intention. a fine thing indeed to write pure and elegant It habituated me to think and write upon a Latin. I made some essays towards it, but great variety of subjects; and I acquired, in- by this time, the Lord was pleased to draw sensibly, a greater readiness of expressing me nearer to himself, and to give me a fuller myself, than I should have otherwise attain- view of the "pearl of great price," the ed. As I gained more ground in religious inestimable treasure hid in the field of the knowledge, my letters became more serious, holy scriptures; and, for the sake of this, I and, at times, I still find an advantage in was made willing to part with all my newly looking them over, especially as they remind acquired riches. I began to think that life me of many providential incidents, and the was too short (especially my life) to admit state of my mind at different periods in these of leisure for such elaborate trifling. Neither voyages, which would otherwise have esca-poet nor historian could tell me a word of Jesus, and I therefore applied myself to those ped my memory. Some passages in Horace and Virgil I still admire, but they seldom come in my way. I prefer Buchanan's Psalms to a whole shelf of Elzevirs. But thus much I have gained, and more than this I am not solicitous about, so much of the Latin as enables me to read any useful or curious book that is published in that language. About the same time, and for the same reason that I quarrelled with Livy, I laid aside the mathematics. I found Having now much leisure, I prosecuted they not only cost me much time, but enthe study of the Latin with good success. I grossed my thoughts too far: my head was remembered a dictionary this voyage, and literally full of schemes. I was weary of procured two or three other books; but still cold contemplative truths, which can neither it was my hap to choose the hardest. I ad- warm nor amend the heart, but rather tend ded Juvenal to Horace; and, for prose au- to aggrandize self. I found no traces of this thors, I pitched upon Livy, Cæsar, and Sal- wisdom in the life of Jesus, or the writings lust. You will easily conceive, Sir, that I of Paul. I do not regret that I have had had hard work to begin (where I should some opportunities of knowing the first prinhave left off) with Horace and Livy. I was ciples of these things; but I see much cause not aware of the difference of style; I had to praise the Lord, that he inclined me to heard Livy highly commended, and was re-stop in time; and that whilst I was "spendsolved to understand him. I began with the first page, and laid down a rule, which I seldom departed from, not to proceed to a second period till I understood the first, and so on. I was often at a stand, but seldom dis ing my labour for that which is not bread," he was pleased to set before me "wine and milk, without money and without price." My first voyage was fourteen months, through various scenes of danger and dif culty, but nothing very remarkable; and as still more so in African voyages, as these I intend to be more particular with regard to ships carry a double proportion of men and offithe second, I shall only say that I was pre-cers to most others, which made my departserved from every harm; and having seen many fall on my right hand and on my left, I was brought home in peace, and restored to where my thoughts had been often directed, November 2, 1751.-I am, your's, &c. January 22, 1763. LETTER XII. DEAR SIR,-I almost wish I could recall my last sheet, and retract my promise. I fear I have engaged too far, and shall prove a mere egotist. What have I more that can deserve your notice? However, it is some satisfaction that I am now writing to yourself only; and I believe, you will have candour to excuse, what nothing but a sense of your kindness could extort from me. ment very easy; and, excepting the hurry of trade, &c. upon the coast, which is rather occasional than constant, afforded me abundance of leisure. To be at sea in these circumstances, withdrawn out of the reach of innumerable temptations, with opportunity and a turn of mind disposed to observe the wonders of God in the great deep, with the two noblest objects of sight, the expanded heavens, and the expanded ocean, continually in view; and where evident interpositions of Divine Providence, in answer to prayer, occur almost every day; these are helps to quicken and confirm the life of faith, which, in a good measure, supply to a religious sailor the want of those advantages which can be only enjoyed upon the shore. And, indeed, though my knowledge of spiritual things (as knowledge is usually estimated) was, at this time, very small, yet I sometimes look back with regret upon those scenes. I never knew sweeter or more frequent hours of divine communion than in my two last voyages to Guinea, when I was either almost secluded from society on ship-board, or when on shore among the natives. I have wandered through the woods, reflecting on the singular goodness of the Lord to me, in a place where, perhaps, there was not a person who knew him for some thousand miles round me. Many a time, upon these occasions, I have restored the beautiful lines of Propertius to the right owner; lines full of blasphemy and madness, when addressed to a creature, but full of comfort and propriety in the mouth As of a believer. Soon after the period where my last closes, that is, in the interval between my first and second voyage after my marriage, I began to keep a sort of diary, a practice which I have found of great use. I had, in this interval, repeated proofs of the ingratitude and evil of my heart. A life of ease, in the midst of my friends, and a full satisfaction of my wishes, was not favourable to the progress of grace, and afforded cause of daily humiliation. Yet, upon the whole, I gained ground. I became acquainted with books, which gave me a further view of christian doctrine and experience, particularly Scougal's Life of God in the Soul of Man, Hervey's Meditations, and the Life of Colonel Gardiner. to preaching, I heard none but of the common sort, and had hardly an idea of any better; neither had I the advantage of christian acquaintance; I was likewise greatly hindered by a cowardly reserved spirit; I was afraid of being thought precise; and, though I could not live without prayer, I durst not propose it, even to my wife, till she herself first put me upon it; So far was I from those expressions of zeal and love, which seemed so suitable to the case of one who has had much forgiven. In a few months the returning season called me abroad again, and I sailed from Lship, July 1752. in a new A sea-faring life is necessarily excluded from the benefit of public ordinances and christian communion; but, as I have observed, my loss upon these heads was at this time but small. In other respects, I know not any calling that seems more favourable, or affords greater advantages to an awakened mind, for promoting the life of God in the soul, especially to a person who has the command of a ship, and thereby has it in his power to restrain gross irregularities in others, and to dispose of his own time; and Sic ego desertis possim bene vivere sylvis Quo nulla humano sit via trita pede; PARAPHRASED. In desert woods with thee, my God, How happy could I be ! In solitude my company. In the course of this voyage, I was wonderfully preserved in the midst of many obvious unforeseen dangers. At one time there was a conspiracy amongst my own people to turn pirates, and take the ship from me. When the plot was nearly ripe, and they only waited a convenient opportunity, two of those concerned in it were taken ill one day; one of them died, and he was the only person I buried while on board. This suspended the affair, and opened the way to its discovery, or the consequence might have been fatal. The slaves on board were likewise frequently plotting insurrections, and were sometimes |