to run the way of God’s commandments.  Thus God was pleased (as he himself used to speak) in an hour to turn his captivity.  All the terrors of his former state were changed into unutterable joy, which kept him almost continually waking for three nights together, and yet refreshed him as the noblest of cordials.  His expressions, though naturally very strong, always seemed to be swallowed up when he would describe the series of thought through which he now passed, under the rapturous experience of that joy unspeakable and full of glory, which then seemed to overflow his very soul, as indeed there was nothing he seemed to speak of with greater relish.  And though the first ecstasies of it afterwards subsided into a more calm and composed delight, yet were the impressions so deep and so permanent, that he assured me, on the word of a Christian and a friend, wonderful as it might seem, that, for about seven years after this, he enjoyed almost heaven upon earth.  His soul was so continually filled with a sense of the love of God in Christ, that it knew little interruption, but when necessary converse, and the duties of his station, called off his thoughts for a little time.  And when they did so, as soon as he was alone, the torrent returned into its natural channel again; so that, from the minute of awakening in the morning, his heart was raised to God, and triumphing in him; and these thoughts attended him through all the scenes of life, till he lay down on his bed again, and a short parenthesis of sleep (for it was but a very short one that he allowed himself) invigorated his animal powers, for renewing them with greater intenseness and sensibility.

I shall have an opportunity of illustrating this in the most convincing manner below, by extracts from several letters which he wrote to intimate friends during this happy period of time—­letters which breathe a spirit of such sublime and fervent piety as I have seldom met with any where else.  In these circumstances, it is no wonder that he was greatly delighted with Dr. Watts’s imitation of the 126th Psalm, since it may be questioned whether there ever was a person to whom the following stanzas of it were more suitable:—­

  When God revealed his gracious name,
  And changed my mournful state,
  My rapture seemed a pleasing dream,
  Thy grace appeared so great.

  The world beheld the glorious change,
  And did thine hand confess;
  My tongue broke out in unknown strains,
  And sung surprising grace.

  “Great is the work,” my neighbours cried,
  And owned the power divine: 
  “Great is the work,” my heart replied,
  “And be the glory thine.”

  The Lord can change the darkest skies,
  Can give us day for night,
  Make drops of sacred sorrow rise,
  To rivers of delight.

  Let those that sow in sadness, wait
  Till the fair harvest come! 
  They shall confess their sheaves are great,
  And shout the blessings home.