“’Firm was my health, my day was bright,
  And I presumed ’t would ne’er be night,
  Fondly I said within my heart,
  Pleasure and peace shall ne’er depart,
  But I forgot, thine arm was strong,
  Which made my mountain stand so long;
  Soon as thy face began to hide,
  My health was gone, my comforts died.’

And here,” adds he, “lies my sin and my folly.”

I mention this, that the whole matter may be seen just as it was, and that other Christians may not be discouraged if they feel some abatement of that fervour, and of those holy joys which they may have experienced during some of the first months or years of their spiritual life.  But, with relation to the colonel, I have great reason to believe that those which he laments as his days of spiritual deadness were not unanimated; and that quickly after the date of this letter, and especially nearer the close of his life, he had further revivings, as the joyful anticipation in reserve of those better things which were then nearly approaching.  And thus Mr. Spears, in the letter I mentioned above, tells us he related the matter to him, (for he studies as much as possible to retain the colonel’s own words):  “However,” says he, “after that happy period of sensible communion, though my joys and enlargements were not so overflowing and sensible, yet I have had habitual real communion with God from that day to this”—­the latter end of the year 1743—­“and I know myself, and all that know me see, that through the grace of God, to which I ascribe all, my conversation has been becoming the gospel; and let me die whenever it shall please God, or wherever it shall be, I am sure I shall go to the mansions of eternal glory,” &c.  This is perfectly agreeable to the manner in which he used to speak to me on this head, which we have talked over frequently and largely.

In this connection I hope my reader will forgive my inserting a little story which I received from a very worthy minister in Scotland, and which I shall give in his own words:  “In this period,” meaning that which followed the first seven years after his conversion, “when his complaint of comparative deadness and languor in religion began, he had a dream, which, though he had no turn at all for taking notice of dreams, yet made a very strong impression upon his mind.  He imagined he saw his blessed Redeemer on earth, and that he was following him through a large field, following him whom his soul loved, but much troubled, because he thought his blessed Lord did not speak to him, till he came up to the gate of a burying-place, when, turning about, he smiled upon him in such a manner as filled his soul with the most ravishing joy, and on after reflection animated his faith in believing that whatever storms and darkness he might meet with in the way, at the hour of death his glorious Redeemer would lift up upon him the light of his life-giving countenance.”  My correspondent adds a circumstance for which he makes some apology, as what may seem whimsical, and yet made some impression on the colonel,—­“that there was a remarkable resemblance in the field in which this brave man met his death, and that he had represented to him in the dream.”  I did not fully understand this at first; but a passage in that letter from Mr. Spears, which I have mentioned more than once, has cleared it: