The colonel, immediately after the conclusion of the service, met me in the vestry and embraced me in the most obliging and affectionate manner, as if there had been a long friendship between us, assured me that he had for some years been intimately acquainted with my writings, and desired that we might concert measures for spending some hours together before I left the town.  I was so happy as to be able to secure an opportunity of doing it; and I must leave upon record, that I cannot recollect I was ever equally edified by any conversation I remember to have enjoyed.  We passed that evening and the next morning together, and it is impossible for me to describe the impression which the interview left upon my heart.  I rode alone all the remainder of the day; and it was my unspeakable happiness that I was alone, since I could no longer be with him; for I can hardly conceive what other company would not then have been an encumbrance.  The views which he gave me even then, (for he began to repose a most obliging confidence in me, though he concealed some of the most extraordinary circumstances of the methods by which he had been recovered to God and happiness,) with those cordial sentiments of evangelical piety and extensive goodness which he poured out into my bosom with so endearing a freedom, fired my very soul; and I hope I may truly say (which I wish and pray that many of my readers may also adopt for themselves) that I glorified God in him.  Our epistolatory correspondence immediately commenced upon my return; and though, through the multiplicity of business on both sides, it suffered many interruptions, it was in some degree the blessing of all the following years of my life, till he fell by those unreasonable and wicked men who had it in their hearts with him to have destroyed all our glory, defence, and happiness.

The first letter I received from him was so remarkable, that some persons of eminent piety, to whom I communicated it, would not be content without copying it out, or making some extracts from it.  I persuade myself that my devout reader will not be displeased that I insert the greater part of it here, especially as it serves to illustrate the affectionate sense which he had of the divine goodness in his conversion, though more than twenty years had passed since that memorable event happened.  Having already mentioned my ever dear and honoured friend Dr. Isaac Watts, he adds: 

“I have been in pain these several years lest that excellent person, that sweet singer in our Israel, should have been called to heaven before I had an opportunity of letting him know how much his works have been blessed to me, and, of course, returning him my hearty thanks; for though it is owing to the operation of the blessed Spirit, that any thing works effectually upon our hearts, yet if we are not thankful to the instrument which God is pleased to make use of, whom we do see, how shall we be thankful to the Almighty, whom we have not seen?  I desire to bless