“Sweet health again returns, which, considering the agitation of my mind, surprises me; but it is the Lord’s pleasure.  I did not wish to recover.  I was in hopes the Lord was about to deliver me from ’this body of sin and death.’  Lord, reconcile me to thy most holy will.  Health is certainly a great blessing.  I feel its sweetness.  O make me thankful.  Great and numerous are my mercies.  Every thing pleasant and every thing necessary to life, to godliness, is mine:  food and raiment to the utmost desires of nature; the beauties of thy fair creation surround my ordinary dwelling; my dear little room, my Bible, and books of every virtuous kind—­by grace, thy chief mercy, I desire no other—­and by the kindness of my children, I possess all as if they were my own personal property.  By thy wonderful loving-kindness, thou hast given me, instead of the contempt which I have merited, the love and esteem of thy people, and thou hast made the very stones of the field to be at peace with me, so that wherever I go I meet with kindness.”

To Mrs. Marshall.

“NEW YORK, October, 1809.

“I find your letter dated ’Elderslie’—­the very name gives a thrill to my old heart; in a moment the various scenes of my youthful days rise before me—­the old mansion itself, and all its beloved inmates, every one of whom have now crossed the Jordan of death, leaving me a solitary wanderer in this weary wilderness.  Ah, I can at this moment think of spots, by the burnside and the braeside, endeared to my heart by a thousand tender associations.  There have I wandered with my beloved, idolized husband, and there has he delighted my heart with professions of love.  These were indeed moments of ecstasy; but hush, there are you a widow with very, very different sensations, and here am I a widow with sensations equally different.  The Lord has showed us many and sore adversities, but he will bring us up from the deeps below; we are much nearer our Father’s house, and I hope proportionably riper for those joys which are at his right hand; and although your letter has brought some pleasing recollections to my mind—­days of love and courtship, days, some of solitude, some of disappointment, some of ecstasy—­yet I find they were all days of idolatry, therefore to be mourned over, not retasted, reenjoyed with delight.  No, no; Father, forgive me.”

CHAPTER X.

NEW YORK BIBLE SOCIETY—­ASSOCIATIONS FOR
PRAYER—­HAPPY OLD AGE—­LETTERS.

“In December, 1809, a Bible Society was organized in New York, and about the same time twenty respectable persons united in a society, to wait on the Lord, to know what their hands could find to do to promote his glory, to advance his kingdom, to spread the savor of the Redeemer’s name, or in any way to benefit the souls of their fellow-sinners.