“I will no longer mourn over loss of memory; I think the Lord has more than made it up to me by his sensible presence while hearing and applying the sermon to my heart at the time; not only so, he enlightens my understanding; it opens more to the elucidations of my pastor; and though I forget the words and the order of his discourses, I am instructed in the knowledge of the subject and the Scriptures in general.  Shall I deny the grace of God through fear or pride?  I see it not to be my duty.  Can I attribute any thing to myself?  No; shame and confusion of face belong to me, for my carelessness and idleness in the use of means during health and strength of body and mind.  Never has God dealt with me as I sinned, but according to his own mercy, and in a way of great sovereignty.  Let me record his great goodness, his tender mercies, and bless his name.

“Old age is upon me, and some of its infirmities; my memory is much impaired, and my mind in temporal things and subjects becomes very desultory.  Not so in spirituals:  I think I not only hear and read with more intense attention and prompt application, but my mind is more disposed to meditation; and though I cannot remember much of the sermons I hear, yet my mind is often furnished with happy and profitable thoughts on the same subjects; and I find myself instructed without remembering the instructions.  This is evidently from the Lord.  It appears to me also that I have not lost the sensibility of youth.  I often shed tears, not only of compunction, but of gratitude.  I seldom commune without tears.  I think much of death; am solemnized, but not afraid.

“As far as I know, my confidence rests upon a surety-righteousness, exclusive of every thing in myself.  I am not conscious of self-righteousness; I have no complacency in any thing ever done by me.  I not only believe that in all things I come short, and that sin is mixed in all I do, because God hath said so, but am sensible of the particular depravity.  It is my sincere desire to be stript of every thing that is mine—­sins and duties laid in one heap—­and to be clothed in the surety-righteousness of my Redeemer; all that is mine put to his account, and all that he did and suffered, as the Mediator and surety of the covenant, to mine.

“I am afflicted with rheumatism, but God gives me patience, disposes me to enumerate my many remaining mercies—­eyes to read his word and ears to hear it preached; hitherto such moderation of pain as very often to be able to attend with fixedness.  I have my room at my own command, candle, fire, and attendance; and O, bless the Lord, my soul, much of his sensible presence.  In the night when my aches prevent me from sleeping, he gives me some sweet hymn; I sing, my pain is diverted, while my heart is melted and warmed under the expressions, and I often drop asleep with the words on my tongue.