“’I will pour water on the thirsty, and floods on the parched ground.  I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thy offspring.’  Amen.  I yield my soul into thy hand, dry and parched, to receive thy showers of reviving, quickening, fructifying grace.”

Writing about this date to her beloved friend Mrs. O——­ of Edinburgh, Mrs. Graham, for the encouragement of her friend, gives her, in confidence, the following record of her own Christian experience: 

“It is now.  I think, thirty-five years since I simply, but solemnly, accepted of the Lord’s Christ, as God’s gift to a lost world.  I rolled my condemned, perishing, corrupted soul upon this Jesus, exhibited in the gospel as a Saviour from sin.  My views then were dark compared with what they now are:  but this I remember, that at the time I felt heart-satisfying trust in the mercy of God, as the purchase of Christ; and for a time rejoiced with joy scarce supportable, singing almost continually the 103d Psalm.

“I took a view of the promises of God, and wrote out many of them, and called them mine; and among the foremost was that in Psalm 89:30-33; and well has the Lord kept me to it, and made it good:  for, my dear friend, never was there a more unsteady, unwatchful Christian; never did the children of Israel’s conduct in the wilderness depict any Christian’s heart and conduct in the gospel times better than mine; and just so has the Lord dealt with me.  When he slew me, then I trusted in him; when he gave me carnal ease and comfort, I forgot my Rock and rebelled.  Often did I stumble too from legality, instead of looking at my own weakness and impotence, and trusting wholly in my Redeemer’s strength.  I was wroth with myself, wondered at myself, and thought it impossible I could be as I had been.  I made strong resolutions, yea, vows, and became a slave in means to hedge in this wandering, worldly, vain, flighty heart; but, alas, a few months found me where I was, with scarce a thought of God from morning to night; prayer huddled over in words that had no effect on my heart; and the fear of hell the chief restraint from sin or spur to duty.  Then, in general, the Lord had some affliction for me, which laid me afresh at his feet, and made me take a fresh grasp of Christ, and a fresh view of his covenant:  then again I felt safety, joy, peace, and happiness.

“Thus, by line upon line, by precept upon precept, aye, and by stripe upon stripe, he taught me that I could not walk a moment alone.  This is now my fixed faith; and in proportion as I keep it in sight, I walk safely; but I still forget, and still stumble and still fall; but I am lifted up and taught lesson after lesson; and I shall stumble and shall fall while sin is in me; but the last stumble shall come, and the last stripe shall be laid on, and the last lesson taught, and that which concerns me shall be perfected.  O, then shall I look back, and see ’all the way by which he has led me, to prove me and try me, and show me what was in my heart, that he might do me good in my latter end.’