“’In the time of trouble, he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.”  Psalm 27:5.

“’The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped, therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; with my song I will praise him,’ and in his strength and by his grace, let my ‘moderation be known unto all men.’  My Lord is at hand—­at hand to support, at hand to overrule, at hand to deliver.  Therefore I rejoice always.

“Blessed be God for the heart-easing, heart-soothing privilege of casting all my cares upon him, and for the blessed assurance that he careth for me and mine:  that he allows, invites, yea, commands me to be careful for nothing, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, to let my requests be made known unto him, who is man, and touched with the feeling of our infirmities—­Jesus wept—­and God, the almighty God, to support, overrule, deliver.  Therefore my heart rejoiceth always.”

“MAY 16, 1796.

“’If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments, if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes:  nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail; my covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.’  Psalm 89:  30.  Amen; blessed promise.  Oh, it is a well-ordered covenant, and it is sure.  Of all the provisions of the covenant, this has been to my soul among the most comfortable.  Thanks be to God for the discipline of the covenant; often has it been administered:  thou knowest, and I know in part, how necessarily, although I shall not know nor understand all, until that blessed rod shall have perfected its correction, and shall never more be lifted up.

“Many ups and downs has thy servant experienced in this vale of tears; many tears have watered these now aged cheeks; in a variety of ways hast thou stricken, and at times stripe has followed stripe, but mercy and love accompanied every one of them.  I bless thee, Oh, I praise thee, that I have seldom received a stripe but I had with it a token of love.  Sin was imbittered, a Saviour endeared, and grace given to kiss the rod, and cleave to him that had appointed it.  And now I can read in legible characters where, in many instances, thy check met my wandering steps, stopt me short of huge precipices, and preserved me from destroying even my worldly comfort.  In some instances—­I thank thee they have not been many—­thou hast been pleased to let me alone, to let me pursue my own way, ways so wise in my own eyes that I have either not sought counsel at all, or sought it as Balaam did, with my heart set on my own will.

“In some cases thou hast let me eat of the fruit of my own doings, and let me weary myself in my own way, until I found it not only vanity and vexation of spirit, but sometimes a labyrinth from which I could find no escape:  then did I cry unto the Lord; then did I remember my backslidings; then did I seek unto the cleansing fountain and to the appointed Mediator, the maker up of the breach:  then did I experience afresh the Lord’s power to save.