“AUGUST 13, 1796.

“’As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.’  Colossians 2:6.

“O Lord, this is what I pant after.  I would fain have done with wandering, Lord, thou knowest, for the work is thine.  I have received the Lord Jesus as thy gift to a lost world, as thy gift to me an individual of that world, as having made peace by the blood of the cross.  I account it a faithful saying, worthy of all acceptation, that ’Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief,’ I have received thee as the Lord my righteousness, crediting thy own word, that ’Christ is the end of the law for righteousness,’ and that ’there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.’  I have received thee as ’the covenant given of the people.’  In all the relations by which thou art held out to me in this Bible, so far as I know or understand, I have received thee.  I have no hope in myself, no trust in myself, nor any views of communication from God of any kind, but through the one ’mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.’

“O my God, what is my life, what is my happiness but a continual receiving?  Thou art ‘the bread of life’ that must keep alive the living principle in my soul.  In thee ’dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.’  Thy people are complete in thee; thou art their head, they are thy body, and by joints and bands have nourishment ministered to them, and are knit together, and increase with the increase of God.

“This, O this is what my soul pants after, closer and more intimate union and communion.  I would be transformed into thine image; I would be thy temple; I would have thee live in me, walk in me, make me one with thee; I would be delivered from self-will, self-wisdom, self-seeking; I would be delivered from that philosophy and vain deceit which spoils souls and leads them off from their head:  then, and not till then, shall I cease to wander, shall ’run and not be weary, walk and not faint.’  Then shall ’I run in the way of thy commandments,’ and no longer turn aside to crooked ways.  Then shall I eat and drink, work and recreate, all to thy glory.  Lord, send thy Spirit into my heart, that he may continually take of the things of Christ and show them unto me; that I may grow and be no longer a babe, but arrive at the fulness of stature in Christ Jesus, and more steadily, and more purely, and more zealously, and O, more humbly live to God, and glorify him in the world.  Amen.”

The following extracts of letters to her friend Mrs. Walker, show how ardently the true missionary spirit burned in the heart of Mrs. Graham, and how efficiently it was exemplified, not only in her pecuniary donations, but her active and self-denying efforts to diffuse information and enlist others in so worthy a cause.  The efforts alluded to in the first extract evidently gave rise to the event recorded in the second, the formation of the first Missionary Society in New York. It is delightful also to notice her attachment to Christians of other denominations, and the gratitude with which she remembered kindness received by herself when Providence had cast her lot on what was truly missionary ground.