“I cannot at this distance, and knowing nothing of characters, offer you any advice with respect to outward means; but if you know any truly pious, spiritual minister, I should think it your duty to lay open your mind to him.  You may find in books matter as good as any man living can speak; but it is the Lord’s appointed way, and he often honors his servants, his ministers, by making them messengers of peace and comfort to his children.  ’Are any sick, let them call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over them.’  See how the Christians of old associated with one another.  I am now doubly yours, etc.,

“I.G.”

“APRIL 14, 1797.

“Eternity seems very near.  I have often thought so without any visible cause.  Well, it will come; a few more rolling years, months, weeks, or days will assuredly land me on Canaan’s happy shore.  Then shall I know and enjoy what ear hath not heard, eye seen, nor heart conceived, even the blessedness that is at God’s right hand.  I have desired, though I know not that I have asked, to glorify God on my death-bed, and to leave my testimony at the threshold of eternity, that not one word of all that my God has promised has failed.  He has been—­O what has he not been?—­in all my trials, all my afflictions, all my temptations, all my wanderings, all my backslidings, he has been all that the well-ordered covenant has said.  Let this Bible tell what God in Christ, by his Spirit and his providence, has been to me; and let the same Bible say what he will be to me ’when flesh and heart fails;’ yea, when ‘the place that now knows me shall know me no more.’  Perhaps when the messenger does come I shall not know him, but depart in silence.  Well, as the Lord wills; he knows best how to glorify himself.  Jesus shall trim my lamp and perfect his image on my soul, sensible or insensible.  I shall enter into his presence, washed in his blood, clothed in his righteousness, and my sanctification perfected.  I shall ‘see him as he is,’ and be like him.

“Mourn not, my children, but rejoice; gird up the loins of your mind,’ and set forward on your heavenly journey through this wilderness.  So far as I have followed Christ, so far follow my example; still living on Christ, depending on him for all that is promised in the well-ordered covenant.  O stumble not into the world except when duty calls; at best it is a deadly weight, a great hinderance to spiritual-mindedness, and in as far as it gets a footing in your heart, it will not only mar your progress, but your comfort.  Lord, feed my children constantly with ‘thy flesh and thy blood,’ that they may never hunger nor thirst for this world, but grow in the divine life, and in the joy and comfort of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.”

“OCTOBER 20, 1797.