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Our society will not break up, but we shall settle in some other place; where, is at present uncertain.*- Yours,

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REMOVAL TO OLNEY WANT OF NEWS REFLECTIONS ON A VISIT TO
ST ALBANS.

OLNEY, June 16, 1768.

DEAR JOE, —I thank you for so full an answer to so empty an epistle. If Olney furnished any thing for your amusement, you should have it in return; but occurrences here are as scarce as cucumbers at Christmas.

I visited St Albans about a fortnight since in person, and I visit it every day in thought. The recollection of what passed there, and the consequences that followed it, fill my mind continually, and make the circumstances of a poor transient half-spent life so insipid and unaffecting, that I have no heart to think or write much about them. Whether the nation is worshipping Mr Wilkes † or any other idol, is of little moment to one who hopes and believes that he shall shortly stand in the presence of the great and blessed God. I thank him, that he has given me such a deep impressed persuasion of this awful truth, as a thousand worlds would not purchase from me. It gives a relish to every blessing, and makes every trouble light. Affectionately yours,

W. C.

27. TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.

DIFFERENCE OF DISPOSITIONS HIS OWN LOVE OF RETIREMENT-DECLINES
AN INVITATION TO LEAVE OLNEY.

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1769.

DEAR JOE, Sir Thomas crosses the Alps, and Sir Cowper, for that is his title at Olney, prefers his home to any other spot of earth in the world. Horace, observing this difference of temper in different persons, cried out a good

* On the 14th of October following, Cowper and his friends, the Unwins, settled in the town of Olney, in Buckinghamshire, of which the Reverend Mr Newton was rector.

+ John Wilkes, "the parliament man," was born in London, 1717, and died 1796. He was at this time in the zenith of his popularity. Sir Thomas Hesketh.

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many years ago, in the true spirit of poetry, "How much one man differs from another!" This does not seem a very sublime exclamation in English, but I remember we were taught to admire it in the original.

My dear friend, I am obliged to you for your invitation: but being long accustomed to retirement, which I was always fond of, I am now more than ever unwilling to revisit these noisy and crowded scenes which I never loved, and which I now abhor. I remember you with all the friendship I ever professed, which is as much as I ever entertained for any man. But the strange and uncommon incidents of my life have given an entire new turn to my whole character and conduct, and rendered me incapable of receiving pleasure from the same employments and amusements of which I could readily partake in former days.

I love you and yours, I thank you for your continued remembrance of me, and shall not cease to be their and your affectionate friend and servant, W. C.

28. -TO MRS COWPER.

HAPPINESS IN RELIGION INSUFFICIENCY OF THE WORLD.

MY DEAR COUSIN, I have not been behind hand in reproaching myself with neglect, but desire to take shame to myself for my unprofitableness in this, as well as in all other respects. I take the next immediate opportunity, however, of thanking you for yours, and of assuring you, that instead of being surprised at your silence, I rather wonder that you, or any of my friends, have any room left for so careless and negligent a correspondent in your memories. I am obliged to you for the intelligence you send me of my kindred, and rejoice to hear of their welfare. He who settles the bounds of our habitations has at length cast our lot at a great distance from each other; but I do not therefore forget their former kindness to me, or cease to be interested in their well being. You live in the centre of a world I know you do not delight in. Happy are you, my dear friend, in being able to discern the insufficiency of all it can afford to fill and satisfy the desires of an immortal soul. That God who created us for the enjoyment of himself has determined in mercy that it shall fail us here, in order that the blessed result of all our inquiries after happiness in the creature may be a warm pursuit and a close attachment to our true interests, in fellowship and

communion with Him, through the name and mediation of a dear Redeemer. I bless his goodness and grace, that I have any reason to hope I am a partaker with you in the desire after better things, than are to be found in a world polluted with sin, and therefore devoted to destruction. May he enable us both to consider our present life in its only true light, as an opportunity put into our hands to glorify him amongst men, by a conduct suited to his word and will. I am miserably defective in this holy and blessed art, but I hope there is at the bottom of all my sinful infirmities, a sincere desire to live just so long as I may be enabled, in some poor measure, to answer the end of my existence in this respect, and then to obey the summons, and attend him in a world where they who are his servants here shall pay him an unsinful obedience for ever. Your dear mother is too good to me, and puts a more charitable construction upon my silence than the fact will warrant. I am not better employed than I should be in corresponding with her. I have that within which hinders me wretchedly in every thing that I ought to do, but is prone to trifle, and let time and every good thing run to waste. I hope, however, to write to her soon.

My love and best wishes attend Mr Cowper, and all that inquire after me. May God be with you, to bless you, and do you good by all his dispensations; don't forget me when you are speaking to our best Friend before his mercy - Yours ever, W. C.

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CONSOLATIONS OF RELIGION ON THE DEATH OF HER HUSBAND.

OLNEY, August 31, 1769.

MY DEAR COUSIN, -A letter from your brother Frederic brought me yesterday the most afflicting intelligence that has reached me these many years. I pray to God to comfort you, and to enable you to sustain this heavy stroke with that resignation to his will, which none but himself can give, and which he gives to none but his own children. How blessed and happy is your lot, my dear friend, beyond the common lot of the greater part of mankind, that you know what it is to draw near to God in prayer, and are acquainted with a throne of grace! You have resources in the infinite love of a dear Redeemer, which are withheld from millions; and the promises

of God, which are yea and amen in Jesus, are sufficient to answer all your necessities, and to sweeten the bitterest cup which your heavenly Father will ever put into your hand. May he now give you liberty to drink at these wells of salvation, till you are filled with consolation and peace in the midst of trouble! He has said, "When thou passest through the fire I will be with thee, and when through the floods, they shall not overflow thee." You have need of such a word as this, and he knows your need of it, and the time of necessity is the time when he will be sure to appear in behalf of those who trust in him. I bear you and yours upon my heart before him night and day, for I never expect to hear of distress which shall call upon me with a louder voice to pray for the sufferer. I know the Lord hears me for myself, vile and sinful as I am, and believe and am sure that he will hear me for you also. He is the friend of the widow, and the father of the fatherless, even God in his holy habitation; in all our afflictions he is afflicted, and he chastens us in mercy. Surely he will sanctify this dispensation to you, do you great and everlasting good by it, make the world appear like dust and vanity in your sight, as it truly is, and open to your view the glories of a better country, where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor pain, but God shall wipe away all tears from your eyes for ever. O that comfortable word! "I have chosen thee in the furnaces of affliction ;" so that our very sorrows are evidences of our calling, and he chastens us, because we are his children.

My dear cousin, I commit you to the word of his grace, and to the comforts of his Holy Spirit. Your life is needful for your family: may God in mercy to them prolong it, and may he preserve you from the dangerous effects which a stroke like this might have upon a frame so tender as yours. I grieve with you-I pray for you: could I do more, I would; but God must comfort you. Yours, in our dear Lord Jesus,

W. C.

30. TO MRS COWPER.

ILLNESS OF HIS BROTHER, JOHN COWPER.

My brother continues much as he was.

March 5, 1770. His case is a very

dangerous one. An imposthume of the liver, attended by an asthma and dropsy. The physician has little hope of his

recovery-I believe I might say none at all; only being a friend he does not formally give him over, by ceasing to visit him, lest it should sink his spirits. For my own part, I have no expectation of his recovery, except by a signal interposition of Providence in answer to prayer. His case is clearly out of the reach of medicine; but I have seen many a sickness healed, where the danger has been equally threatening, by the only Physician of value. I doubt not he will have an interest in your prayers, as he has in the prayers of many. May the Lord incline his ear, and give an answer of peace! I know it is good to be afflicted. I trust that you have found it so, and that, under the teaching of God's own Spirit, we shall both be purified. It is the desire of my soul to seek a better country, where God shall wipe away all tears from the eyes of his people; and where, looking back upon the ways by which he has led us, we shall be filled with everlasting wonder, love, and praise. I must add no more.Yours ever,

31. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.*

W. C.

DEMISE OF HIS BROTHER HIS STATE, AND DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES, on the APPROACH OF DEATH.

March 31, 1770.

MY DEAR FRIEND,—I am glad that the Lord made you a fellow-labourer with us in praying my dear brother out of darkness into light. It was a blessed work; and when it shall be your turn to die in the Lord, and to rest from all your labours, that work shall follow you. I once entertained hopes of his recovery from the moment when it pleased God to give him light in his soul, there was, for four days, such a visible amendment in his body as surprised us all. Dr Glynn himself was puzzled, and began to think that all his threatening conjectures would fail of their accomplishment. I am well

* This being the first letter in the correspondence with Newton, it may be proper to state some particulars of a character extraordinary in itself, and so intimately connected with our subject. John Newton was born in London in 1725; went to sea in the merchant and slave trade; lived a most profane life; became reformed, entered the church, and embraced the tenets of rigid Calvinism, so far as these can be reconciled with the doctrines and discipline of Episcopacy. Being first appointed Rector at Olney, he was thence translated to St Mary Woolnoth, in London, where he died in 1807. His writings are, Autobiography, Cardiphonia, Omicron's Letters, Hymns, and Sermons; but his intimacy with Cowper will prove his best passport to fame.

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