allow the Saviour no higher honour than that of an upper servant, or, at the most, a demi-god. I stood in need of an Almighty Saviour, and such a one I found described in the New Testament. Thus far the Lord had wrought a marvellous thing; I was no longer an infidel; I heartily renounced my former profaneness; I had taken up some right notions, was seriously disposed, and sincerely touched with a sense of the undeserved mercy I had received, in being brought safe through so many dangers. I was sorry for my past mis-spent life, and purposed an immediate reformation: I was quite freed from the habit of swearing, which seemed to have been deeply rooted in me as a second nature. Thus, to all appearance, I was a new man. But though I cannot doubt that this change, so far as it prevailed, was wrought by the Spirit and power of God; yet still I was greatly deficient in many respects. I was in some degree affected with a sense of my more enormous sins; but I was little aware of the innate evils of my heart. I had no apprehension of the spirituality and extent of the law of God; the hidden life of a Christian, as it consists in communion with God by Jesus Christ, and a continual dependence on him for hourly supplies of wisdom, strength, and comfort, was a mystery of which I had as yet no knowledge. I acknowledged the Lord's mercy in pardoning what was past, but depended chiefly upon my own resolution to do better for the time to come. I had no Christian friend or faithful minister to advise me that my strength was no more than my righteousness; and though I soon began to inquire for serious books, yet not having spiritual discernment, I frequently made a wrong choice; and I was not brought in the way of evangelical preaching or conversation (except a few times when I heard but un derstood not) for six years after this period. Those things the Lord was pleased to discover to me gradually. I learnt them here a little, and there a little, by my own painful experience, at a distance from the common means and ordinances, and in the midst of the same course of evil company, and bad examples, as I had been conversant with for some time. From this period I could no more make a mock at sin, or jest with holy things; I no more questioned the truth of Scripture, or lost a sense of the rebukes of conscience. Therefore I consider this as the beginning of my return to God, or rather of his return to me; but I cannot consider myself to have been a believer (in the full sense of the word) till a considerable time afterwards. I have told you, that, in the time of our distress, we had fresh water in abundance. This was a considerable relief to us, especially as our spare diet was mostly salt-fish without bread; we drank plentifully, and were not afraid of wanting water: yet our stock of this likewise was much nearer to an end than we expected; we supposed that we had six large butts of water on board; and it was well that we were safe arrived in Ireland before we discovered that five of them were empty, having been removed out of their places, and stove by the violent agitation when the ship was full of water. If we had found this out while we were at sea, it would have greatly heightened our distress, as we must have drank more sparingly. While the ship was refitting at Lough Swilly, I repaired to Londonderry. I lodged at an exceeding good house, where I was treated with much kindness, and soon recruited my health and strength. I was now a serious professor: went twice a-day to the prayers at church, and determined to receive the sacrament the next opportunity. A few days before, I signified my intention to the minister, as the rubric directs; but I found this practice was grown obsolete. At length the day came: I arose very early,—was very particular and earnest in my private devotion; and, with the greatest solemnity, engaged myself to be the Lord's for ever, and only his. This was not a formal but a sincere surrender, under a warm sense of mercies recently received; and yet, for want of a better knowledge of myself, and the subtilty of Satan's temptations, I was seduced to forget the vows of God that were upon me. Upon the whole, though my views of the Gospel-salvation were very indistinct, I experienced a peace and satisfaction in the ordinance that day, to which I had been hitherto a perfect stranger. The next day I was abroad with the mayor of the city, and some other gentlemen, shooting: I climbed up a steep bank, and pulling my fowling-piece after me, as I held it in a perpendicular direction, it went off so near my face as to burn away the corner of my hat.- -Thus, when we think ourselves in the greatest safety, we are no less exposed to danger, than when all the elements seem conspiring to destroy us. The Divine Providence, which is sufficient to deliver us in our utmost extremity, is equally necessary to our preservation in the most peaceful situation. During our stay in Ireland I wrote home. The vessel I was in had not been heard of for eighteen months, and was given up for lost long before. My father had no more expectation of hearing that I was alive; but he received my letter a few days before he left London. He was just going governor of York Fort in Hudson's Bay, from whence he never returned. He sailed before I landed in England, or he had pur posed to take me with him; but God designing otherwise, one hindrance or other delayed us in Ireland until it was too late. I received two or three affectionate letters from him, but I never had the pleasure of seeing him more. I had hopes, that, in three years more, I should have had an opportunity of asking his forgiveness for the uneasiness my disobedience had given him: but the ship that was to have brought him home came without him. According to the best accounts we received, he was seized with the cramp when bathing, and drowned, a little before her arrival in the bay.-Excuse this digression. My father, willing to contribute all in his power to my.satisfaction, paid a visit before his departure to my friends in Kent, and gave his consent to the union which had been so long talked of. Thus when I returned to, I found I had only the consent of one person to obtain; with her I as yet stood at as great an uncertainty as on the first day I saw her. I arrived at the latter end of May 1748, about the same day that my father sailed from the Nore; but found the Lord had provided me another father in the gentleman whose ship had brought me home. He received me with great tenderness, and the strongest expressions of friendship and assistance; yet no more than he has since made good: for to him, as the instrument of God's goodness, I owe my all. Yet it would not have been in the power even of this friend to have served me effectually, if the Lord had not met with me on my way home, as I have related. Till then I was like the man possessed with the legion.No arguments, no persuasion, no views of interest, no remembrance of the past, or regard to the future, could have constrained me within the bounds of common prudence. But now I was in some measure restored January 20, 1763.. I am, &c. LETTER X. Dear Sir, MY connections with sea-affairs have often led me to think, that the varieties observable in Christian experience may be properly illustrated from the circum |