Caroline unites with me in very kindest love to dear Mrs. D— and yourself, and ever believe me, my dear friend and beloved brother,

you

MY DEAREST AUNT,-Instead of wasting my paper in telling you how often I have purposed writing to you, and how often it has been prevented, how much I have desired to see you if it were but for a few hours, how frequently I have wished that had but fixed your residence within a distance more compatible with my many and pressing avocations, I will rather throw myself upon your affection, and draw a large cheque on your longtried love, patience, and forbearance. You may imagine anything, you may charge me with anything, you may bring me in guilty of anything but one thing. I may, I will allow, feel myself not quite so expert in managing my six children as if I had been regularly trained to the discipline,—I may too much yield to my natural dislike of letter-writing, I may, as to outward appearance, exhibit more attention to comparative strangers than to one nearly allied and tenderly beloved, but one thing I am clear of, one thing I deny, one thing I feel cannot be laid against me,decay, or even decrease, of grateful affection towards my father's sister and that kind and faithful friend who was to me as a mother when I lost one of the best of mothers; whose attachment to me I remember when, as the little urchin, I used to fret her with my idleness, and which now, as the grey hair begins to steal on apace, is still fresh in my mind's retrospect. No, my beloved Mrs. H, this is no charge against me.

The last four months have been marked with peculiar mercies. Many have been the calls on me, on the ground of that goodness which leadeth to repentance, to give up myself more unreservedly to God. His loving-kindness faileth not. And yet it has been four months of some trial, notwithstanding. Poor's affairs. My father includes three pupils among his "six children."-ED.

*

have involved me in much unpleasantness, too long to be recounted here, and the increase of avocation, both in my ministry and in education, I sometimes feel a little more than I can well and entirely attend to as I could wish. But a truce with these half murmurs. I am well and, I bless God, cheerful. I love the work-all the work-unfeignedly, and, if it be the will of my Heavenly Father, shall hope to live and die in it. Has Caroline mentioned I think she has-that we have another pupil of the name of ? Is it not a most singular instance of God's overruling hand, when this boy's two uncles are two clergymen, and very High Church, though very good men, and his unclein-law a Dean? It is pleasant to trace a Father's hand in all that happens here below. He is now with us. I have had many other offers, but for various reasons declined them. Thus the Lord graciously prospers our undertaking which I thought to be hopeless. So foolish is unbelief.-Believe me, my dear aunt,

Your affectionate Nephew,

J. H. EVANS.

TO A DEACON OF THE CHURCH AT JOHN-STREET.

Lymington, Aug. 14, 1827.

MY DEAR BROTHER IN A BLESSED LORD, Many, as you may imagine, have been my engagements since I have been here. It has not, therefore, been intentionally that I have not written to you before. Dear as the people at Milford are to me, more dear than I can possibly express, yet I can with truth assert that John-street has-which I never thought it would have-an equal share in my love and affection, and I often think of you, and offer up my poor prayers for you, that the Lord would bless you all with the rich blessings of His love and grace, and cause all the fruits of His Spirit to abound in you by Jesus Christ. I often think, although never as I could desire, of all the kindness and mercy of our covenant God since He brought me to that place, and of all the brotherly regard which I have received from the Church generally, and from yourself in particular. I would desire to retrace all His favours towards me there, and all His abundant loving-kindness in giving me to be united with so many who, I am persuaded, love and fear God, and who feel it their

shame that they love Him and fear Him no more; who have the mark in their forehead and the desire after Him in their hearts. Give my kindest love to all whom you see amongst them. I shall myself be absent from them one Lord's-day and one Tuesday more, thinking to return, if the Lord permit, to-morrow or Thursday week. Mrs. Evans and the children return on Friday next, while I go to Salisbury on that day. Last Lord's-day was not a day of rest to the body, as I preached three times, but it was, I trust, a day of some blessing to the soul. To-night I speak to my Milford people, on Wednesday at the Baptist, and on Thursday at the Independent Chapel. So much for things about the Gospel. But, my Christian brother, the Gospel in my soul is what I desire to enjoy more of, and is what a consciousness of my deficiency in makes me to cry out, My leanness! my leanness! The Lord the Spirit bless you and dear Mrs. with this yet more and more, and with every Christian regard to herself and dear Mr. H—, in which Caroline affectionately joins, believe me, your's ever affectionately in our blessed Master and most dear Lord,

J. H. EVANS.

TO A DEACON OF THE CHURCH AT JOHN-STREET.

Salisbury, January 7, 1828.

MY DEAR BROTHER IN A CRUCIFIED LORD,-It is my earnest hope and my prayer, that I may be permitted to be with you again on the next Lord's-day. I had many thoughts of you all yesterday, and was not without prayer that He with whom is the residue of the Spirit might pour out His Spirit upon minister and upon the people, that the inward unction might attend upon the outward word, and thus satiate the soul with fatness. Without this all is nothing and vanity. To be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, in order that Christ may dwell in the heart by faith, is the one thing for those who have, through boundless grace and sovereign mercy, been led to receive Christ, in order that they may be filled with (wonderful, amazing mystery!) all the fulness of God, of His grace and His goodness. Ah! my dear fellow-traveller through the rough part of Christ's suffering kingdom,-soon, through the riches of

stupendous love, to reach the smooth plain; yet a little longer, a little farther on, and then what shall we think of our past grovelling in the mire, of our low views, low desires, low walking? How should we pray for faith's bright and gladdening view of the things unseen, a near glance of eternity, and a present realizing of those things which God hath laid up for those that love Him! I have you and my dear brother Hmuch in my heart, in my warmest regards, and pray that, after I have known our other two deacons as well and as long, I may love them as unfeignedly, which I can have no doubt of, when the Lord of the family shall bring us into that near and close acquaintance with each other, and shall enable us to commend ourselves to one another in the fear of the Lord. For my own part, I am convinced in my judgment fully of this, that with Him all things are alike easy, and that there is but one thing which He cannot do, and that is, deny Himself,—that He can make unfitness fit, and folly wise, and such a poor worthless being, like myself, an able minister. Amen. Amen.

Give my kind love to the dear people of John-street, i. e., to as many as you may see. Tell them how much, now that I am away and in a strange land, I feel their kindness and their affection towards me; how much I miss it. But I know that they pray for me. May they abound yet more and more. My Christian affection to your dear wife, in which Caroline joins cordially. Ever, my dear brother in Christ,

Your's, most truly,

TO A. S., ESQ.-AT THE CAPE.

J. H. EVANS.

Hampstead, January 16, 1829.

MY DEAR CHRISTIAN FRIEND,-A little interval of leisure gives me an opportunity, which I have long desired, of thanking you for your kind present of the cask of wine, which I receive as a token of regard from you, or rather of the Lord by you. It was very kind of you to think at all of me, who, the longer I live, find myself so unworthy of all regard from the people of God; and yet not to have the affection and esteem of those

your own

whom God loves would be one of the severest trials to which I could well be exposed. I am glad to find that your soul still is looking at the cross of the Saviour; that you can find no rest elsewhere. It is impossible that you ever should, for He is the Peace of His saints, and there is none out of Him. If you should feel disposed to write again, which I should be glad if you would, tell me as much as you can of the state of mind, for I still consider myself, in some sort of sense, your pastor. At least, this much I can say, I feel, and think I ever shall, a real concern about you. Oh, may your soul prosper and be in health! The surrender of the heart to God is the great thing in religion,-" My son, give me thine heart." This God requires, and this He will have. A sight of the cross will give it, and nothing else. O thou eternal and ever blessed Spirit, draw our poor hearts, through a Saviour's blood, to a Father's bosom.

I know that it will be a gratification to you to hear that it pleases the Lord to give me great encouragement in my ministry at the present period, for which let all the glory be His. The congregations are very large; souls are converted; and the saints, for the most part, are in a healthy state of mind, longing after sanctification on the broad basis of a free justification. The Church, which has now been formed nearly five years, is going on well. More than fifty each year, for the two last years, have been added to us, and we are in much peace. It was the Lord's will to give us 1,000l. for our Benevolent Society, about two years ago, by a legacy. All this is great goodness, and calls for great acknowledgments and great abasement of soul. May He give, with all His other mercies, deep humility and fervent gratitude.

Your account of African slavery was truly affecting; a general feeling of sympathy towards poor injured Africa is, I believe, spreading in this country. Mrs. Evans is upon the Committee of one Society established for the abolition of slavery. May the God of liberty abolish the nefarious practice altogether.

Will you grant me one favour? You will not, I think, repent of acceding to my wish. My request is, that, in the