EXTRACTS

FROM

MR. DARRACOTT'S CORRESPONDENCE.

MR. WALKER, OF TRURO, TO MR. DARRACOTT,

My dear and highly respected friend, You put me under so much obligation, that I will not think of repaying it. You admit me among your friends: as such I shall use you. God be praised, I have not a heart insensible to religious friendship. Yet how short am I of that generous love wherewith you speak. O excuse my coldness. Dr. Doddridge was not my tutor. Gracious man! I love him more, since I have known you. O the living epistle! it is that which speaks.

Thank you, dear sir, for the correspondence you have so kindly begun may the divine grace direct it to mutual usefulness! But I insist upon one preliminary; that you do not think and speak so highly of me. In truth, I cannot bear it. The bent of my heart, for many years, was after praise; nor dare I trust it now, with approbations so warm, so affectionate as yours.

You have raised my earnest expectations by

the promise made me, of the success of your ministry. Accounts of the work of grace, draw out my soul in praise and love to the great Redeemer, quicken my diligence, and direct me more wisely to correspond with the will of the Spirit, in my ministrations.

With these views, I sit down to make you more particularly acquainted than you are by mine to good Dr. Guise, with what God has done for us here.

It was in the beginning of the year 1748, that a young man, who had been a soldier in the regiment raised by Lord Falmouth, and during that time, had given himself up to the too common vices of that kind of people, was awakened and brought under great terrors, in the hearing of one of my sermons. This was my first, and as such my dearest child. I watched and rejoiced over him. Suffer me to indulge the fondness of a father over my dear departed boy. With thankful consolation, I reflect how God wrought in him and by him. His conduct drew the attention of the whole town. God left him about a year a half with me: during which time, with an unshaken firmness of faith, and constancy in conduct, amidst perpetual opposition, and the strife of tongues, he lived (I trust) a Christian. About the end of that year, some other young men, convinced by his example, applied to me. And before his death, which was in June, 1750, their number was considerably enlarged; and both women and men (for the most part young persons)

and

had shewn great concern about salvation. But I think the principal work began immediately upon his death, which begat a visibly anxious distress upon the whole town. I judged a sermon requisite upon such an occasion. The blessings of the Spirit were very remarkably with the providence and the word; for, quickly after, the numbers which applied to me daily, were so large, that I was obliged to rent (for more convenience) two rooms at a distance from my lodging, being a boarder, wherein to see them. For this year past, having a house of my own, I see them at home.

I know nothing particular in this work, except it may be, that the far greater part have been brought to the acknowledgment of the truth, in a very gentle way. Very few have been struck into terrors; though some have. The most have been impressed with a sort of mournful uneasiness; and have been brought to Christ in a sorrowing kind of way. Yet I have reason to believe, that their convictions have been deep, since, of the multitudes which have drawn back, I cannot find above one or two, who have been able to shake them quite off. Possibly it may be added to this, that they are importunately carried out after inward holiness, striving against indwelling sin. Known only to God are all his works; yet in general, we can guess at the reason of such singularities, admiring the wisdom and goodness of God. May not the gentleness of this procedure, and its tendency, be in a corres

pondence of the Spirit with the manner of preaching? Mine hath been a display of the law and the gospel; holding forth the promises of the one, and the threatenings of the other: and the corruption of nature, and the necessity of a new heart, as the great fruit and evidence of faith in Jesus Christ, have been in the fullest manner explained and insisted on.

Sometimes the pourings out of the Spirit seem to have been suspended, and we have lain under a lamentable coldness; till the falling away of some hath provoked the zeal of others, and we have been blessed with fresh influences. From too probable reasons, I am inclined to charge these declensions upon my own want of fortitude and resoluteness in opposing the torrent of vice, and the influence and faces of some great ones who live among us. In which I am the more confirmed from hence, that such decays we have not suffered in any considerable degree, since we have more boldly made profession of ourselves in the lately erected society. Yours truly,

S. Walker. Truro, March 5, 1755.

My very dear Sir, I laboured hard to get an hour or two for you, last week, but it would not be, so I must be content. Yet often was I with you in spirit, for all that, praying for and joying over you. It is not just when I would, I can enjoy the pleasure, which writing my friend gives me. you most, when I hear or write.

Then I enjoy Your health is

a great concern of mine. I am pleasing myself with the hope, that your tar-water, and the nursing of good Mrs. D. will establish you. Pray, doth she drive you to bed in good season? I have been so much hurt by the contrary practice, that I fear you may be so too. It is hard to break the neck of that ill custom. Men that think much, and labour hard, must have sleep, their faculties will not do without it, and, on the whole, it is no time lost, to crazy constitutions especially. Good Joseph Allen, and our dear Dr. D. might sleep but five hours. I thought three or four years ago, I could do with six, but it will not be.

You revived and supported me, with the letter Mr. Cruttenden gave you about my affairs. He is a judicious man, indeed, though I see he conceives by far too high notions of us, for which I know I am indebted to the overflowing heart of Mr. Darracott. The favours he designs me, I shall thankfully accept, and will quickly write him, which I hope he will allow me to do. You have his letter returned, with a thousand thanks; after I had taken a copy of all which relates to us; for which, I presume upon your pardon, as also that I have kept it so long.

With it you have also Mr. Hayward's, from whom I have since received one to the same effect, and answered it, and that in the affirmative too, notwithstanding you set me so bad an example, and deterred me with your false modesty. You are certainly in mistake upon that point. Without having high conceit of our talents, we