"As to me, it became me to forgive you, as I most cordially did; since
your usage of me, as it proved, was but a necessary means in the hand
of Providence, to exalt me to that state of happiness, in which I have
every day more and more cause given me to rejoice, by the kindest and
most generous of gentlemen.
"As I have often prayed for you, even when you used me the most
unkindly, I now praise God for having heard my prayers, and with high
delight look upon you as a reclaimed soul given to my supplication.
May the Divine goodness enable you to persevere in the course you have
begun! And when you can taste the all-surpassing pleasure that fills
the worthy breast, on being placed in a station where your example
may be of advantage to the souls of others, as well as to your own--a
pleasure that every good mind glories in, and none else can truly
relish; then may you be assured, that nothing but your perseverance,
and the consequential improvement resulting from it, is wanted to
convince you, that you are in a right way, and that the woe that is
pronounced against the presumptuous sinner, belongs not to you.
"Let me, therefore, dear Mrs. Jewkes (for now _indeed_ you are dear to
me), caution you against two things; the one, that you return not
to your former ways, and wilfully err after this repentance; for the
Divine goodness will then look upon itself as mocked by you, and will
withdraw itself from you; and more dreadful will your state then be,
than if you had never repented: the other, that you don't despair of
the Divine mercy, which has so evidently manifested itself in your
favour, and has awakened you out of your deplorable lethargy, without
those sharp medicines and operations, which others, and perhaps _not
more faulty_ persons, have suffered.
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