"'My beloved parents, ponder well ere you deprive me of your confidence and affection; listen not to the satire and bitterness of others, who cannot judge me as I ought to be judged. Believe me--supreme love to the Saviour will not make me love you less; my religious feelings will not make me indifferent to the claims of parental regard, authority, and affection. I shall not be less your child because I call God my father. I implore you, let not domestic strife and sorrow enter our once happy home! For the sake of _peace_, must I conform to the world, return to the habits and customs of fashionable life, be again--what I once was--one of the gay and thoughtless, or no longer the child of your fondest affections, or perhaps even an inmate of your home? Bear with me while I tell you; my choice is made; I am prepared to sacrifice everything but my religious freedom, my love for my Saviour, and obedience to his authority. 'He that loveth father and mother more than me, is not worthy of me.'
"'It will not be long, at the longest space of time, before this world, with all its gaieties and follies, will pass away from us; we know not how much of sorrow or joy lies before us; what will sustain us should sorrow as a flood flow over us, desolation, and bitter woe? Will the jocund laugh, the merry dance, the enlivening strain of earth's sweetest music, soothe the heart overburdened with deepest sorrow? If we have no other foundation to rest upon than these--no other friendship than that of the world, which is as evanescent as its happiness--where shall we go if sorrow withers our joys and enters our home? But we may escape these, and, like a peaceful stream, our years may glide from us, our sky still be bright and serene, and a cloudless sunset cheer our departing day; but night follows day--and there is a night, dark and stormy if unenlightened from above, coming upon us all, for which we each one must prepare--the night of death! What will it avail us then whether riches or poverty, rank or _meanness_, has been our portion here? These will not save us; all that human love and friendship can effect will be unavailing then, if our hope is not on high--if an Almighty friend is not with us to divide for us the waters of dissolution--to become our intercessor and Saviour. Oh! my beloved parents, dearer to me than life itself, think of these things; think of the last earthly scene; let me prepare for it, and forget not that the same preparation is needful for you.