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Olney, May 8, 1770.

Dear Joe—Your letter did not reach me till the last post, when I had not time to answer it. I left Cambridge immediately after my brother's death.

I am obliged to you for the particular account you have sent me * * * * He, to whom I have surrendered myself and all my concerns has otherwise appointed, and let his will be done. He gives me much which he withholds from others, and if he was pleased to withhold all that makes an outward difference between me and the poor mendicant in the street, it would still become me to say, his will be done.

It pleased God to cut short my brother's connexions and expectations here, yet not without giving him lively and glorious views of a better happiness than any he could propose to himself in such a world as this. Notwithstanding his great learning, (for he was one of the chief men in the university in that respect,) he was candid and sincere in his inquiries after truth. Though he could not come into my sentiments when I first acquainted him with them, nor, in the many conversations which I afterward had with him upon the subject, could he be brought to acquiesce in them as scriptural and true, yet I had no sooner left St. Alban's than he began to study, with the deepest attention, those points in which we differed, and to furnish himself with the best writers upon them. His mind was kept open to conviction for five years, during all which time he laboured in this pursuit with unwearied diligence, as leisure and opportunity were afforded. Amongst his dying words were these: "Brother, I thought you wrong, yet wanted to believe as you did. I found myself not able to believe, yet always thought I should be one day brought to do so." From the study of books he was brought, upon his death-bed, to the study of himself, and there learned to renounce his righteousness and his own most amiable character, and to submit himself to the righteousness which is of God by faith. With these views he was desirous of death. Satisfied of his interest in the blessing purchased by the blood of Christ, he prayed for death with earnestness, felt the approach of it with joy, and died in peace.

Yours, my dear friend,

W. C.

It is this simple yet firm reliance on the merits of the Saviour, and on his atoning blood and righteousness, that can alone impart true peace to the soul. Such was the faith of patriarchs, prophets, and apostles; and such will be the faith of all who are taught of God. Works do not go before, but follow after; they are not the cause, but the effect; the fruits of faith, and indispensable to glorify God, to attest the power and reality of divine grace, and to determine the measure of our everlasting reward.

Cowper's feelings on this impressive occasion are still further disclosed in the following letter.