pleasing Thee by purity of mind and holiness of life. Strengthen me, O Lord, in good purposes, and reasonable meditations. Look with pity upon all my disorders of mind, and infirmities of body. Grant that the residue of my life may enjoy such degrees of health as may permit me to be useful, and that I may live to thy glory; and, O merciful Lord, when it shall please Thee to call me from the present state, enable me to die in confidence of thy mercy, and receive me to everlasting happiness, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
To rise in the morning.
Easter Eve.
April 18, 1772.
I am now again preparing, by divine mercy, to commemorate
the death of my gracious Redeemer, and to form,
as God shall enable me, resolutions and purposes of a
better life.
When I review the last year, I am able to recollect so little done, that shame and sorrow, though perhaps too weakly, come upon me; yet I have been generally free from local pain, and my strength has seemed gradually to increase. But my sleep has generally been unquiet, and I have not been able to rise early. My mind is unsettled, and my memory confused. I have of late turned my thoughts, with a very useless earnestness, upon past incidents. I have yet got no command over my thoughts; an unpleasing incident is almost certain to hinder my rest; this is the remainder of my last illness. By sleepless or unquiet nights, and short days, made short by late rising, the time passes away uncounted and unheeded. Life so spent is useless.
I hope to cast my time into some stated method.
To let no hour pass unemployed.
To rise by degrees more early in the morning.
To keep a journal.
I have, I think, been less guilty of neglecting publick worship than formerly. I have commonly on Sunday gone
