To Sarah Ryan (January 20, 1758)

How did you feel yourself under your late trial? Did you find no stirring of resentment, no remains of your own will, no desire or wish that things should be otherwise? In one sense you do desire it, because you desire that God should be glorified in all things. But did not the falling short of that desire lessen your happiness? Had you still the same degree of communion with God, the same joy in the Holy Ghost? I never saw you so much moved as you appeared to be that evening. Your soul was then greatly troubled, and a variety of conflicting passions — love, sorrow, desire, with a kind of despair — were easy to be read in your countenance. And was not your heart unhinged at all? Was it not ruffled or discomposed? Was your soul all the time calmly stayed on God, waiting upon him without distraction? Perhaps one end of this close trial was to give you a deeper knowledge of yourself and of God, of his power to save, and of the salvation he hath wrought in you.

Most of the trials you have lately met with have been of another kind, but it is expedient for you to go through both evil and good report. The conversing with you, either by speaking or writing, is an unspeakable blessing to me. I cannot think of you without thinking of God. Others often lead me to him, but it is, as it were, going round about; you bring me straight into his presence.