STATE OF REST IN GOD.
If I do not reply to you, Dear Sir, as soon as you might expect, it is because I hold myself in reserve, until I have a movement to write, and not from any want of regard to you. Relative to the distinct, voluntary acts of resignation, renouncement, it would be difficult, in my present state, to make such acts, because such acts would seem to imply something of self-appropriation still remaining; whereas, I have given to my Sovereign, all that I am; and as far as I know, I have nothing more to give him. My soul is at rest in his will.
It is the same in regard to prayer, or petitions. The soul having a very simple method of prayer, all other prayer seems foreign to it. When it would make a request, and as soon as the soul knows distinctly what it demands, there is something which goes before to accomplish it, without the utterance of words. When the soul utters words, or makes petitions, if the spirit accompanying approves, the prayer is made with ease. If the spirit do not coöperate, the words are uttered with difficulty, or not at all. God takes the place of self in the soul, and there prays for things agreeable to his will. This is a state of the soul, in which it has no desire to originate prayer, but loves to be silent in the presence of God. This is an experience more satisfactory than I am able to express. O, that all the earth knew what it means to keep silence before the Lord!