On receiving this full and mournful disclosure, I felt the deepest
compassion for Mr. C.'s state, and sent him the following letter.
(Necessary to be given, to understand Mr. Coleridge's reply.)
"Dear Coleridge,
I am afflicted to perceive that Satan is so busy with you, but God is
greater than Satan. Did you ever hear of Jesus Christ? That he came into
the world to save sinners? He does not demand, as a condition, any merit
of your own, he only says, 'Come and be healed!' Leave your idle
speculations: forget your vain philosophy. Come as you are. Come and be
healed. He only requires you to be sensible of your need of him, to give
him your heart, to abandon with penitence, every evil practice, and he
has promised that whosoever thus comes, he will in no wise cast out. To
such as you Christ ought to be precious, for you see the hopelessness of
every other refuge. He will add strength to your own ineffectual efforts.
For your encouragement, I express the conviction, that such exercises as
yours, are a conflict that must ultimately prove successful. You do not
cloak your sins. You confess and deplore them. I believe that you will
still be as 'a brand plucked from the burning,' and that you (with all
your wanderings) will be restored, and raised up, as a chosen instrument,
to spread a Saviour's name. Many a 'chief of sinners,' has been brought,
since the days of 'Saul of Tarsus,' to sit as a little child, at the
Redeemer's feet. To this state you, I am assured, will come. Pray! Pray
earnestly, and you will be heard by your Father, which is in Heaven. I
could say many things of duty and virtue, but I wish to direct your views
at once to Christ, in whom is the alone balm for afflicted souls.
May God ever bless you,
Joseph Cottle.
P. S. If my former letter appeared unkind, pardon me! It was not
intended. Shall I breathe in your ear?--I know one, who is a stranger to
these throes and conflicts, and who finds 'Wisdom's ways to be ways of
pleasantness, and her paths, paths of peace."
To this letter I received the following reply.
"O dear friend! I have too much to be forgiven, to feel any difficulty in
forgiving the cruellest enemy that ever trampled on me: and you I have
only to _thank!_ You have no conception of the dreadful hell of my mind,
and conscience, and body. You bid me pray. O, I do pray inwardly to be
able to pray; but indeed to pray, to pray with a faith to which a
blessing is promised, this is the reward of faith, this is the gift of
God to the elect. Oh! if to feel how infinitely worthless I am, how poor
a wretch, with just free-will enough to be deserving of wrath, and of my
own contempt, and of none to merit a moment's peace, can make a part of a
Christian's creed; so far I am a Christian.