Mistress — Grace, mercy and peace be to you. I long to hear how your soul prospereth. I exhort you to go on in your journey. Your day is short, and your afternoon’s sun will soon go down; make an end of your accounts with your Lord; for death and judgment and tides that bide no man. Salvation is supposed to be at the door, and Christianity is thought an easy task, but I find it hard, and the way strait and narrow were it not but my guide is content to wait on me, and to care for a tired traveller. Hurt not your conscience with any known sin; let your children be as so many flowers, borrowed from God; if the flowers die or wither, thank God for a summer’s loan of them, and keep good neighbourhood to borrow and lend with Him. Set your heart upon heaven, and trouble not your spirit with this clay-idol of the world, which is but vanity, and hath but the lustre of the rainbow in the air, which cometh and goeth with a flying March shower; clay is the idol of bastards, not the inheritance of the children. My Lord hath been pleased to make many unknown faces laugh upon me, and hath made me well content of a borrowed fireside, and a borrowed bed. I am feasted with the joys of the Holy Ghost, and my royal King beareth my charges honourably. I love the smell of Christ’s sweet breath better than the world’s gold. I would I had help to praise Him. The great messenger of the covenant, the Son of God establish you on your rock, and keep you to the days of His coming — Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, Samuel Rutherford.