October 31, 1788. 
My dear Madam, —Your letter found me at Weston, which you may remember is a mile and a half from Olney, and where Mr. Cowper and Mrs. Unwin now reside. Our headquarters were with those dear friends for a little more than three weeks; whence I made almost daily excursions amongst my old friends. We made one digression to Northampton and Creaton. We found Mrs. Unwin well, and Mr. Cowper rather getting forward in his gradual manner. He is cheerful in company, but the ground of his inward distress is not yet wholly removed.

Now I must take your epistle in paragraphs. If my letters afford you either profit or pleasure, I am fully repaid, and I would write you many more if I could, but you wrong my affection if you estimate what I would do, by what is actually in my power to perform. I have not much to add on the subject of the ignorant poor. I can easily believe your difficulties and obstacles on this head are many and great, and have no reason to doubt your willingness to improve any opportunities that might offer. Be not discouraged. Perhaps you may find an opening where you least expected. While we remain upon earth we are in the Lord's school, and a principal lesson we have to learn is a knowledge of ourselves, and this can only be attained by a painful experience. Books, sermons, letters cannot teach it, nor can the observations we make on other people lead us far beyond the theory. To have some tolerable ideas of the human heart in general is one thing, to know our own hearts is quite a different thing. The deceitfulness of the heart which we allow in words, enables it to disguise, conceal, and cover its own emotions, so that the supposed sense we have of its deceitfulness is often the very thing that deceives us. We say that the sea is deceitful, and with reason. It sometimes looks so smooth and glossy that no one who has not tried it would think it dangerous; but this is only in a calm. A small breeze will ruffle it, and in a storm, it roars and rages. But the heart is more deceitful than the sea. It will swell and rage when there seems no wind to put it in motion or to awaken any suspicion. If I feel impatience and discontent under the pressure of great troubles, I am apt to blame the tempest for all the commotion and to excuse my own heart which tells me it would behave better in circumstances more favourable. But when the state of affairs is quite placid, when I have no trial worth mentioning, when I see myself surrounded with comforts, so that being judge in my own case I am forced to confess that I have a highly favoured lot, and can think of no person on earth with whom I would wish to change, if even these trifles, light as air, are sufficient to discompose me, and a word or a look not to my mind makes me for the time insensible to all my undeserved mercies, then I find my heart is deceitful indeed. It can raise itself into foam and fury, without being able to assign any tolerable cause for the uproar. But still the heart must be excused and will attempt to throw the blame upon the animal spirits, upon the nerves, or upon anything rather than charge the evil to its own pride and ingratitude. I wish we were better, but it is of importance to know (so far as we are able to bear it) how bad we really are. For they will most prize the physician, and most readily comply with his prescription, who are most sensible of the malignity of their disease.

I join with you in praising the Lord for his goodness. I understand the little stranger is to be called Jane, a name to which I am a little partial for the sake of some who bear it. If she is spared to you, I trust your best endeavours to teach her the good ways of the Lord will not be wanting, and you will find that while a child and even an infant she will be a teacher to you. You will be often reminded of that text, "Like as a father (or a mother) pitieth a child, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him." And when you are forced to overrule the inclinations of the child whom you love and wish to gratify, when she cries because she cannot have what you know would be hurtful to her, and when a regard to her health constrains you to give her some salutary pains, you will be led to notice the true cause of many of your disappointments and trials. Should you see her sometimes misconstrue your tenderness, and think you unkind, notwithstanding a thousand daily proofs of your love and care, because you cannot comply with her wishes in every point, you will see in her too much of my picture, and something of your own. On the other hand the pleasure you will find in her affection and obedience, the readiness with which you will forgive her faults when she is sensible of them, and how much more you are disposed to caress her than to frown upon her, these feelings will lead your thoughts to our heavenly Father, who delights in our prosperity, does not willingly afflict us, nor permit us to be in heaviness without a need-be for it. Thus, while we are in the Lord's school, as I hinted, and desire to be taught by him, we may be always learning, even though we should not be favoured with public preaching of the gospel. An attention to the Bible will enable us to derive profitable instruction from children, servants, friends, enemies, comforts and crosses, from all we see, hear, or meet with in the daily course of life. 

I think it cannot be well with us if we do not set a high value upon gospel ordinances. They are designed and adapted to feed and refresh our souls. Yet we may in some circumstances over-rate them. They are not so indispensably necessary but that we may feel and grow and thrive without them, provided the want of them is not owing to our neglect or indolence or to their being providentially out of our reach. They may in that case be well supplied by a steadfast application to the word of grace and the throne of grace. My friend Mrs. Gardiner has been confined to her drawing-room and chamber these five years. For so long a time she has not been able to set a foot down a single stair, nor does she ever expect it. Yet I think a more lively, cheerful, exemplary Christian than she, is scarcely to be found in London. And since it is the will of God to confine her, she seems to have no more desire to go out of the door than out of her chamber window. The God of ordinances is, at all times and in all places, near to those who love and seek him, and He is all-sufficient to make up and to make good whatever they seem to want. So, I found it during the last two or three years that I was at sea. I had not then so much light and knowledge as I have been favoured with since, but I had a certain fervour of spirit in communion with God upon the vast ocean, at a distance from the public means, without the help of a Christian friend, (yea, though I was engaged ignorantly in the wretched slave-trade,) which I should be glad to feel at present. 

My best wishes attend you and Mr. Dawson and Miss Jane. 

I am, your sincere and Affectionate friend and servant, 
John Newton.

Newton, John. Letters by the Rev. John Newton: Edited by Josiah Bull. Kindle Edition.