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 94 Prayers and Meditations.

ledgment of thy unbounded benignity, and with due conscious ness of my own unworthiness, that recovery and continuance of health which thou hast granted me, and vouchsafe to accept the thanks which I now offer. Glory be to Thee, O Lord, for this and all thy mercies. Grant, I beseech Thee, that the health and life which thou shalt yet allow me, may conduce to my eternal happiness. Take not from me thy Holy Spirit, but so help and bless me, that when Thou shalt call me hence I may obtain pardon and salvation, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

138.

Sept. 1 8, 1780.

I am now beginning the seventy second year of my life, with more strength of body and greater vigour of mind than, I think, is common at that age 1. But though the convulsions in my breast are relieved, my sleep is seldom long. My Nights are wakeful, and therefore I am sometimes sleepy in the day. I have been attentive to my diet, and have diminished the bulk of my body 2. I have not at all studied, nor written diligently. I have Swift and Pope yet to write, Swift is just begun 3.

I have forgotten or neglected my resolutions or purposes, [which] I now humbly and timorously renew. Surely I shall not spend my whole life with my own total disapprobation 4. Perhaps God may grant me now to begin a wiser and a better life.

Almighty God, my Creator and Preserver, who hast permitted me to begin another year, look with mercy upon my wretched ness and frailty. Rectify my thoughts, relieve my perplexities,

1 Quoted in the Life, iii. 440. on May 30 : ' I have been so idle Nearly six years earlier he had writ- that I know not when I shall get ten to Dr. Taylor : ' You and I have either to you or to any other place ; had ill-health, yet in many respects for my resolution is to stay here till we bear time better than most of our the work is finished ... I hope how- friends.' Letters, i. 305. ever to see standing corn in some

2 On April 8 he had written : * For part of the earth this summer, but some time past I have abated much I shall hardly smell hay or suck clover of my diet, and am, I think, the better flowers.' Letters, ii. 163.

for abstinence.' Ib. ii. 135. 4 Quoted in the Life, iii. 440.

3 He had written to Mrs. Thrale

strengthen

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