To his Mother Date: June 11, 1731. The motion and sun together, in our last hundred-and-fifty miles' walk, so thoroughly carried off ail our superfluous humors, that we continue perfectly in health, though it is here a very sickly season. And Mr. Kirkham When at Stanton on May 22. assures us, on the word of a priest and a physician, that if we will but take the same medicine once or twice a year we shall never need any other to keep us from the gout. When we were with him, we touched two or three times upon a nice subject, but did not come to any full conclusion. The point debated was, What is the meaning of being ' righteous over much,' or by the more common phrase of being 'too strict in religion' and what danger there was of any of us falling into that extreme See letter of July 19. All the ways of being too righteous or too strict which we could think of were these: either the carrying some one particular virtue to so great an height as to make it clash with some others; or the laying too much stress on the instituted' means of grace, to the neglect of the weightier matters of the law; or the multiplying prudential means upon ourselves so far, and binding ourselves to the observance of them so strictly, as to obstruct the end we aimed at by them, either by hindering our advance in heavenly affections in general or by retarding our progress in some particular virtue. Our opponents seemed to think my brother and I in some danger of being too strict in this last sense of laying burdens on ourselves too heavy to be borne, and consequently too heavy to be of any use to us.

It is easy to observe that almost every one thinks that rule totally needless which he does not need himself; and as to the Christian spirit itself, almost every one calls that degree of it which he does not himself aim at, enthusiasm. If, therefore, we plead for either (not as if we thought the former absolutely needful, neither as if we had attained the latter), it is no great wonder that they who are not for us in practice should be against us. If you, who are a less prejudiced judge, have perceived us faulty in this matter, too superstitious or enthusiastic, or whatever it is to be called, we earnestly desire to be speedily informed of our error, that we may no longer spend our strength on that which profiteth not. Or whatever there may be on the other hand, in which you have observed us to be too remiss, that likewise we desire to know as soon as possible. This is a subject which we would understand with as much accuracy as possible; it being hard to say which is of the worse consequence, the being too strict, the really carrying things too far, the wearying ourselves and spending our strength in burdens that are unnecessary; or the being frightened by those terrible words from what, if not directly necessary, would at least be useful.