To Mary Bishop Date: LONDON, December 26, 1776. MY DEAR SISTER, You are certainly clear concerning Miss Mahon. You have done all that was in your power; and if she will not any longer accept of your services, her blood is upon her own head. But I will not give her up yet. I have wrote to Mr. Valton at Oxford, and desired him to talk with Mrs. Mahon. Perhaps a letter from her may be of service. But I expect to hear no good of her daughter while she is ashamed to attend the preaching. Either that text in Ezekiel xxxiii. 8 means literally or it has no meaning at all. And nothing is more certain, in fact, than that thousands perish through the neglect of others. And yet God is fully justified therein, because the principal cause of their destruction is their own neglect; their not taking care to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. Whatever other ends are answered by prayer, this is one, and it seems the primary one, that we may have the petitions which we ask of Him. Asking is the appointed means of receiving, and that for others as well as for ourselves; as we may learn partly from reason itself, but more fully from our own experience, and more clearly still from revelation. Reason teaches us to argue from analogy. If you (because you have a regard for me) would do more for a third person at my request than otherwise you would have done, how much more will God at the request of His beloved children give blessings to those they pray for which otherwise He would not have given! And how does all experience confirm this! How many times have the petitions of others been answered to our advantage, and ours on the behalf of others.

But the most decisive of all proofs is the scripture, ' Go to My servant Job, and he shall pray for you; for him I will accept.' It was not a temporal blessing which was here in question, but a spiritual, the forgiveness of their sin. So when St. Paul said,' Brethren, pray for us,' he did not desire this on a temporal account only, that ' he might be delivered out of the mouth of the lion,' but on a spiritual, 'that he might speak boldly as he ought to speak.' But the instances of this are innumerable. In proof of the general truth that God gives us both temporal blessings and spiritual blessings in answer to each other's prayers I need only remind you of one scripture more: ' Let them pray over him; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick; and if he hath committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.' The promise in the following verse is still more comprehensive: ' Pray one for another, and ye shall be healed' of whatsoever you have confessed to each other. I lament over every pious young woman who is not as active as possible, seeing every one shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. O lose no time! Buy up every opportunity of doing good. And give more and more joy to, my dear friend, Yours affectionately. At Miss March's, In Bristol.