Prayers and Meditations.
��afflictions of disease that I may continue fit for thy service, and useful in my station. And so let me pass through this life by the guidance of thy Holy Spirit, that at last I may enter into eternal joy, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
126.
Having gone to bed about two I rose about nine, and, having prayed, went to Church. I came early and used this prayer. After sermon I again used my Prayer ; the collect for the day I repeated several times, at least the petitions. I recommended my friends. At the altar I prayed earnestly, and when I came home prayed for pardon and peace ; repeated my own prayer, and added the petitions of the Collect.
God have mercy upon me, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.
At my return home, I returned thanks for the opportunity of Communion.
1 was called down to Mrs. Nollikens x . Boswel came in 2 ; then Dinner. After dinner which I believe was late, I read the First Epistle to Thess. ; then went to Evening prayers ; then came to tea, and afterwards tried Vossius de Baptismo 3 . I was sleepy.
127.
Monday, Apr. 20 [1778].
After a good night, as I am forced to reckon, I rose season ably, and prayed, using the collect for yesterday.
In reviewing my time from Easter 77, I find a very melancholy and shameful blank. So little has been done that
��1 Mrs. Nollekens, the wife of Jo seph Nollekens, ' the statuary,' who made a bust of Johnson. Letters, ii. 59, 62. She was the daughter of Johnson's friend, Saunders Welch, the magistrate. Life, iii. 216. "I have heard Mr. Nollekens say that Dr. Johnson, when joked about Mary Welch, observed, ** Yes, I think Mary would have been mine, if little Joe
��had not stepped in."' Nollekens and his Times, by J. T. Smith, i. 126. Smith gives many instances of her meanness.
2 Life, iii. 316.
3 The 443rd lot in the sale cata logue of Johnson's library was ' Vos- sii dissertationes, Amst. 1642,' in six volumes.
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