Chapter XLI: Letter 159: To Cottle

O dear friend! I have too much to be forgiven, to feel any difficulty in forgiving the cruellest enemy that ever trampled on me: and you I have only to _thank_! You have no conception of the dreadful hell of my mind, and conscience, and body. You bid me pray. O, I do pray inwardly to be able to pray; but indeed to pray, to pray with a faith to which a blessing is promised, this is the reward of faith, this is the gift of God to the elect. Oh! if to feel how infinitely worthless I am, how poor a wretch, with just free-will enough to be deserving of wrath, and of my own contempt, and of none to merit a moment's peace, can make a part of a Christian's creed; so far I am a Christian.

S. T. C.
April 26, 1814.
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Cottle informs us that Coleridge had now resolved to put himself under constraint in the asylum of Dr. Fox, in the neighbourhood of Bristol.