1.  “I have long time holden my peace.  Am I to hold my peace for ever? Isa. xlii. 14, LXX.  Shall I still further endure to enforce against myself the hardest punishment of silence, by neither writing myself, nor receiving any statement from another?  By holding fast to this stern determination up to the present time I am able to apply to myself the prophet’s words, “I endure patiently like travailing woman.” Isa. xlii. 14, LXX.  Yet I am ever longing for communication either in person or by letter, and ever, for my own sins’ sake, missing it.  For I cannot imagine any reason for what is happening, other than what I am convinced is the true one, that by being cut off from your love I am expiating old sins; if indeed I am not wrong in using such a phrase as “cut off” in your case, from any one, much less from me, to whom you have always been as a father.  Now my sin, like some dense cloud overshadowing me, has made me forget all this.  When I reflect that the only result to me of what is going on is sorrow, how can I attribute it to anything but to my own wickedness?  But if events are to be traced to sins, be this the end of my troubles; if there was any intended discipline in it, then your object has been very completely attained, for the punishment has been going on for a long time; so I groan no longer, but am the first to break silence, and beseech you to remember both me and yourself who, to a greater degree than our relationship might have demanded, have shewn me strong affection all my life.  Now, I implore you, show kindness to the city for my sake.  Do not on my account alienate yourself from it.