LETTER I.
“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, she may forget, yet will not I forget thee, saith the Lord.”
To —
Your Christian affection and maternal concern for me, so many years, entitle you to this acknowledgment. The holy apostle, in his directions to his son Timothy, advises to entreat the elder brethren in the church as fathers; the younger men as brethren; the elder women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters, with all purity.—1st Epist. Tim. 1, 2. I am most sensibly alive to every feeling of gratitude, for your long and unwearied kindness—your many prayers for my present and my eternal good—your tears on account of my troubles, and your best wishes for the sanctification of them, that I may be delivered from sin, the worst of evils, from error, as derogatory to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and from all the traps, snares, and temptations which may be laid for my feet, and which might bring me into bondage; the Lord reward thy kindness, and may a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou hast been enabled to trust. It has been the desire of many to be acquainted with the earlier part of my life, my birth, parentage, education, and how the Lord has manifested his good hand to me in a way of providence, and his Spirit’s operations in away of grace.
With respect to my birth and parentage, I know nothing; nor did I ever hear of any one that ever did. I never could gain the least information of my parents, from any quarter, nor ever hear of a relative of any description. I never knew a mother’s care, nor a father’s fostering hand. Many times, when a boy of only eight years of age, have I reflected my case was hard. I have sat under the trees at the Foundling Hospital, and wept that I had no mother; and when the nurses from the country came to see other boys, and given them little presents, there was none for me; and when the kiss went round, there was no kiss for me. I said nothing; but tears might have told what I felt, and what they meant. Sometimes I heard that some boys had found their mothers, but that was never my lot. No kind mother owned me. This would make me weep again. Often have I observed, when in the chapel of the hospital, some persons would sit and look at the children in the gallery with seeming anxiety; as if they were their own, though they dared not acknowledge them, and singling out one and another, they used to send them presents. Perhaps, thought I, my dear mother may be among them, but dare not own me. But who can tell her feelings? I used often to repeat the 10th verse of the 27th Psalm, though I knew not its real excellencies: “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.” This was true in my case, in more senses than one. I have often reflected, and do to this day, how it is possible for a mother to forsake her child. Divine truth has declared it possible. Yea, she may forget the son of her womb, a sucking child. One would think it almost impossible; but, mothers, yes, even mothers, may monsters prove.
I refer you, my dear friend, to a remark of good Mr. Hervey, on the text, Isaiah, xlix. 15, in his Contemplations on the Starry Heavens, towards the close of the chapter. Let me beg you to read it. I must observe to you, it has been questioned, whether a person, who is left an orphan, can ever glance a thought, or feel any attachment to his unknown parents? Perhaps not, in general; but mankind differ as widely in their feelings as in their gestures. It was not my case, but the contrary; as many reasons might be assigned for my situation in the Foundling. Perhaps I had an affectionate mother, but the cruel hand of death deprived me of her maternal care; and interest being made for me, I was admitted into that kind asylum—or, for some unknown cause, she might have been driven to a foreign clime, no more to return—or, I might have been stolen away from her by some proud being to hide a mother’s disgrace, after falling a victim to the accursed seducer, I might have been forced from her by some relentless hand, to obtain property, and placed where she was never to see me more—or, perhaps, her affectionate husband might have been called to fight the battles of his country, on sea or land, in the year 1780, in which I was born. An affectionate wife, left pregnant, the news of the death of a husband might have hurried me into the world, and taken her out. So that, amidst the many calamities to which the female sex are liable, it is hard to judge the cause why I was forsaken. This is true, that I have two particular marks, with which I was found; marks evidently given with some intention of finding me by, another day—one on my back, and another apparently made by a red hot wire on the back of my hand, which is still visible. This method of marking has frequently been the case. Thus I was an orphan—
Left on the world’s bleak waste, forlorn,
In sin conceiv’d, to sorrow born;
No guide, the dreary maze to tread,
Above, no friendly shelter spread.
Alone, amidst surrounding strife,
And naked to the storms of life;
Despair look’d round with aching eyes,
And sinking nature groans and sighs.
I must conclude this, by reminding you of that very precious expression of Jude, the apostle, in his address to the whole church of God, sanctified by God the Father, and presented in Christ Jesus, and called the whole election of grace—were chosen in Christ Jesus, by an act of eternal love; and it is in Him they are preserved, as a jewel in a rock, till called by grace to the knowledge of God in Christ: and who can possibly conceive what they are preserved from, till that period arrives? The dangers, perils, risks, and exposures to death, many are in, yet, O wonderful Almighty power, that keeps them till the Lord takes possession of the heart! Surely, if there should be any recollection of these things in heaven, we shall be filled with wonder, praise and joy.
Yours, J. C.
Thy Providence my life sustain’d
And all my wants redrest;
When in the silent womb I lay,
Or hung upon the breast.