[CHAPTER XXXIII.]
LETTERS.—DIARY.
At the beginning of the year 1851, Mr. Lawrence writes to President Hopkins:
"The closing of the old year was like our western horizon after sunset, bright and beautiful; the opening of the new, radiant with life, light, and hope, and crowned with such a costume of love as few old fathers, grandfathers, and uncles, can muster; in short, my old sleigh is the pet of the season, and rarely appears without being well filled, outside and inside. It is a teacher to the school-children, no less than to my grandchildren; for they all understand that, if they are well-behaved, they can ride with me when I make the signal; and I have a strong persuasion that this attention to them, with a present of a book and a kind word now and then, makes the little fellows think more of their conduct and behavior. At any rate, it does me good to hear them call out, 'How do you do, Mr. Lawrence?' as I am driving along the streets and by-ways of the city." * * *
To an aged clergyman in the country, who was blind and in indigent circumstances, he writes:
"Jan. 14.
"Your letter of last week reached me on Saturday, and was indeed a sunbeam, which quickened me to do what I had intended for a 'happy new-year,' before receiving yours. I trust you will have received a parcel sent by railroad, on Monday, directed to you, and containing such things as I deemed to be useful in your family; and I shall be more than paid, if they add one tint to the 'purple light' you speak of, that opens upon your further hopes of visiting us the coming season. For many months I was unable to walk; but my feet and ankle-bones have now received strength. I feel that the prayers of friends have been answered by my renewed power to do more work. How, then, can I enjoy life better than by distributing the good things intrusted to me among those who are comforted by receiving them? So you need not feel, my friend, that you are any more obliged than I am. The enclosed bank-bills may serve to fit up the materials for use; at any rate, will not be out of place in your pocket. I trust to see you again in this world, which has to me so many interesting connecting links between the first and only time I have ever seen you (thirty-five or more years ago, in Dr. Huntington's pulpit, Old South Church) and the present."
(FROM REV. JAMES HAMILTON, D.D.)
"42 Gower-street, London, Feb. 15, 1851.
"My dear Sir: No letter which authorship has brought to me ever gave me such pleasure as I received from yours of July, 1849, enclosing one which Governor Briggs had written to you. That strangers so distinguished should take such interest in my writings, and should express yourselves so kindly towards myself, overwhelmed me with a pleasing surprise, and with thankfulness to God who had given me such favor. I confess, too, it helped to make me love more the country which has always been to me the dearest next to my own. In conjunction with some much-prized friendships which I have formed among your ministers, it would almost tempt me to cross the Atlantic. But I am so bad a sailor that I fear I must postpone personal intercourse with those American friends who do not come to England, until we reach the land where there is no more sea. However feebly expressed, please accept my heartfelt thanks for all the cost and trouble you have incurred in circulating my publications. It is pleasant to me to think that your motive in distributing them, in the first instance, could not be friendship for the author; and to both of us it will be the most welcome result, if they promote the cause of practical Christianity. Owing to weakness in the throat and chest, I cannot preach so much as many of my neighbors, and therefore I feel the more anxious that my tracts should do something for the honor of the Saviour and the welfare of mankind. You were kind enough to reprint my last lecture to young men. I could scarcely wish the same distinction bestowed on its successor, because it is a fragment. I have some thoughts of extending it into a short exposition of Ecclesiastes, which is a book well suited to the times, and but little understood. * * *
"Yours, most truly,
James Hamilton."
ABBOTT LAWRENCE
Print. by R. Andrews.
In reply to the above letter, Mr. Lawrence writes, April 8: