A. Gray.
TO R. W. CHURCH.
Queen’s Hotel, Liverpool, November 8, 1869.
We broke up our establishment at Kew, this afternoon, and are having the night here, preparatory to embarkation. Before leaving Kew I received the proof of your sermon,[84] and here I found your last note, and Loring another proof-copy of the sermon; for which he sends best thanks.
So you have been again to Windsor, and this time, I trust, had her Majesty in the congregation....
Loring, the young ladies, and myself had the Sunday at Canterbury, our last cathedral, and a most interesting one, both in the sight and the associations. We have Stanley’s “Memorials” to read up, with other things, on the voyage, if the Atlantic will allow it.
Wednesday morning.—Off Irish coast; shall reach Queenstown before noon; very smooth water, especially since we were out of the St. George’s Channel. We are all doing very well, though some of our party, including Mrs. Gray, are poor creatures on the water.
I have read over the sermon with real interest. What I much like in it is the broadness of view and moderation of claim, which adds strength to the argument. It seems to me that every Christian man, churchman or no, would yield full assent to all you say.
And, dear Mr. Church, consider that all your friends think, no doubt, as I do, that you are hardly at liberty to take counsel of your misgivings and humility, if asked to take some position in which your gifts may tell more directly upon educated men, especially the younger men. I don’t want to see you in a position which brings cares and anxieties along with high honors; these I do not covet for you in the least. What I covet for you is fruitful leisure, some position for you which, while it gives you time, and income enough to supply real wants, makes also some demands; for rarely does one do anything to much purpose that he is not somehow constrained to do.
We leave behind us in England most delightful friends, and we are not likely to forget them; but we are somehow drawn to you in a peculiar way, and shall often be thinking of you and yours when settled down again, if it please God that we may be, at our pleasant home on the other side of the Atlantic.