Letter to his sons:—
“Sierre, August 16th, 1864.
“My dear Boys,—I have been so greatly pleased by the good report that I have had of you that I must write one line to tell you so. I am quite thankful for it, and I have no doubt you have had a happy holiday in consequence. I made some lines on the mountains to show that the way to be happy is to seek each other’s happiness:—
“‘When all begin to seek their own,
Then each must seek it quite alone;
But when all seek to please each other,
Then each is helped by every brother.’“We have found this to be quite the case in travelling, for it is quite necessary when we travel to think of all the party, and strive to please every one. But I must not moralise, but tell you something of our journey. We have not had many adventures; but we have climbed up some terrible hills, and I can assure you it has been hard work. Up, up, up; puff, puff, puff; grunt, grunt, grunt; and still the farther you go, the mountains grow higher and higher. You think sometimes you are near the top, and, when you get there, you find another top higher still, and then another, till you get quite tired of tops. And coming down is hard work too. The mountains are covered with great loose stones, so that by the time you are at the bottom you are glad enough of a resting-place. We go to bed very early, the boys about eight, and I about nine. But then we make up for it at the other end, and by five o’clock, when you are all fast asleep, we are all moving, and sometimes almost off. The middle of the day is so hot, as our hands and faces will prove to you, that we can scarcely travel in the middle of the day, unless we be high up in the mountains, where the air is so beautifully fresh that we can do almost anything. We meet with a great many travellers, many of whom are wandering over the glaciers. They are a queer-looking set, with immense boots with large nails in them, with wideawakes and green veils tied over them, with a long pole in their hand with a spike at one end and an axe at the other. Then you see their guide marching behind with a similar axe, and a long rope on his back, which is used to strap the whole party together if they cross any dangerous place, so that, if one falls, the others may hold him up. And tremendous slips they sometimes have. A few days ago four men slipped and slid four hundred feet, more than twice the length of our garden, down a steep piece of ice with a huge precipice at the bottom, so that they would have been dashed to pieces if they had not stopped. But happily two of them struck their axes into the ice just in time, and so they hung on, close by the edge of the precipice, and were saved. I suppose some time or other I shall hear of you two being Alpine travellers. Gurney and Ted seem quite ready to begin;—but my time is past, and I must content myself with going only to those places where I can climb with poor wind and old legs. However, at Zermatt we met with Mr. and Mrs. —, who had been wandering over the highest glaciers, she being strapped by a rope to the guides. I suppose she liked it; but I am not sure it was quite the right place for a lady.
“Well! I hope we shall all be together, if God permit, on Saturday, and bring all our things with us, but some are already left behind, and others are waiting for us on the road, as we have taken hardly any luggage, so that a good many of our preparations were of no use at all. Since Monday morning we have had only a knapsack between us, so you may imagine we have not been very smart, and our evening dress has not been of the gayest kind. I fear also it has not always been of the cleanest, for we have not had things enough to change nearly so often as we should have liked. But we look forward to a glorious wash on Saturday. But one disadvantage of our having so little luggage is that we cannot bring home any Swiss curiosities. We have had enough to do to get our own absolute necessaries across the mountains; so we shall be obliged to come back quite empty-handed. But we shall come not empty-hearted, but full of love to all my dear ones. Good-bye. May God bless and keep you!
“Most affectionate
“E. H.”
The following letters have an individual interest of their own:—
“Tunbridge Wells, February 1st, 1866.
“I am sure it is very profitable as well as pleasant to have an occasional change in those we hear, and on the strength of this conviction I propose to take a weekday holiday for next seven weeks, as Mr. Burgess is to preach for me next Wednesday, and other brethren during Lent. So I hope to buckle to and get through Pusey on Daniel, if good friend Jacques is not reading it. I quite enjoy the thoughts of it, though really I ought to be thankful for our Wednesday evenings, though I must admit they are an effort to me.”
“Tunbridge Wells, May 20th, 1867.
“We have been getting on capitally, and had really a very pleasant Sunday. Campbell’s sermon was quite first-rate, and made a great impression on all who heard it. But I greatly fear he will not come as curate. I should esteem it a very great favour if the Lord were to send me some one who would give a little fresh fire to me as well as the people, for I sometimes find my own energies flag, and greatly desire to have some fresh zeal infused among us. Numbers of people wandered to other churches, but I believe no one regretted their worship in the Hall or Schoolroom. [151] We sang the hymn ‘Jesus, where’er Thy people meet,’ and I believe we beheld His ‘mercy-seat.’ The girls are going to Mr. — this evening with Brodie. I am going to stay at home, for I do not like the thought of sitting there for three hours. How strange it is the people think two hours too long for church, but like three hours for a lecture! I suppose they enjoy the one more than the other, and that makes all the difference. I am afraid they will find Heaven very dull.”
“Woodford Green, September 5th, 1867.
“It has been a great joy to me to hear such good reports of all the party, and I hope you will tell them all so. There is no text in the Bible which I can enter into more fully than this, ‘I have no greater joy than to know that my children walk in truth.’ To hear of and to witness your well-doing is the greatest joy I have in life, and if it please God to grant that we may all be one together for eternity, it will take eternity to express my thankfulness.”
On hearing of the sudden death of a friend:—
“York, May 24th, 1869.
“How rapidly and how unexpectedly do the greatest dangers take place! Truly we are living on the brink of eternity, and a few hours may find us in the midst of it. May the Lord keep us with our loins girt and our lamps burning, and we ourselves as those that wait for their Lord. I am thankful to say I have got on very comfortably, but I am too old to talk all day, and nothing suits me so well as home. I sometimes think I must give up travelling altogether; but then when I find how much my poor services seem to be valued I have my misgivings. We have had really noble collections, no less than £78 in one little church holding little more than two hundred persons, the richest of whom were shop-keepers and professional men; and £60 in another church where the congregation, though rather larger, was very much of the same character. We have therefore still much to learn at home, and none more than I have. It seems that we are only at the beginning, at the very threshold of heavenly knowledge, but what we can see on the threshold is enough to fill the soul with praise and gratitude.”
“Tunbridge Wells, April 26th, 1870.
“I have really been regretting your absence from the feast of fat things which we have lately been enjoying at home, for I consider we have had privileges of a very high order.
“Our Passion Week services were most profitable, and following as they did on Mr. Langston’s Lent sermons, they tended, I trust, to put a seal on impressions already formed, though I cannot say I have yet had the joy of discovering any cases of marked conversion as their consequence. I have, however, met with those who I think have been aroused to further progress, and who acknowledge the help given with real thankfulness.
“I trust also that our C.M.S. anniversary may be regarded as a token of progress. There has been an amazing amount of interest amongst our younger parishioners on the subject of the African Bishop, [153] so that yesterday the Mission-room was quite full, and again both the Trinity rooms in the evening. There were so many last night that there were several standing by the door of the girls’ room, and a collection of £14, containing an immense amount of copper. I confess I was anxious about our collection in church, especially when I found that we had not exceeded that of last year in the morning, but we picked up nobly in the afternoon and evening. In the evening alone there was £45, so that before we left church the collection reached £120, and there were £11 additional sent on Monday morning. I hope I may regard it as the fruit of all the admirable sermons that we have lately heard, and if so I shall regard it with peculiar thanksgiving, as showing that there has been not merely religious excitement but true religious principle at work amongst the people. And this is what we all want. It is to be living under the combined influence of principle and emotion, of deep feeling produced in the soul by strong conviction of Christian truth.
“I have been very much urged to go to Cheltenham, and if I go I should immediately set out for my long journey. But I do so enjoy my quiet work at home that I sometimes think I must never go out again. I ought, however, to be thankful for the privilege of being permitted to do the Lord’s work anywhere.”
In the autumn of 1870 Mr. Hoare, accompanied by one of his daughters, crossed the Atlantic, and spent nearly three months in a pleasant tour through the United States. It was a delightful holiday, and was the means of greatly strengthening and refreshing him for work at home. He had many good introductions, and went about seeing all that he could of the people, public institutions, and Church work, but beyond an occasional sermon Mr. Hoare made it a time of rest. No letters appear to have been preserved relating to this tour.
To Lady Buxton, after her son’s death:—
“Tunbridge Wells, August 22nd, 1871.
“I have thought of you so much lately and so affectionately that I must send you one line of loving remembrance, for I know how pleasant a thing it is to be remembered by those we love, especially when the remembrance leads to prayer. I am persuaded that very many have prayed for you under this very heavy sorrow. There are so many who feel the bitterness of it, all of whom connect you with it so intimately that I am persuaded there has seldom been a mourner more generally or more affectionately remembered before God.
“I think that solemn day at Fox Warren was, on the whole, very satisfactory. To me it was inexpressibly affecting to be surrounded by all the beauties of the most charming place, with his mind speaking in every brick and almost in every tree. I was so glad that I had paid him a visit there only a few weeks before—such a pleasant visit, and so remarkable for the charm of his society, although, poor dear fellow, I confess I was terrified about his health. But now all that is over, and, oh! how it does bring before us the overwhelming interest of the Heavenly Home!
‘“My Heavenly Home is bright and fair;
No pain or death can enter there.’“I never remember to have felt more deeply the difference between things which can and which cannot be shaken. Oh, who can tell the blessing of an unshaken hope, an unshaken safety, an unshaken inheritance, and an unshaken home, all resting on unshaken promises and the unshaken covenant of God! These things which cannot be shaken must remain, and they will remain when all fair homes of this pleasant world are passed away for ever. May God keep us by His own grace grasping them with an unshaken faith, that, when Christ either comes to us or summons us to Him, we may meet Him without surprise and receive an abundant entrance into His Kingdom.”