During the month of September, in the year before this, his elder brother Samuel was married to Miss Catherine Hankinson. [27] There was a warm attachment between the brothers. Edward often writes in terms of great admiration of “Sam,” and now the new sister was received with equal affection into his heart. It was a feeling which grew and strengthened to the last day of his life, and was returned by her, being specially manifested in the tender care which she bestowed upon his motherless children more than thirty years afterwards. This, however, is anticipating, and it is suggested only by a letter from Cambridge dated November 9th, 1832, full of delight—
“at the joyful news of the week. I am highly proud of my new avuncular honours. I begin to feel quite a strong affection to my new niece, which I never expected to do, at all events till I had seen her!”
The same letter writes thankfully about the interest which he had been able to arouse in the University in connection with the British and Foreign Bible Society.
There had been one collector in Cambridge previously, but young Hoare set to work and had the gratification of sending in more than a hundred guineas, fifty of which came from Trinity. He says, “I only hope that this success will encourage us to work hard during the next year.” His interest in the Society never waned, and it did well many years afterwards in making him one of its Vice-Presidents.
We have an insight into a College Sunday in one of his letters at this time:—
“We have had a delightful Sunday, and a most edifying sermon on the Conversion of St. Paul. After Hall I had a large party in my rooms, and we read one of Blunt’s Lectures on St. Paul. Our party after Hall has become rather a burden to me, it has grown so very large, as I have invited any persons who I thought would come and employ their time better than elsewhere; and now I feel that it is an opportunity which ought to be employed to good purpose, and I don’t know exactly how to go to work to do so.”
In a letter written early in 1833 he refers to all the dignities of the third year upon his head, and his desire to use them aright; it will probably be the opinion of any who read the extracts above quoted that the young collegian rose nobly to the ideal which he had set before him. There are those now living who can testify to the rich harvest of good which sprang up in his generation from the seed of manly Christian influence so freely scattered round him in those undergraduate days. Yet a crisis in his life was approaching, which we must leave to the next chapter to describe.
CHAPTER III
RELIGIOUS STATE, AND EXAMINATION FOR DEGREE
A few months after Edward Hoare took up his residence at Cambridge he commenced to keep a journal, which practice he continued for more than thirty years. Into its pages he poured his thoughts and communings with God, and, as he says in different parts of the journal, he did so that, looking back from time to time, his faith and love might be increased by noticing the way in which God had led him.
At the same time he was determined that there should be no repetition in his case of the grievous mistake which has been made by some well-meaning biographers; over and over again therefore he has inscribed upon the top of a page the word “Private”; and at the end of the first volume, written at a time when he thought that he was very near his end, he distinctly directs that his journal is not to be published. His wish has been carefully observed; no one has read the journal except the editor of his Autobiography, and he only to get a clearer view of the character which he wishes to place before the reader, with the one object laid down in the closing words of the volume referred to—“Let nothing be done with it or said about it except to extol the goodness of God by the weakness of the creature.”