And bids us catch the heaven-born light,
And praise the God of love.
“My dear Mother Hasseltine: I wrote the above lines some time ago, and intended to add a longer postscript; but find myself pressed for time at the present moment.
“It is a long time since I had a line from any of your family. I hope you will not quite forget me, but believe me ever,
Yours most affectionately,
“A. Judson.
“August 17, 1829.”
To the Bennetts in Rangoon.
“... I never had a tighter fit of low spirits than for about a week after you had gone. I sometimes went, after dinner, to take a solitary walk in the veranda, and sing, with my harmonious voice, ‘Heartless and hopeless, life and love all gone.’ However, I am rallying again, as the doctors say. But I have not yet got the steam up in the Old Testament machine. ‘Toil and trouble,’ etc. Heaven must be sweet after all these things. I have no more to say.... I hope you will pray for me, for you have not such inveterate habits to struggle with as I have contracted through a long course of religious sinning. O, my past years in Rangoon are spectres to haunt my soul; and they seem to laugh at me as they shake the chains they have riveted on me. I can now do little more than beg my younger brethren and sisters not to live as I have done, until the Ethiopian becomes so black that his skin can not be changed. And yet I have sometimes sweet peace in Jesus, which the world can neither give nor take away. O, the freeness, the richness of divine grace, through the blood of the cross!
“Your affectionate, unworthy brother,