YOU will see the contents of my letter to Dr. E——e. I have considered the affair of the picture. What think you? A limner who lately drew me, and hung the picture up in the exhibition, asks forty guineas for a copy. I shall not mind him, but send a bust taken several years ago. It shall be paid for here, and presented as a token of my hearty, hearty love to the Orphan-house at Edinburgh, and its never-to-be-forgotten friends. Nothing but my disorder of body, God willing, shall prevent my engagement in the plains of Philippi: But, I fear, that will be an obstruction to so long a journey. You cannot tell how low my late excursion only to Bristol and Bath brought me. But I serve a God who killeth and maketh alive. I would leave future events to Him, and like you merchants improve the present Now: time is short; eternity is endless. The Judge hath sent this awful message, “Behold, I come quickly.” That we all may be ready to go forth to meet him, earnestly prays, my dear friend,
Less than the least of all,
G. W.
LETTER MCCCCII.
To Mr. T—— A——ms.
London, December 29, 1768.
My very dear Tommy,
MANY thanks for your kind sympathetic congratulatory letter. Mr. Wright is gone, or rather lies yet in the Downs. He is gone to build for Him, who shed his precious heart’s-blood for ill and hell-deserving me. Whether the unworthy Founder lives or dies, Bethesda affair, I trust, will now be compleated. Strange, that I am now living! Fifty-four years old last Tuesday. God be merciful to me a sinner! a sinner! a sinner! Less than the least of all, must be my motto still. As such, continue to pray for me. That you and yours, and all the elect people of God around you, may increase with all the increase of God, continually prays, my very dear Tommy,
Ever yours, &c. &c. in our Jesus,