Men persist in deceiving themselves by mixing together things essentially distinct.
You may show me ten thousand acts of mercy which seem to you connected with the maintenance of Sunday labor in the Post Office; but you can never show that it is an act of necessity, or mercy, to shut up one clerk where he shall be kept away from the sound of the Gospel,—the one sound which can call him from eternal misery to eternal peace.
And here, Sir, I must close this hastily-written letter; hastily written from the pressure of necessary duties: but containing opinions most maturely weighed, and principles on which I have long endeavoured to act.
If I appear to treat your letter with severity, I beg to assure you that I do it with extreme regret. But, however anxious I may be to show all possible respect for the writer, I cannot forget that errors, in themselves trivial, receive importance from the character of him who propagates them.
The greater his merited reputation may be, the more needful it is that his errors be unsparingly dealt with.
Where I cannot comprehend a good motive, and cannot suspect a bad one, I do not venture to assign any; and, in fact, I should rather conjecture that some works are so hastily undertaken, that their author himself could scarcely assign his own motives.
It is, indeed, an unhappy coincidence when the favor of this world is, by any accident, associated with the maintenance of Divine truth. The most single-hearted men are unable to engage in that holy duty without incurring a suspicion of sordid motives. But when men of unblemished reputation, by an unhappy eccentricity of mind, are led to uphold the questionable theories of those who dispense worldly wealth and honor;—when they exhibit in their support an unusual dulness of perception of Divine truth;—we can only (as the kindest alternative) attribute their conduct to some unaccountable infatuation, or intemperate haste.
The judgment of charity is best expressed by speaking the TRUTH in LOVE.
Many Christian men have looked, with sanguine expectation, for a blessing upon the country from your labors at your important post. Those hopes have been for a moment disappointed, but will not easily be abandoned.
There is no hope for the country but from men of master minds, and powerful talents, submitting their powers to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and devoting their energies to the services of their God and Saviour. That this may be your high and happy calling, is the prayer of many, as it is my own. I hope, and believe, that you will yet know the power and enjoyment of that Sabbath which the children of the kingdom enjoy in the finished work of Jesus, even here on earth. And will be enabled to look with confidence to an abundant entrance into that rest which remaineth for the people of God.