Hervey’s book, referred to in these letters, was published in 1746, the size, 8vo., the pages, 216. The lady to whom it was dedicated was the daughter of his friend, the Rev. Mr. Thompson, Vicar of St. Gennys, Cornwall. The book is too well known to render an account of its contents necessary; but a brief extract from the preface will show the objects at which he aimed.
“The first of these occasional Meditations begs leave to remind my readers of their latter end; and would invite them to set, not their houses only, but, which is inexpressibly more needful, their souls in order; that they may be able, through all the intermediate stages, to look forward upon their approaching exit, without any anxious apprehension.
“The other attempts to sketch out some little traces of the All-sufficiency of our Redeemer, for the grand and gracious purposes of our everlasting salvation; that a sense of His unutterable dignity and infinite perfections may incite us to regard Him with sentiments of the most profound veneration, to long for an assured interest in His merits, and to trust in His powerful mediation, with an affiance not to be shaken by any temptation, not to be shared with any performances of our own.”
During the year 1746, Hervey wrote to a friend several long and very valuable letters on the doctrine of the Trinity. These may be found in his collected works, and are well worth reading. He also, as was his usage, carried on an extensive correspondence concerning experimental and practical religion; and his letters, belonging to this class, though occasionally verbose and fanciful, are characterized by the devoutest piety. None but a godly man could have written them; and none but godly people will peruse them. Many of them are almost little sermons, and all of them are rich in religious truth. In the days of penny postage, letters like these are rarely written; and it is greatly to be feared, that, English biographers in future centuries, will find a vexatious lack of biographical material belonging to this. People are too busy to write long letters; and, were it otherwise, the removal of the heavy postage of olden times has taken away one of the chief stimulants to make a letter longer than the pressing necessities of the case demand. Besides, locomotion is now so easy, cheap, and rapid, that friends, instead of sending their secrets to each other, in a written form, prefer to make a railway trip, and to tell them viva voce. Things were widely different a hundred years ago; and, hence, the extensiveness, richness, the fulness, and detail, the confidential gossip, and the heart-outpourings found in the correspondence of our English ancestors. They wrote letters: their grandsons send telegrams. The letters are of the greatest use to those who wish to become biographers. The telegrams are usually burnt as soon as they are read. In former days, letters were too long, interesting, and valuable to be destroyed. At the present day, they are too brief and common-place, to be worth preserving. The results of such a change in the epistolary habits of the people, are not felt at present; but they will be bitterly lamented in the approaching future.
Not to mention other distinguished men belonging to the past, the most eminent of the Oxford Methodists all excelled in epistolary correspondence. Wesley’s collected works alone contain nine hundred and twenty-three of his private letters; Whitefield’s works, when published, even more than a hundred years ago, contained one thousand four hundred and sixty-five; while the works of short-lived Hervey, by far the longest letter writer of the three, contain two hundred and nine, to all of which must be added hundreds more, published in other forms.
In a book like this, it is impracticable to do more than very sparingly employ such copious materials; and nearly all that is attempted, in the case of Hervey, is to give only extracts containing incidents. These, however, shall be as exhaustive as possible. Proceeding on this plan, the following belong to the year when Hervey first became an author.
Hervey’s charity to the poor was only limited by his means, and even such a limit was sometimes overstepped. At Bideford, for instance, such was his unbounded benevolence, that, to prevent embarrassment, his friends practised upon him the innocent deception of borrowing his money when he received his salary, lest he should disperse it all in benefactions; and then repaying it as his necessities required. All the profits of his ‘Meditations,’ amounting to £700 pounds, he distributed in charitable donations; and directed that any profit, arising from the sale of his books after his decease, should be used in the same manner.
“This,” said he, “I have devoted to God. I will, on no account, apply it to any worldly uses. I write, not for profit, nor fame, but, to serve the cause of God; and as He hath blessed my attempt, I think myself bound to relieve the distresses of my fellow-creatures with the profits that come from this quarter.”
The following extract is in harmony with this:—
“Weston-Favel, Feb. 2, 1746.