October 5th, 1873.
A special extra letter to fellow-workers about a proposed inscription on Freshwater Place.
I should have liked to have written to each, because I should like to have recalled the special thanks, which makes me anxious you should each consent to help me in a piece of work that I have in hand. Some of you have worked side by side with me in the court which it will benefit; some of you have helped me with money and with sympathy never to be forgotten, in difficult undertakings, before the world smiled on them, or success crowned them; some of you stood by me when my work was unpopular, and seemed to many cruel; some of you have knelt with us in daily prayer, lived among us, learnt things from us, cheered us with your glad young lives, and are now gone back to other homes. Perhaps you were interested in our work, when you were among us; perhaps you understood and cared little for it then; but it may look more important and useful as you look back to it. Some of you have never lived or worked with us at all, but have entered into the deeper fellowship of sympathy, have hoped for the same bright things, prayed for them, and feel (though separated by space) “one of us,” in a deeper sense than that in which some of you have used the phrase.
THE MOTTO FOR FRESHWATER PLACE
I cannot write to each of you; but, if, on any of these grounds, you would care to help in a plan that I have much at heart, I earnestly wish you would.
You all know Freshwater Place, our first freehold, Mr. Ruskin’s court, where we have our playground,—which is mixed up with May festival memories for many of you.
You know something of how hard I worked for it long ago; my difficulties in building the wall, and in contending with the dirt of the people; how gradually we reduced it to comparative order, have paved it, lighted it, supplied water cisterns, raised the height of rooms, built a staircase, balcony, and additional storey; how Mr. Ruskin had five trees planted for us, and creepers, and by his beautiful presents of flowers, helped to teach our people to love flowers. You know, or can imagine, how dear the place is to me.
For some six years now, I have thought that, if ever I could afford it, I should like to put up along the whole length of the four houses which face the playground on the east side, some words, which have been very present to me many a time, when my plans for improving the place for the tenants were either very unsuccessful for the moment, or very promising or very triumphant, or very bright, but far away in the future.
The words are these:—“Every house is builded by some man; but He that built all things is God.” They have been present to me when I have been at work in putting to rights visible, tangible things there; they have been no less present to me, when I have been trying to build up anything good in the people. They have reproached any presumption in me; but they have revealed to me the sure ground for the very brightest hope that I have ever cherished for the worst of them; for it is indeed but a very limited sense in which we build anything; we only work as His ministers; but all that is built, or shall be built and established, He doeth it Himself.