I have inquired after you and your good Lady from everybody, who was able to give me any account; and it has been a great Comfort to me to hear that you support yourselves under this great affliction by reflecting on God’s great goodness in preserving the lives of yourselves and your Children. To be insensible of such Calamitys is stupidity; but to bear them and not sink under them is the spirit of a Man. To submit to them patiently is the spirit of the Gospel. I trust the God who has saved your lives, will also make them comfortable to you, by supporting you under this trial; That he may do so is my constant prayer for you.
I desire you would give my service to your good Lady. I know this trial did not find her unprepared, And I hope the many hours She has spent in serious and religious reflections will be a comfort and a support to her now. My service attends the young Ladies. I heartily rejoice in their deliverance. Poor Miss Fanny! how often have I thought of her.
My Wife desires her service to you and Lady and the young Ladies. She has truly been a partaker of the grief of her good friends.
I am, Dear Sir,
your most obedient humble servant,
T. Sarum.
To G. Shakerley, Esq.
[This letter was addressed to Mr. Shakerley, a connection of the Wyan family, on the destruction of his mansion, Gwersylt, Denbighshire, in 1738.]
Reviews.
Early Church History, to the Death of Constantine. Compiled by the late Edward Backhouse. Edited and enlarged by Charles Taylor. Hamilton, Adams & Co. 1884.
Mr. Edward Backhouse, the original compiler of the work now before us, and of whom a biographical sketch is given, was a native of Darlington, and a member of the Society of Friends. He died in 1879. His object in commencing the compilation of this work is best told in his own words: “In second month, 1874, or about that period, I was standing painting in my own room, when an impression was made upon my mind, which I believed to be from the Lord, that I ought to devote my leisure in my latter days to writing a portion of Church history; especially with a view of exhibiting to the Christian world, in a popular manner, the principles and practices of the Society of Friends. So I forthwith began to explore Church history generally, because the history of Friends was quite familiar to me; and, ultimately, as I saw that I greatly differed from many excellent historians in the inferences I drew from many events in the history of the Church, I was induced to attempt myself to write a history of Christianity, which I thought might prove useful to some as exhibiting the principles and practices of the Churches, viewed from a Quaker standpoint, and compared as nearly as I could with apostolic precedent.” With this view he studied the Anti-Nicene Christian Library, and read the ecclesiastical histories of Eusebius, Socrates, Scholasticus, Sozomen, and Theodoret; and among modern compilations made use of Du Pin, Mosheim, Neander, Burton’s Church History, and some others. The work is illustrated by several photographs of Roman antiquities, &c., including the Arch of Titus, the corridor and staircase in the Catacomb of Pontianus, and fragments of sculpture of the fourth and fifth centuries.
Les écrits de Leonardo da Vinci. Par Ch. Ravaisson-Mollien. 8vo. Paris: Quantin.