"One of my chief motives now for paying visits is to cultivate the friendship of worthy people who, I trust, will be kind to my dearest children when I am no more. I hope you and the rest will never act so as to be unworthy of the connections I have formed."
"November 22, 1822.
"Robert Grant's[49] election has cost my eyes more than they could well expend on such a business. But both his hereditary, and his personal, claim to all I could do was irresistible. Your mother, Elizabeth, and I have of late been moving from place to place, staying a few days with the Whitmores, with the Gisbornes and Evans's, and from them with a Mr. Smith Wright and his wife, Lady Sitwell. She is a sensible, interesting woman. They live in a residence, Okeover, which is in the most beautiful part of Derbyshire, very near Dovedale, close to Ilam, &c. My dear Samuel will one day, I trust, delight himself in these beautiful and romantic vallies. My chief object in these visits was to provide future intimacies and I hope friendships for you and your brothers. And how thankful ought we to be, to be enabled thus to select for our associates the best families in so many different counties; best, I mean, in the true sense of the word,—men of real worth, who, I am sure, will always receive you with kindness for my sake. I often look up with gratitude to the Giver of all good, for the favour with men—which it would be affectation not to confess where it is not improper to mention such things, that He has graciously given me, chiefly in the view of its ensuring for my children the friendly regard and personal kindnesses of many good people after I shall be laid low in the grave.
"I could have made them acquainted with great people, but I have always avoided it, from a conviction that such connections would tend neither to their temporal comfort in the long run, nor to the advancement of their eternal interests. But it is most gratifying to me to reflect that they will be known to some of the very best people in the kingdom, and to good people of other countries also. Oh, my dear Samuel, how thankful should we be to our Heavenly Father who has made our cup to overflow with mercies. How rich will our portion appear when compared with that of so many of our fellow-creatures. It used, when I was a bachelor especially, when I often spent my Sundays alone, to be my frequent Sunday habit to number up my blessings, and I assure you it is a most useful practice; e.g., that I had been born in Great Britain, in such a century, such a part of it, such a rank in life, such a class and character of parents, then my personal privileges. But I have no time to-day for long conversation."
The next letter touches on topics of the day, and then refers to the son's question, Why had not his father a settled home? Evidently Samuel felt it a desolate arrangement, but Wilberforce, as was his wont, finds certain advantages in the very discomforts of the plan.
"December 5, 1822.
"I believe I never answered your question who it was that advised me to retire from Parliament. I entirely forget. Your question, Will there be war? I answer, I know no more than you do, but I am inclined to believe the French will attack Spain, very unadvisedly in my opinion, and I shall be surprised if the French Government itself, however priding itself on its policy, will not ultimately have reason to form the same judgment.... Never was there before a country on earth, the public affairs of which (for many years past at least I may affirm it,) were administered with such a simple and strong desire to promote the public welfare as those of Great Britain. And it is very remarkable that some of those very measures which were brought forward and carried through with the most general concurrence have subsequently appeared most doubtful. The present extreme distress of the agricultural class throughout the whole kingdom, is admitted by all to have been in some degree, by many to have been entirely, caused by our ill-managed if not ill-advised return to cash payments, in which nearly the whole of both Houses concurred. Surely this should teach us to be diffident in our judgments of others, and to hold our own opinions with moderation. In short, my dear Samuel, the best preparation for being a good politician, as well as a superior man in every other line, is to be a truly religious man. For this includes in it all those qualities which fit men to pass through life with benefit to others and with reputation to ourselves. Whatever is to be the effect produced by the subordinate machinery, the main-spring must be the desire to please God, which, in a Christian, implies faith in Christ and a grateful sense of the mercies of God through a Redeemer, and an aspiration after increasing holiness of heart and life. And I am reminded (you will soon see the connection of my ideas) of a passage in a former letter of yours about a home, and I do not deny that your remarks were very natural. Yet every human situation has its advantages as well as its evils. And if the want of a home deprive us of the many and great pleasures which arise out of the relations and associations, especially in the case of a large family, with which it is connected, yet there is an advantage, and of a very high order, in our not having this well-known anchoring ground, if I may so term it. We are less likely to lose the consciousness of our true condition in this life; less likely to forget that while sailing in the ocean of life we are always exposed to the buffeting of the billows, nay, more, to the rock and the quicksand. The very feeling of desolateness of which you speak—for I do not deny having formerly experienced some sensations of this kind, chiefly when I used to be long an inmate of the houses of friends who had wives and families to welcome them home again after a temporary absence—this very feeling led me, and taught me in some measure habitually to look upwards to my permanent and never failing inheritance, and to feel that I was to consider myself here as a pilgrim and a stranger who had no continuing city but who sought one to come. Yet this very conviction is by no means incompatible with the attachment and enjoyment of home-born pleasures, which doubtless are natural and virtuous pleasures, such as it gratifies me and fills me with hope to see that my very dear Sam relishes with such vivid delight and that he looks forward to them with such grateful anticipations.
"I have not time now to explain to you, as otherwise I would, how it happened that I do not possess a country house. But I may state to you in general, that it arose from my not having a large fortune, compared, I mean, with my situation, and from the peculiar duties and circumstances of my life."