"My dear Children,—For to both of you I address myself. An idea, which for so old a fellow as myself you will allow somewhat to be deserving the praise of brightness, has just struck my mind, and I proceed to act upon it. Are you Yorkshireman enough to know the article (an excellent one it is) entitled a Christmas, or sometimes a goose or a turkey pie? Its composition is this. Take first the smallest of eatable birds, as a snipe, for instance, then put it within its next neighbour of the feathered race, I mean in point of size, the woodcock, insert the two into a teal, the teal into a duck, the duck and Co. into a fowl, the fowl into a goose, the goose and Co. into a turkey. In imitation of this laudable precedent, I propose, though with a variation, as our Speaker would say, in the order of our proceeding, that this large sheet which I have selected for the purpose should contain the united epistles of all the family circle, from the fullest grown if not largest in dimensions, myself, to the most diminutive, little William.[61] As the thought is my own, I will begin the execution of it, and if any vacant space should remain, I will fill it, just as any orifices left vacant in said pie are supplied by the pouring in of the jelly. But I begin to be ashamed of this jocoseness when I call to mind on what day I am writing—the day which, combined with the succeeding one, the 1st of January, I consider, except perhaps my birthday, as the most important of the whole year. For a long period (as long as I lived in the neighbourhood of the Lock, or rather not far from it) I used to receive the Sacrament, which was always administered there on New Year's Day. And the heart must be hard and cold, which that sacred ordinance in such a relation, would not soften and warm into religious sensibility and tenderness. I was naturally led into looking backwards to the past days of my life, and forward to the future; led to consider in what pleasant places my lines were fallen, how goodly was my heritage, that the bounds of my life should be fixed in that little spot, in which, of the whole earth, there has been the greatest measure of temporal comforts, and of spiritual privileges. That it should be also in the eighteenth century, for where should I have been, a small, weakly man, had I been born either among our painted or skin-clothed ancestors, or in almost any other before or after it? As they would have begun by exposing me, there need be no more inquiry as to the sequel of the piece. Next take my station in life, neither so high as naturally to intoxicate me, nor so low as to excite to envy or degradation. Take then the other particulars of my condition, both personal and circumstantial. But I need go no farther, but leave it to you to supply the rest. And you will likewise, I doubt not, pursue the same mental process in your own instance also, and find, as may well be the case, that the retrospect and prospect afford abundant matter for gratitude and humiliation, (I am sure I find the latter most powerfully called forth in my heart by my own survey). Many thanks for your last kind letter. You have precisely anticipated what was said by the several dramatis personæ. It is a real sacrifice for Emily and you to be absent from my family circle. But the sacrifice is to duty, and that is enough. And you have no small ground for comfort, from your not having to go through the 'experiment solitary,' as Lord Bacon terms it, but to have one, to whom you may say that solitude is sweet. But I must surrender the pen to your dear mother."
The country was at that time extremely disturbed by what were known as the "Swing Riots."[62] Bands of rioters went about, burning ricks and threshing machines, then newly introduced, and considered by the labourers as depriving them of the winter threshing work. Wilberforce seems to have shared this feeling.
"Highwood Hill,
"November 25, 1830.
"Your mother suggests that a threshing machine used to be kept in one of your barns. If so I really think it should be removed. I should be very sorry to have it stated that a threshing machine had been burnt on the premises of the Rev. Samuel Wilberforce; they take away one of the surest sources of occupation for farmers in frost and snow times. In what a dreadful state the country now is! Gisborne, I find, has stated his opinion, that the present is the period of pouring out the 7th Vial, when there was to be general confusion, insubordination, and misery. It really appears in the political world, like what the abolition of some of the great elements in the physical world would be; the extinction, for instance, of the principle of gravity."
"December 9, 1830.
"I have been delaying the books that all might go together. Mather's 'Magnalia'[63] shall be one of them. There is a very curious passage in it early in the volume, in which in Charles I's time, he says, expenses have been increasing so much of late years that men can no longer maintain their rank in society. Assuredly this Government is greatly to be preferred before the last. Brougham better than Copley, and several highly respectable besides, the Grants (Charles is in the Cabinet), Lord Althorp, Sir James Graham, Lord Grey himself, highly respectable as family men; Denman a very honest fellow. The worst appointment is Holland, Duchy of Lancaster; he has much church patronage which, though I love the man, I cannot think decorous. Lord Lansdowne, very decent, Lord Goderich ditto. But your mother is worrying me all this time to force me out, and Joseph declares the letters will be too late. So farewell."
"December 17, 1830.
"I have always thought that your having a strong virtuous attachment when you first went to the University was a great security to you. The blessed effects of this safeguard we shall one day know. It will be a mutual augmentation of attachment and happiness to find that those whom we loved best had been rendered the instruments more or less of our salvation....
"That religious feelings are contagious (if I may use the word so), is undeniable, and there may be temporary accesses of religious feeling, which may produce a temporary effervescence, with little or none of the real work of God on the heart. But you and I, who are not Calvinists, believe that even where the influence of the Holy Spirit was in the heart, that Spirit may be grieved and quenched. The good seed in the hearts of the stony-ground hearers is just an instance in point. When my friend Terrot was chaplain, of the Defence I think, great numbers of the rough sailors were deeply affected by his conversation and sermons, of whom, I think he said, thirty only appeared in the sequel to be permanently changed."
"January 4, 1831.