upon--expense. And really, when I consider it merely in the view of the
misery that may be alleviated, and the tears that may be wiped away
by a very little money judiciously employed, I grow ashamed of myself
for not practising more self-denial that I may apply my savings to
such a purpose. Then think of the benefits to be rendered to mankind
by missionary societies. Besides all this, I really believe there is
commonly a special blessing on the liberal, even in this life, and on
their children; and I hesitate not to say to you that, as you will,
I hope, possess from me what, with the ordinary emoluments of a
profession, may afford you a comfortable competence, I am persuaded I
shall leave you far more likely to be happy than if you were to have
inherited from me £10,000 more (and I say the same for your brothers
also), the fruits of my bachelor savings. In truth, it would be so
if the Word of God be true, for it is full of declarations to that
effect. Now all this is general doctrine. I am aware of it. I can only
give you principles here. It must be for you to apply them, and if you
apply them with simplicity of intention, all, I doubt not, will be
well. But again I cannot help intimating my persuasion that you would
do well to confine yourself at first to the few friends you already
have and on whom you can depend. And also let me suggest that it would
be truly wise to be looking around you, and if you should see anyone
whose principles, and character, and manners are such as suggest the
hope that he might be desirable even for a friend, then to cultivate
his acquaintance. May our Heavenly Father direct and prosper you, carry
you safely through the ordeal into which you are just about to enter,
and at length receive you into that blessed world where danger will be
over, and all will be love and peace and joy for evermore.
"I am ever affectionately yours,
"W. WILBERFORCE."
"_November 5, 1823._
"I trust I scarcely need assure you that I must always wish to make you
comfortable _quoad_ money matters, and on the other hand that the less
the cost of rendering you so, the more convenient to me. My income is
much diminished within the last few years, while the expenses of my
family have greatly increased....
"What a comfort it is to know that our Heavenly Father is ever
ready to receive all who call upon Him. He delighteth in mercy,
and ever remember that as you have heard me say, mercy is kindness
to the guilty, to those who deserve punishment. What a delightful
consideration it is that our Saviour loves His people better than we
love each other, than an earthly parent loves his child."
"_November 7, 1823._
"There is a vile and base sentiment current among men of the world
that, if you want to preserve a friend you must guard against having
any pecuniary transactions with him. But it is a caution altogether
unworthy of a Christian bosom. It is bottomed in the mistakenly
supposed superior value of money to every other object, and in a very
low estimate of human friendship. I hope I do not undervalue my money,
but I prize my time at a still higher rate, and have no fear that any
money transaction can ever lessen the mutual confidence and affection
which subsists between us and which I trust will never be diminished.
And let me take this opportunity also of stating that you would give me
real pleasure by making me your friend and opening your heart to me as
much in every other particular. I trust you would never find me abusing
your confidence. Even any indiscretions or faults, if there should be
any, if I can help to prevent your being involved in difficulties by
them. But I hate to put such a case. It is no more than what is due to
my dear Samuel, to say that my anticipations are of a very different
sort. And I can truly declare that the good conduct and kindness of my
children towards me is a source of the purest and greatest pleasure I
do or can enjoy."[51]
"_August 6, 1824._
"I can bear silence no longer, and I beg you will in future send me
or your dear mother a something, be it ever so short, in the way of a
letter once a week, if it be merely a certificate of your existence.
I have been for some days thinking of writing to you, in consequence
of my having heard that your friend Ryder and Sir George Prevost were
reading classics with Mr. Keble. Could you not have been allowed to
make it a triumvirate? Much as I value classical scholarship, I prize
still more highly the superior benefit to be derived from associating
with such good young men as I trust the two gentlemen are whose names
I have mentioned, and I have the satisfaction of knowing that you have
the privilege of calling them your friends. Is it yet too late?"
"_September 10, 1824._
"As I was talking to your mother this morning on money matters it shot
across my mind that you had desired me to send you a supply, which I
had neglected to do. I am truly sorry for my inadvertency, and will
send you the half of a £20 bank note which I happen to possess, the
other half following of course to-morrow. Ask for what you want, and
we will settle when you are here. It gives me real pleasure to believe
that you are economical on principle, and it is only by being so that
one can be duly liberal. Without self-denial every man, be his fortune
what it may, will find himself unable to act as he ought in this
particular, not that _giving_ is always the best charity, far from it;
employing people is often a far preferable mode of serving them. To
you I may say that if I have been able to be liberal not less before
my marriage than after it, it was from denying myself many articles
which persons in my own rank of life and pecuniary circumstances
almost universally indulged in. Now when I find my income considerably
decreased on the one hand, and my expenses (from my four sons) greatly
increased on the other, economy must even be made parsimony, which,
justly construed, does not in my meaning at all exclude generosity."
This letter is here interrupted, he says, by "two young widows--both of
whom had recently lost their husbands in India--with their four little
children, all in deep mourning. Yet the two widows have the best of
all supports in the assured persuasion that their husbands were truly
pious, and in the hope that they themselves are so."
It is easy to imagine the reception given to the "two young widows"
by Wilberforce. He had not yet learned the lesson of "economy or even
parsimony" as regarded his charities--even when he had to reduce his
expenses he spent £3,000[52] in one year on charity.
"_December 10, 1824._
"I have deemed it quite a duty on this delicious day to prolong my
country walk in a _tête-à-tête_ with your dear mother, a _tête-à-tête_,
however, from which our dear children's images are not excluded. I
own that those who are termed Methodists by the world do give more
liberally to the distressed than others, yet that I think they do
not in this duty come up to the full demands of Scripture. The great
mistake that prevails as I conceive is, it's being thought right that
all persons who are received on the footing of gentlemen are to live
alike. And without economy there cannot be sufficient liberality. I can
sincerely declare that my wish that my sons should be economical, which
is quite consistent with being generous, nay, as I said before, is even
necessary to it, arises far more from my conviction of the effects of
economical habits on their minds and happiness in future life, than on
account of the money that will be thereby saved. You have heard me, I
doubt not, praise Paley's excellent remark on the degree in which a
right constitution of the habits tends to produce happiness, and you
may proceed with the train of ideas I have called up in your mind."
"_October 26, 1825._
"You ask me about your Uncle Stephen's having been a newspaper
reporter. He was. The case was this. At the age of, I believe,
eighteen, he came up to town to study the law, when the sudden death of
his father not only stopped his supplies, but threw on his hands the
junior branches of the family, more especially three or four sisters.
Seeing no other resource, he embraced an offer, made to him I believe
through or by Mr. Richardson, the friend of poor Sheridan. Richardson
afterwards came into Parliament, and the fact respecting Stephen came
out thus, a few years ago. A regulation was proposed by some of the
benchers of Lincoln's Inn that no one should be permitted to be called
to the Bar who ever had practised the reporting art. Sheridan brought
the question forward in the House of Commons. Stephen, who was then in
Parliament, spoke to the question, and in arguing against the illiberal
and even cruel severity of the regulation, put a supposed case, that
the son of a gentleman, by a father's sudden death was at once deprived
of the means of pursuing the legal profession on which he was just
entering, being also harassed in his mind by the distressed state of
some affectionate sisters. Thus embarrassed, he received an offer of
employment as a reporter, and gladly accepted it and discharged its
duties, thereby being enabled to prosecute his professional studies
as well as to assist his relatives. 'But,' added Stephen, 'the case
I have just stated is no imaginary one. It is the story of a living
individual. It is that, sir, of the individual who has now the honour
to address you.' There is in all bodies of Englishmen a generous
feeling which is always called forth powerfully when a man confesses,
or rather boldly avows any circumstance respecting himself which,
according to the false estimate of the world, might be supposed to
disparage him; as when Peel at the meeting for a monument to James Watt
declared that, 'owing all his prosperity to the successful industry
of a person originally in the humble walks of life,' the applause was
overpowering. And I never remember a more general or louder acclamation
than immediately broke out when Stephen had (indeed before he had
completely) closed his declaration."
"_December 16, 1825._
"It is Henry Thornton[53] that was connected with the house of Pole
& Co. He became a partner about five months ago. The storm through
which he has been passing has been indeed violent; but the call
for self-possession, temper, judgment, and above all scrupulous,
punctilious integrity has been abundantly answered. He has behaved so
as to draw on him the universal applause of all who have witnessed
his conduct. Mr. Jno. Smith especially speaks of it in the highest
terms, and has been acting towards him with corresponding generosity
and kindness. It has been very strikingly evidenced that commercial
transactions on a great scale enlarge the mind, and the obedience
which, with men of real principle, is paid to the point of mercantile
honour, produces a habit of prompt, decisive integrity in circumstances
of embarrassment and distress. I am happy to be able to tell you that
there is reason to believe that while Henry will gain great credit
he will lose no money. He has borne the trial with the calmness of a
veteran."
"_Sunday, January 22, 1826._
"You may have heard me mention, that when in my solitary bachelor state
I was alone all day on the Sunday, I used after dinner to call up
before me the images of my friends and acquaintances, and to consider
how I could benefit or gratify them. And when the mind is scarcely
awake, or, at least, active enough for any superior purpose, this is
no bad employment for a part of the day, especially if practised with
religious associations and purposes. The day is so raw here that I have
yielded to your mother's kind entreaties that I would not go to church,
where the greater part of the family now is at afternoon service. So I
am glad to spend a part of my day with my dearest Samuel.
"I will remind you of an idea which I threw out on the day preceding
your departure--that I feared I had scarcely enough endeavoured to
impress on my children the idea that they must as Christians be a
peculiar people. I am persuaded that you cannot misunderstand me to
mean that I wish you to affect singularity in indifferent matters.
The very contrary is our duty. But from that very circumstance of its
being right that we should be like the rest of the world in exterior,
manners, &c., &c., results an augmentation of the danger of our not
maintaining that diversity, nay, that contrast, which the Eye of God
ought to see in us to the worldly way of thinking and feeling on
all the various occasions of life, and in relation to its various
interests. The man of the world considers religion as having nothing to
do with 99-100ths of the affairs of life, considering it as a medicine
and not as his food, least of all as his refreshment and cordial. He
naturally takes no more of it than his health requires. How opposite
this to the apostle's admonition, 'Whatever ye do in word or deed, do
all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father
through Him.' This is being spiritually-minded, and being so is truly
declared to be life and peace. By the way, if you do not possess that
duodecimo volume, 'Owen on Spiritual Mindedness,' let me beg you to
get and read it carefully. There are some obscure and mystic passages,
but much that I think is likely to be eminently useful; and may our
Heavenly Father bless to you the perusal of it...."
"_February 27, 1826._
"Let me assure you that you give me great pleasure by telling me
unreservedly any doubts you may entertain of the propriety of my
principles or conduct. I love your considering and treating me as a
friend, and I trust you will never have reason to regret your having so
done, either in relation to your benefit or your comfort. In stating
my suspicions that I had not sufficiently endeavoured to impress on
my children, and that you were scarcely enough aware of the force of
the dictum that Christians were to be a peculiar people, I scarcely
need assure you that I think the commands, 'Provide things honest in
the sight of all men, whatever things are lovely, whatsoever of good
report,' &c. (admirably illustrated and enforced by St. Paul's account
of his own principles of becoming all things to all men), clearly prove
that so far from being needlessly singular, we never ought to be so,
but for some special and good reason. Again, I am aware of what you
suggest that, in our days, in which the number of those who profess a
stricter kind of religion than the world of _soi-disant_ Christians in
general, there is danger lest a party spirit should creep in with its
usual effects and evils. Against this, therefore, we should be on the
watch. And yet, though not enlisting ourselves in a party, we ought, as
I think you will admit, to assign considerable weight to any opinions
or practices which have been sanctioned by the authority of good men in
general. As again, you will I think admit, that in any case in which
the more advanced Christians and the less advanced are both affected,
the former and their interests deserve more of our consideration than
the latter. For instance, it is alleged in behalf of certain worldly
compliances, that by making them you will give a favourable idea,
produce a pleasing impression of your religious principles, and dispose
people the rather to adopt them. But then, if you thereby are likely
to become an _offence_ (in the Scripture sense) to weaker Christians,
(persons, with all their infirmities, eminently dear to Christ,)
you may do more harm than good, and that to the class which had the
stronger claim to your kind offices. Let my dear Samuel think over
the topic to which I was about next to proceed. I mean our Saviour's
language to the Laodicean Church expressing His abhorrence and disgust
at lukewarmness, and the danger of damping the religious affections
by such recreations as He had in mind. Of course I don't object to
domestic dances. It is not the act, the _saltus_, but the _whole tone_
of an assembly."
"CLIFTON, _May 27, 1826._
"I am very glad to think that you will be with us. Your dear mother's
spirits are not always the most buoyant, and, coming first to reside
in a large, new house without having some of her children around her,
would be very likely to infuse a secret melancholy which might sadden
the whole scene, and even produce, by permanent association, a lasting
impression of despondency. I finish this letter after hearing an
excellent sermon from Robert Hall. It was not merely an exhibition
of powerful intellect, but of fervent and feeling piety, especially
impressing on his hearers to live by the faith of the love of Christ
daily, habitually looking to Him in all His characters. Prayer,
prayer, my dear Samuel; let your religion consist much in prayer. May
you be enabled more and more to walk by faith and not by sight, to
feel habitually as well as to recognise in all your more deliberate
calculations and plans, that the things that are seen are temporal,
but the things that are not seen are eternal. Then you will live above
the world, as one who is waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ."[54]
"_April 20, 1826._
"I would gladly fill my sheet, yet I can prescribe what may do almost
as well. Shut your door and muse until you fancy me by your side, and
then think what I should say to you, which I dare say your own mind
would supply."
"_September 30._
"I am thankful to reflect that at the very moment I am now thinking of
you and addressing you; you also are probably engaged in some religious
exercise, solitary or social (for I was much gratified by learning from
a passage in one of your letters to your mother that you and Anderson
went through the service of our beautiful liturgy together). Perhaps
you are thinking of your poor old father, and, my dear boy, I hope you
often pray for me, and I beg you will continue to do so.
"I am not sure whether or not I told you of our having been for a
week at Lea,[55] having been detained there by my being slightly
indisposed. But it was worth while to be so, if it were only to
witness, or rather to experience, Lady Anderson's exceeding kindness. I
really do not recollect having ever before known such high merits and
accomplishments--the pencil and music combined with such unpretending
humility, such true simplicity and benevolence. With these last
Sir Charles is also eminently endowed. He reads his family prayers
with great feeling, and especially with a reverence which is always
particularly pleasing to me. There is, in 'Jonathan Edwards on the
Religious Affections,' a book from which you will, I think, gain much
useful matter, a very striking passage, in which he condemns with great
severity, but not at all too great, _me judice_, that familiarity
with the Supreme King which was affected by some of the religionists
of his day, as well as by Dr. Hawker recently, and remarks very truly
that Moses and Elijah, and Abraham the friend of God (and all of them
honoured by such especial marks of the Divine condescension), always
manifested a holy awe and reverence when in the Divine presence."
Samuel Wilberforce had written to his father asking him what advice he
should give to a friend whose family was very irreligious. In the house
of this friend 'it was a common phrase accompanying a shake of each
other's hands on meeting, "May we meet together in _hell_."' The answer
to the appeal for advice is as follows:--
"_July 28, 1826._
"I will frankly confess to you that the clearness and strength of the
command of the apostle, 'Children, obey your parents in all things'
(though in one passage it is added, 'in the Lord') weighed so strongly
with me as to lead me, at first, to doubt whether or not it did not
overbalance all opposing considerations and injunctions, yet more
reflection has brought me to the conclusion, to which almost all those
whom I consulted came still more promptly, that it is the duty of
your young friend to resist his parents' injunction to go to the play
or the opera. That they are quite hotbeds of vice no one, I think,
can deny, for much more might be said against them than is contained
in my 'Practical View,' though I own the considerations there stated
appear to my understanding such as must to anyone who means to act on
Christian principles be perfectly decisive. One argument against the
young man's giving up the point in these instances, which has great
weight with me, is this, that he must either give himself entirely up
to his friends and suffer them at least to dictate to him his course
of conduct, or make a stand somewhere. Now I know not what ground he
will be likely to find so strong as this must be confessed to be, by
all who will argue the question with him on Scriptural principles, and
more especially on those I have suggested in my 'Practical View' of the
love of God, and I might have added, that of the apostle's injunction,
'Whatever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord
Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father through Him.' I scarcely
need remark that the refusal should be rendered as unobjectionable as
possible by the modest and affectionate manner of urging it, and by
endeavouring to render the whole conduct and demeanour doubly kind and
assiduous. I well remember that when first it pleased God to touch
my heart, now rather above forty years ago, it had been reported of
me that I was deranged, and various other rumours were propagated to
my disadvantage. It was under the cloud of these prejudices that I
presented myself to some old friends, and spent some time with them
(after the close of the session) at Scarborough. I conversed and
behaved in the spirit above recommended, and I was careful to embrace
any little opportunity of pleasing them (little presents often have no
small effects), and I endeavoured to impress them with a persuasion
that I was not less happy than before. The consequence was all I could
desire, and I well recollect that the late Mrs. Henry Thornton's
mother, a woman of very superior powers and of great influence in our
social circle, one day broke out to my mother--she afterwards said to
me something of the same kind, not without tears--'Well, I can only
say if _he_ is deranged I hope we all shall become so.' To your young
friend again I need not suggest the duty of constant prayer for his
nearest relatives. By degrees they will become softened, and he will
probably enjoy the delight of finding them come over to the blessed
path he is himself pursuing. He will also find that self-denial, and a
disposition to subject himself to any trouble or annoyance in order to
promote his friends' comfort, or exemption from some grievance, will
have a very powerful effect in conciliating his friends. With all the
courtesy that prevails in high life, no one, I think, can associate
with those who move in it, without seeing how great a share selfishness
has in deciding their language and conduct, saving themselves trouble
or money, &c., &c. Happily the objections of worldly parents to their
children becoming religious are considerably weakened since it has
pleased God to diffuse serious religion so much through the higher
ranks in society: they no longer despair, as they once did, of their
sons and daughters not forming any eligible matrimonial alliance or
any respectable acquaintances or friendships. The grand blessing of
acting in the way I recommend is the peace of conscience it is likely
to produce. There are, we know, occasions to which our Saviour's words
must apply, 'He that loveth father and mother more than Me is not
worthy of Me,' and I doubt not that if your friend does the violence
to his natural feelings which the case supposes, in the spirit of
faith and prayer, he will be rewarded even by a present enjoyment of
spiritual comfort. If I mistake not I wrote to you lately on the topic
of the joy which Christians ought to find familiar to them, still more
the peace; and the course he would pursue would, I believe, be very
likely to ensure the possession of them. We have been, and still are,
highly gratified by finding true religion establishing itself more and
more widely. Lord Mandeville, whose parent stock on both sides must
be confessed to be as unfavourable as could be well imagined in this
highly favoured country, is truly in earnest. He, you may have forgot,
married Lady Olivia's only daughter. He is a man of very good sense;
though having been destined to the Navy, which had been for generations
a family service, his education was probably not quite such as one
would wish. He is a man of the greatest simplicity of character, only
rather too quiet and silent."
"HIGHWOOD HILL,
"_November 27, 1826._