Your letter, my friend, struck me with a mighty horror. It rushed upon
me and stupefied my feelings. You bid me write you a religious letter;
I am not a man who would attempt to insult the greatness of your
anguish by any other consolation. Heaven knows that in the easiest
fortunes there is much dissatisfaction and weariness of spirit:
much that calls for the exercise of patience and resignation; but
in storms, like these, that shake the dwelling and make the heart
tremble, there is no middle way between despair and the yielding up of
the whole spirit unto the guidance of faith. And surely it is a matter
of joy, that your faith in Jesus has been preserved; the Comforter
that should relieve you is not far from you. But as you are a
Christian, in the name of that Saviour, who was filled with bitterness
and made drunken with wormwood, I conjure you to have recourse in
frequent prayer to 'his God and your God'; the God of mercies, and
father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I hope, almost senseless
of the calamity; the unconscious instrument of Divine Providence knows
it not, and your mother is in heaven. It is sweet to be roused from
a frightful dream by the song of birds, and the gladsome rays of
the morning. Ah, how infinitely more sweet to be awakened from the
blackness and amazement of a sudden horror by the glories of God
manifest and the hallelujahs of angels.
As to what regards yourself, I approve altogether of your abandoning
what you justly call vanities. I look upon you as a man called by
sorrow and anguish and a strange desolation of hopes into quietness,
and a soul set apart and made peculiar to God. We cannot arrive at any
portion of heavenly bliss without in some measure imitating Christ;
and they arrive at the largest inheritance who imitate the most
difficult parts of His character, and, bowed down and crushed under
foot, cry in fullness of faith, 'Father, Thy will be done.'
I wish above measure to have you for a little while here--no visitants
shall blow on the nakedness of your feelings--you shall be quiet, and
your spirit may be healed. I see no possible objection, unless your
father's helplessness prevent you, and unless you are necessary to
him. If this be not the case, I charge you write me that you will
come.
I charge you, my dearest friend, not to dare to encourage gloom or
despair--you are a temporary sharer in human miseries, that you may
be an eternal partaker of the Divine nature. I charge you, if by any
means it be possible, come to me.
[Footnote 1: See Letter, p. 355.]