I offer up the same fervent prayer for you now, as I did kneeling before
the altar, when you were baptized into Christ, and solemnly received as a
living member of his spiritual body, the Church.
Years must pass before you will be able to read, with an understanding
heart, what I now write. But I trust that the all-gracious God, the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Mercies, who, by his only-begotten
Son, (all mercies in one sovereign mercy!) has redeemed you from the evil
ground, and willed you to be born out of darkness, but into light--out of
death, but into life--out of sin, but into righteousness, even into the
Lord our Righteousness; I trust that He will graciously hear the prayers of
your dear parents, and be with you as the spirit of health and growth in
body and mind!
My dear Godchild!--You received from Christ's minister at the baptismal
font, as your Christian name, the name of a most dear friend of your
father's, and who was to me even as a son, the late Adam Steinmetz, whose
fervent aspiration, and ever-paramount aim, even from early youth, was to
be a Christian in thought, word, and deed--in will, mind, and affections.
I too, your Godfather, have known what the enjoyments and advantages of
this life are, and what the more refined pleasures which learning and
intellectual power can bestow; and with all the experience that more than
threescore years can give, I now, on the eve of my departure, declare to
you, (and earnestly pray that you may hereafter live and act on the
conviction,) that health is a great blessing,--competence obtained by
honourable industry a great blessing,--and a great blessing it is to have
kind, faithful, and loving friends and relatives; but that the greatest of
all blessings, as it is the most ennobling of all privileges, is to be
indeed a Christian. But I have been likewise, through a large portion of my
later life, a sufferer, sorely afflicted with bodily pains, languors, and
manifold infirmities; and, for the last three or four years, have, with few
and brief intervals, been confined to a sick-room, and, at this moment, in
great weakness and heaviness, write from a sick-bed, hopeless of a
recovery, yet without prospect of a speedy removal; and I, thus on the very
brink of the grave, solemnly bear witness to you, that the Almighty
Redeemer, most gracious in his promises to them that truly seek him, is
faithful to perform what he hath promised, and has preserved, under all my
pains and infirmities, the inward peace that passeth all understanding,
with the supporting assurance of a reconciled God, who will not withdraw
his spirit from me in the conflict, and in his own time will deliver me
from the Evil One!
O, my dear Godchild! eminently blessed are those who begin early to seek,
fear, and love their God, trusting wholly in the righteousness and
mediation of their Lord, Redeemer, Saviour, and everlasting High Priest,
Jesus Christ!
O preserve this as a legacy and bequest from your unseen Godfather and
friend,