This is indeed a redeeming letter. We here behold Mr. Coleridge in the
lowest state of human depression, but his condition is not hopeless. It
is not the insensibility of final impenitence; it is not the slumber of
the grave. A gleam of sunshine bursts through the almost impenetrable
gloom; and the virtue of that prayer "May God Almighty have mercy!" in a
penitent heart, like his, combined as we know it was, with the
recognition of Him, who is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," authorizes
the belief, that a spirit thus exercised, had joys in reserve, and was to
become the recipient of the best influences that can illumine regenerate
man.
No individual ever effected great good in the moral world, who had not
been subjected to a long preliminary discipline; and he who knows what is
in man; who often educes good from evil, can best apportion the exact
kind and degree, indispensable to each separate heart. Mr. Coleridge,
after this time, lived twenty years. A merciful providence, though with
many mementos of decay, preserved his body, and in all its vigor
sustained his mind. Power was given him, it is presumed, and fervently
hoped, to subdue his former pernicious practices. The season of solemn
reflection it is hoped arrived, that his ten talents were no longer
partially buried, but that the lengthened space extended to him, was
consecrated by deep reflection, and consequent qualification, to
elucidate and establish the everlasting principles of Christian truth.
Under such advantages, we are authorized in forming the highest
expectations from his Great Posthumous Work. Nothing which I have
narrated of Mr. Coleridge, will in the least subtract from the merit, or
the impression of that production, effected in his mature manhood, when
his renovated faculties sent forth new corruscations, and concentrated
the results of all his profound meditations. The very process to which he
had been exposed, so unpropitious as it appeared, may have been the most
favourable for giving consistency to his intellectual researches. He may
have thought in channels the more refined, varied, and luminous, from the
ample experience he had acquired, that the only real evil in this world,
was the frown of the Almighty, and His favor the only real good; so that
the grand work, about to appear, may add strength to the strong, and give
endurance to the finished pediment of his usefulness and his fame.
But although all these cheering anticipations should be fully realized,
regrets will still exist. It will ever be deplored, that Mr. Coleridge's
system of Christian Ethics, had not yet been deliberately recorded by
himself. This feeling, however natural, is still considerably moderated,
by reflecting on the ample competence of the individual on whom the
distinction of preparing this system has devolved; a security that it
will be both well and faithfully executed, and which, in the same
proportion that it reflects credit on the editor, will embalm with
additional honours, the memory of SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE; a genius, who
in the opulence of his imagination, and his rich and inexhaustible
capabilities, as a poet, a logician, and a metaphysician, has not perhaps
been surpassed since the days of Milton.
The following letter of Mr. Coleridge, was written a short time before
his death, to a young friend. This deliberate exposition of his faith,
and at such a season, cancels every random word or sentence, Mr. C. may
ever have expressed or written, of an opposing tendency. In thoughtless
moments Mr. C. may sometimes have expressed himself unguardedly,
attended, on reflection, no doubt with self-accusation, but here in the
full prospect of dissolution, he pours forth the genuine and ulterior
feelings of his soul.
"To Adam Steinmetz Kinnaird,
My dear godchild,--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 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 in 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 aspirations, and
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 enjoyment and advantages of this life are, and what
the more refined pleasures which learning and intellectual power 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 affected with bodily pains, languor, 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 recovery, yet without
prospect of a speedy removal. And I thus, on the 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 has promised; and has reserved, under all pains and infirmities, the
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 they 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.
Oh, preserve this as a legacy and bequest from your unseen godfather and
friend,
S. T. Coleridge.