I write this note to-day because your going away is much upon my mind,
and because I want you to have a few parting words from me to think of
now and then at quiet times. I need not tell you that I love you
dearly, and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you. But this
life is half made up of partings, and these pains must be borne. It is
my comfort and my sincere conviction that you are going to try the life
for which you are best fitted. I think its freedom and wildness more
suited to you than any experiment in a study or office would ever have
been; and without that training, you could have followed no other
suitable occupation.
What you have already wanted until now has been a set, steady, constant
purpose. I therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough
determination to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it.
I was not so old as you are now when I first had to win my food, and do
this out of this determination, and I have never slackened in it since.
Never take a mean advantage of any one in any transaction, and never be
hard upon people who are in your power. Try to do to others as you
would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail
sometimes. It is much better for you that they should fail in obeying
the greatest rule laid down by our Saviour than that you should. I put
a New Testament among your books for the very same reasons, and with
the very same hopes that made me write an easy account of it for you,
when you were a little child. Because it is the best book that ever
was, or will be, known in the world; and because it teaches you the
best lessons by which any human creature, who tries to be truthful and
faithful to duty, can possibly be guided. As your brothers have gone
away, one by one, I have written to each such words as I am now writing
to you, and have entreated them all to guide themselves by this Book,
putting aside the interpretations and inventions of man. You will
remember that you have never at home been harassed about religious
observances or mere formalities. I have always been anxious not to
weary my children with such things before they are old enough to form
opinions respecting them. You will therefore understand the better
that I now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and beauty of the
Christian Religion, as it came from Christ Himself, and the
impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but heartily
respect it. Only one thing more on this head. The more we are in
earnest as to feeling it, the less we are disposed to hold forth about
it. Never abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private
prayers, night and morning. I have never abandoned it myself, and I
know the comfort of it. I hope you will always be able to say in after
life that you had a kind father. You cannot show your affection for
him so well, or make him so happy, as by doing your duty.