I often wish, my dear friend, that the bounds of our habitation were so fixed that we might not only correspond with, but face to face converse with, each other. This privilege I now enjoy with my friend King, who for nearly a year has been on the same spot, and even in the same house. But I still feel my heart longing after my absent friend. This indeed may originate in some latent feeling of ingratitude and discontent, which leads me to overlook the mercy vouchsafed, and to long for that denied. And yet I am not conscious that this is altogether the case: hardly a day elapses in which I do not thank God for the blessing granted me, through the medium of my present friend. He is a most choice and valuable young man—one of ten thousand. And yet the question frequently arises in my mind, why did I ever know—why did I feel so exceedingly attached to my absent friend, if it were not the intention of a gracious and indulgent God to give him to me in like manner? But the ways of the Lord are in the great deep: his footsteps are not known; and yet gracious, though unknown, I would therefore be thankful that I have a dear—dear—very dear friend, to whom I can write, and for whom I can pray, if I can do no more; and my mind is solaced and comforted with the hope that a day is coming in which we shall join to part no more; that glorious inheritance is at hand where some adjacent mansion shall be assigned us, or where distance shall prove no impediment or barrier to our intercourse. May our loving Saviour, who is “the way, the truth, and the life,” guide us and ours all safe to this glorious kingdom!
Your very affectionate Friend and old Collegian,
Another of his friends, the Rev. J. C., the present rector of a parish in Cheshire, may be here introduced—a friend whom he esteemed very highly. This gentleman, in the former years of his life, was engaged in business, and his friend was very desirous of detaching his mind from this pursuit, and of leading him to turn his attention to the sacred office. In one of his early letters pressing this change upon his consideration, he makes the following pertinent remark:—
“It is not easy, when fixed by circumstances, and extensively surrounded by our secular concerns, to follow the example of Matthew, and immediately to arise. The din of business and the clamour of dear friends drown the soft intimations of our passing Lord, and, questioning the reality of his call, we find it difficult to leave all behind.”