Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, to Marianna Attwater Head, Bradford, [Friday-Sunday], 19-21 [September  1817].

Bratton  19th

My dear Sister,

   Last Eveg my heart was rejoiced with your entertaining journal. It afforded me a real relief from my anxious state of mind for three preceeding nights my rest was much disturbed by ye anxiety of mind I sufferd fr my afflicted Friend & my gloomy Immagination was very bad in casting a shade where certainty was wanting.—But your kind letter has dissipated my fears for you & I wish to unite in gratitude to our kind preserver that you was protected from every Ill & returnd in safety to your House – had your heart rejoiced by seeing your beloved Friend better and every circumstance so favourable – I think with you it was quite providential your calling on Mrs Airs poor woman I wish she may be sensible of her state as a sinner & see her need of a saviour & come to Jesus as a humble penitent earnestly imploring mercy  I trust those who thus seek even at ye Eleventh hour will not be rejected but find mercy. –

   Does not some of ye good people at Bath visit her?—I think I hd you say her father was very fond of Mr Evitt & used to visit him.—Our good Friend Mr Opie Smith seems a very tender hearted kind man & would I should think be a proper visitant if she wd admit him  I am glad to find our dear cousin is fond of our beloved Theodosias Hymns may she possess ye spirit of the pious Author our dear Cousin Jane have been very ill since I wrote to you – her suffering indeed have been great for 3 weeks past.—I have had D Gibbs to attend her as Dr Seagram is gone to Weymouth having been ill.  She is thro’ mercy better today but very weak.—I believe it hurt her very much going to see our much esteemed departing Friend Mr W.—It must be very solemn & affecting the truth of Dr Youngs assertion was verified. “The chamber where the good man meets his fate is privileged beyond ye common walks of Life  Life quite in ye verge of Heaven.”

   Yesterday morng about 7 oclock in ye morng our worthy friends happy spirit quitted its house of Clay for a mansion in Heaven his sufferings was great previous to dissolution for some days but thro’ Infinite mercy as Affliction abounded divine consolation much more abounded.—Faith Love & every Christian grace shone with peculiar Lustre & He was enabled to Glorify that God in Death whom he had faithfully lovd & served in Life – Oh may God enable me to live ye Life & die ye death of the Righteous – & be at last permited to welcome this last messenger with calm resignation to my God & an unwavering confidence in his love & mercy shining even on me in ye face of Jesus Christ the only Saviour Mrs & Miss Williams are in deep distress but their Health is as well as can be expected under their heavy loss.—poor Henry arrived about an hour after his father breathd his last.—We are all much afflicted with our loss we have to mourn the death of a kind affecte good Neighbour a very useful member of Society.  A pious & active Deacon of ye church & a Friend & well wisher to all the precious race.  His Urbanity of Manners & gentle deportment merited & obtaind the Love of all who knew how to justly apreciate real worth.—

“Ill speak the Honor of thy name

With my last labouring breath

And dying clasp thee in my Arms

The antidote of Death”

Oh my sister thus to die is stepping into Heaven before

Sepr 21st

Cousin Jane is better today but not well enough to go out to meeting.—I hope in a few days her health will be much improvd.  Our dear sisters anxiety for her only remaining daughter is very great.  She seems to forget her own weakness &c in her alarm & solicitude – then she feels it afterward with redoubled force.—

Beg you to let me know how Mrs Airs is I feel much interested for her

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols.  (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 8, pp. 188-89 (annotated version); Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.A.9, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. No address page or postmark. This letter was written in 1817, just after the death of Thomas Williams, the father of Sophia and Henry Williams, all members of the Bratton Baptist Church. Sophia Williams married Thomas Whitaker, Caroline Whitaker's son, in 1824. After her husband's death, Sophia Williams Whitaker remained in Bratton until her death in 1891 at the age of 100, retaining in her possession many of the manuscripts that now reside in the Attwater, Saffery, and Whitaker collections of the Angus Library. Her brother, Henry, lived in London at the time of the above letter and was not a believer, much to the dismay of Sophia, as noted in the "Diary of Sophia Williams," which can be found in Whelan, Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, vol. 8, pp. 437-81. Also mentioned above is Anna Jane Whitaker of Bratton, youngest daughter of Caroline Whitaker.

Opie Smith was awealthy brewer of “porter, beer, and brandy” in Horse Street, Bath, and a prominent member of the Particular Baptist congregation in Somerset Street, Bath, for some fifty years (he was a deacon for more than thirty years). He attended under the ministries of Robert Parsons (1752-1789) and John Paul Porter (1791-1832). Smith was a great benefactor of churches in Cornwall and assisted for many years with the financial support of the Western Baptist Association and its efforts to send itinerant preachers into Cornwall, especially Redruth, Penzance, and Helston. In 1803 he purchased Saffron Court in Falmouth, reviving the nearly defunct Baptist interest there and providing the stimulus for a new chapel, which was completed in early 1804. See The Case of the Baptist Church, Meeting in Somerset Street, Bath (London: n.p., 1829), pp. 13-14.