Caleb Evans, Bristol, to Mary Steele, [Broughton,] [Saturday] 11 March 1786.

Bristol March 11. 1786.

   My Dear Friend’s Letter by M.r Hackett gave me peculiar pleasure, as it not only assur’d me of our enjoy:g a more tranquil state of mind than she had done, but that my poor epistle, and I am sure poor indeed I tho’t it had in some measure contributed to it.  There is in human nature, at differ:t times, a strange disparity, if I may so express it, a kind of inconsistency scarcely explicable.  I don’t wonder at the thot’s you hint at that even God himself could not now make you happy.  Alas, I too well remem:r those moments of pungent anguish, when the very same tho’ts have taken possession of my heart.  With shame I own it, nor will I out of false tenderness to my much esteemed friend, attempt to exterminate the guilt of it, bec:s she has partook of it.  ’Tis highly criminal indeed.  It arises from dispositions at ye very tho’t of which we ought to shudder; and where bro’t to our right minds we do shudder at them.  Could the dear Deceas’d be recall’d, & again brighten y.r social circle; could he make you happy? Wd his presence dispel y.r gloom, and restore y.r joys?  And cann:t his God do it?  That God whom he ador’d, that God in whom he trusted, that God to whom in ye very last agonies of dissolving nature he so calmly resign’d his Spir:t? Yes, Yes my Sylvia, he can do it, and he will.  He, He himself, great  & exalted as he is, condescends to solicit y.r confidence, to cultiv:t y.r friendship, & asks you to accept of him as your Father!  Will you resist his approaches, will you be cool in y.r intercourses with him? No, you cannot, you’ll give him y.r heart, you’ll trust in him with all y.r heart, & looking unto Jes:s, you’ll at once substantiate the blessings of grace, cry out Abba Father, there is forgiven:s with thee, W.t wilt thou have me to do?  In patience you’ll possess y.r Soul, & in y.r most pens.v moments y.r bosom will swell with ye purest joy in the prospect of that life & immortal.y wch are bro’t so clearly to light by ye gosp.l, y.t we might as reasonably doubt ye reality of the pres.t state, as of y.t brighter better state to come, in wch ye virtuous shall all meet, & be all forev.r happy together!  You say, the Gospel must produce cert.n effects – it must.  My Dear Sylvia, study it, realize it is the great, live daily in a believ:g comprehens:v view of it & you’ll feel it’s effects & send me joyful tidings of y.r felicity & y.r  hopes.  Let X:t, y.t is ye Gospel, be formed in you, & ’twill be, depend upon it, ye hope of glory to you.  Nothing, nothing but the substantial consolations of religion can soothe, can heal you, but these will; and O my frd, My Sylvia, now y.r d.r Fath:r is gone who has so often spoke to me of you with tears of tendern:s & joy, I feel my attachm:t to you strengthen’d, & I long, I long to hear you say – Yes – the consolations of relig.n have sooth’d have heal’d me, & I do rejoice in hope.  The time is short, I’ll spend it in ye fear of my God, I’ll cheerfully disch:g ye duties of life, & then sleep in Jes:s, & awake to immor.l glory.  O happy happy day, w.n all shall meet around the throne of our God and Redeemer! W.n our advances in knowl.g & happiness, shall infin:y m.r exceed our present ideas, than our present ideas exceed those of our earliest infancy!

   But whither am I running I shall speak from ye fulln:s of my heart, & know not how to stop till the desire of it respec.g my d.r frd is accomplish’d.  It will be so I am sure, hereaf:r, if it be not now.  ’Tis, happy predictions!  They shall be fulfill’d; & we shall meet again, we shall rejoice together. “Wn sh.ll I wake & find me there!”

   I wish you to read M.r Robins:s Sermons just publish’d by Dilly, & which I wd have sent you but have no spare copy by me.  They will afford you much entertain:t & some Instruc:n.  They are peculiar, & truly origin.l.  The Art of Simplifying no man surely ever possess’d in such perfect:n. Nor is he a stranger to sublim:y,  & to be sure his coloring is exquisite.  They abound with beauties, but if they had less duplicity in some instances, & were more thoroly evangelic.l espec:y in ye article of the Spir:s influences  I sh.d h.v lik’d y.m better. I shall be glad to have y.r Sentiments of y:m w.n you h.v read y:m.   D.r Stennett has also publish’d some Serms:s on ye parable of the Sower, wch are truly excellent,  & much calcul.d to do good.   I wish y.m in ye hands of all profess.g Xtians. 

   I send you by M.r Hackett a ring yt exactly fits me, & ye last memor.l of ye kind I have rec:d.  I am ready to say – you might h.v shar’d this exp.e – & yet I do not for such a friend wh.s memory will never be obliter:d fr.m my bosom, I sh.d be proud to rec:v such a memor:l.

   You did right n.t to pay ye money as it was p.d before.  I can’t, unl.s y.r sight was bett.r, ask for, ano.r such letter as y.r last – but I am alw.s happy to rec.v even a line from you, & the larger ye letter ye m.r am I oblig’d – But I’ll tresp:s on y.r pat.e no longer y.n while I add our united, best remembrance to y.r whole circle, as the nam’d, & partic.y my dist.t admir:g frd – & y.t I am most sinc.y & affec.y

                                             Yrs  &c   

                                                         CE.

Text: STE 5/16/vii, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. No address page. Robert Robinson (1735-90) was the celebrated Baptist minister at St. Andrew’s Street, Cambridge, and author of the popular hymn, ‘Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing’; his Sixteen Discourses on Several Texts of Scripture, printed and sold by Charles Dilly, appeared in 1786.