John Geard, Chacewater, to John Sutcliff, Strathtay, Scotland, to be left at John Fawcett’s, Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, 5 July 1773.

Chacewater    July ye 5th 1773

Dear friend

         I am now sat down in order to communicate some intelligence to my friend in Yorkshire. I did not come into Cornwall so soon as I intended when I left Bristol on the account of the complaint in my breast.  Yesterday sennight was the first Lords day I spent in Cornwall. I am not sorry that I deferred my journey for a week. I apprehend that it would not have been the most surprizing news to you that ever was heard, if I should have informed you that by preaching and journeying I had knocked myself up but I have no such intelligence to communicate. The week before the last, I rode about 170 miles and preached 8 times. Last week I rode 40 miles and preached 7 times. This week I have rode 6 miles or thereabout and preached 3 times, and have appointed for twice more already, viz this evening & tomorrow evening. Blessed be God for a good constitution, and for a desire, I hope in a measure at least to improve it for his honor and glory and the good of precious souls. I feel no bad effects at present of journeying or preaching. I have had no very bad opportunities in preaching since I came into Cornwall. The Lord be praised if I have solid reason to think I have enjoyed any thing of his spiritual presence, and may his divine blessing accompany what I have attempted. I should be better able to give you an account of particular matters had I staid longer before I had written. The number of people at Falmouth have not been as yet large since I came. At Chacewater last night the company was quite numerous considering that the meeting house is not very large, and that it has no gallery. The house was upon the whole pretty well stuffed, and some for ought I know out of doors. I expect young Preceptor[3] by next Lord’s day. I intend to ride part of the road towards Plymouth to meet him, but I expect a letter from him informing me at what particular place to come. Brother pray for me that the Lord may cause his grace to abound towards me. O what a good master you and I profess to serve!  What pleasures are comparable to the pleasures of religion!  To be employed as the ambassadors of Christ, to be honored so as to carry the messages of God to men, what can be likened to this!  And what art thou O Sutcliff, and what am I, or what are our fathers houses that we should be advanced hitherto, if in reality we are the ambassadors of Christ. May the Lord if he has counted us faithful and put us into the ministry, make us eminently useful & may we have a disposition & ability to abound in the work of the Lord. May we never preach an unfelt gospel but continually feel the power and influence of the truths we deliver unto others upon our own hearts. May Gods strength be made perfect in our weakness. Send me an ans.r as soon as possible that I may receive it before I leave Cornwall. Let me know how it is with you as to your health. The Lord bless and be with you and cause his face to shine upon you!  May he establish your bodily health if it be agreeable to his will. May you grow and flourish in the best things. May you be an instrument of doing much good!  Give my respects to relations & friends tho’ to me unknown, as well as to y.r pastor. I now subscribe myself your affectionate friend

                                                                                 John Geard

P.S. Direct for me to be left at M.r Richard Muttons[4] in Falmouth Cornwall. The complaint in my breast is pretty nearly if not quite gone. The greek testament &c are left at Montacute. 

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), pp. 13-15 (annotated version); also Eng. MS. 370, fol. 51, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. Another letter by Geard to Sutcliff and Thomas Purdy, dated 9 August 1773, can be found in the BMS Archives, Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, Oxford. Preceptor [Praeceptor] served, mostly as a supply minister or assistant, in several Baptist congregations in the southwest of England in the 1770s. Whether he was a classmate of Geard’s at Bristol is unknown.