Robert Hall, Bristol, to Thomas Langdon, Leeds, 1 May 1790.

  You cannot doubt, my dear friend, that it would give me the greatest pleasure to spend a few days with you, but my different engagements render it for the present impossible for me to do so.  I am the less disappointed at this because I expect the satisfaction of seeing you at Hull.  Pray, my dear Sir, do not disappoint me in this pleasing hope: my pleasure in the prospect of my journey depends chiefly upon it. . . I received your sermon, and am truly obliged to you for the perusal.  You will not, you ought not at least to suspect me of flattery, when I assure you, for manly freedom of thought, Christian liberty, and dignified eloquence of style, I have read none superior.  You ought, with such talents for composition as you have displayed in this instance, to edify the world oftener by your publications.  I entirely agree with you in the just and enlarged views you have given of the constitution of a Christian church, and the proper terms of communion; though I am afraid they will bring upon you the censure of narrow-minded mortals. . . .  I am very sorry we live at such a distance as to admit of so few opportunities of personal intercourse.  This, however to be lamented, can never occasion any abatement of my respect for your goodness, nor of my gratitude for your steady, disinterested, and unshaken friendship. . . . I would bow with submission to the disposals of an all-wise Providence, which in its severity has left many blessings, and many friends, the chief of whom I shall never cease to esteem my dear friend Langdon.

  May 1st, 1790.

Text: A Brief Memoir of the Rev. Thomas Langdon, Baptist Minister, of Leeds . . .  By his Daughter  (London: Baines & Newsome, 1837), 143-44.