Robert Hall, Leicester, to Thomas Langdon, Leeds, c. 1820.

My dear Friend,

  I am extremely concerned to hear of the ill state of your health, which I fear, from what I have heard, has been seriously declining for some time.  It is my earnest prayer and hope that the Lord may restore it, and yet spare you many years for the good of your family and of the church.  It is a great mortification to me that I am situated at such a distance as renders it impossible for me to see you often.  But I retain and ever shall retain the strongest sentiments of friendship and esteem; and the remembrance of innumerable acts of kindness and attention from you in my early days.  Those days are fled, and we are both now far nearer to eternity than then; both I hope nearer to consummate blessedness.  For myself, I feel a full persuasion that your removal (may it be at a distant period) will be  unspeakable gain. . .

Text: Brief Memoir of the Rev. Thomas Langdon, Baptist Minister, of Leeds . . .  By his Daughter  (London: Baines & Newsome, 1837), 53-54.