Robert Hall, Leicester, to Thomas Langdon, Leeds, 14 January 1820.

My dear Friend,

  As an opportunity occurs, I take the liberty of troubling you with a few lines, just to let you know how I and my family are; and to express my undiminished affection and attachment to one of my oldest and best friends.  I look back with renewed pleasure on the scenes through which we have passed, and deply regret that Providence has placed us at such a distance from each other, that our opportunites of intercourse are so few.  I hope the period will arrive when we shall spend an eternity together, and look back with mingled wonder and gratitude on all the way the Lord God has led us.  What a scene will that present, when the mysterious drama shall come to a close, and all the objects of this dark and sublunary state be contemplated in the light of eternity!

“O could we make our doubts remove,

Those gloomy doubts that rise,

And see the Canaan that we love

With unbeclouded eyes!”

I am very sorry to hear that you have been recently very much afflicted with your asthmatic complaint.  It is high time you retired from your school, and procured a house nearer your chapel.  I am persuaded your long evening walks are extremely prejudicial.  Do, my dear friend, be prevailed upon to give up your evening lectures.  It is what you owe to your family to be as attentive as possible to your health.  “Do thyself no harm” is an apostolic injunction. .  . .  Let me indulge the hope, that next summer you and Mrs. Langdon will visit me at Leicester.  Be assured that the company of no friend would give me more pleasure.

January 14, 1820

Text:  Brief Memoir of the Rev. Thomas Langdon, Baptist Minister, of Leeds . . .  By his Daughter  (London: Baines & Newsome, 1837), 113-14.