Robert Hall, Leicester, to Thomas Langdon, Leeds, 22 September 1820. 

My dear Friend,

  I am extemely concerned to hear so melancholy an account of the state of your health, and sympathise deply with you in your sufferings. You may be assured of an interest in poor prayers; but, alas! how much do they want, to give them that efficacy which the Scripture attaches to the prayer of the righteous!  I hope, my dear friend, that the danger is not so great as you imagine, and that, with the return of spring, your complaint will diminish and your strength be restored.  To yourself, I am well convinced, death would be great gain; but I hope you will yet be spared, for a considerable season, for the sake of your dear family, (to whom I beg to be most affectionately remembered,) and to your church. I indulge the hope, and I and Mrs. Hall often talk of it with pleasure, that you and dear Mrs. Langdon will pay us a visit in the course of next sumer.  Be assured nothing could give us more pleasure.  Let me beg of you to avoid the night air: it is to your frequent exposure to that, I in a great measure impute the malady by which you are so much oppressed.  Pray take all care of your health, and on no occasion be out in the night air . . . You ought long, very long since, to have been released from the fetters of a school, the fatigue of which has no doubt contributed much injury to your constitution.

September 22nd, 1820

Text: Brief Memoir of the Rev. Thomas Langdon, Baptist Minister, of Leeds . . .  By his Daughter  (London: Baines & Newsome, 1837), 115-16.