Anne Steele, Broughton, to William Steele IV, at George Bullock’s, Yeovil, Somerset, 4 March 1762.

My Dear Brother

         Tho’ I am sensible my concern can be of no service to you, I cannot but grieve for your affliction. I have often been afraid you wou’d be attack’d by the Gout but as you had escaped it so long I began to be easy about it, and as your Letters gave us hope of my Sister’s increasing recovery pleas’d my self with the expectation of seeing you soon.  As my sister is so weak I fear your illness will hurt her. I sympathize with you both, and perhaps the more intimately for the long-continued pain & weakness wherewith it has pleased God to exercise me: but how helpless and unavailing is the tenderest sympathy of mortal Friendship! Forever adored be divine Mercy for the chearing hope of an interest in that Almighty Friend who can not only sympathize with, but effectually support and succour us. May his gracious Presence be our constant Comfort and we cannot be unhappy! A Christian in the exercise of Faith and Hope has the greatest reason to be contented with the dispensations of Providence, even tho’ they are painful and distressing; since they are all, not only just and right, but good and kind: and if afflictions are sanctified to wean us from Earth (which we know cannot be our Rest) and to raise our thoughts, our hopes and our hearts to Heaven; we may justly account them Blessings.

         When the Mind is preserved by the influences of divine Grace from sinking into a gloom of dejection, how many Mercies may we find mingled with every Affliction which demand our thankful acknowledgements, and tend to promote a chearful acquiescence, and encourage our hope and trust in the care of that heavenly Father who sends afflictions for our proffit [sic] that we may be partakers of his Holiness.  What an inestimable Benefit is this! O may we experience increasing evidences of our interest in it, ‘till, kept by the power of God thro’ faith unto Salvation, we arrive at that happy World where sorrow and sighing shall flee away: where Sin, the cause of all the ills of mortality, shall be forever banished; and Joy unm[in][1]gled and uninterrupted be the everlasting Portion of the Redeemed of the Lord!

         I desire you will continue to send every Post, have some hope from the conclusion of your last Letter that the next may bring us news of your being better.  Father has a bad Cold – there is little difference in my health only my head-ake is not so bad to day as sometimes, & consequently I am not so incapable of writing.  I join with Father in Love to Sister, your Self and Polly, and Service to M.r Bullock, and am                                

                                 My Dear Brother

                                                         Your ever affectionate Friend

                                                                     A. Steele

Broughton  March 4th 1762

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 2 (ed. Julia B. Griffin), pp. 319-20 (edited version); STE 3/8/x, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. Address: To | M.r Will.m Steele | at M.r Geo: Bullock’s | in Yeovil | Sommersett.   Also on the address page is written ‘March 4 1762’.