William Ward, Cheltenham, to John Nelson, Church Street, 1 Oyer Court, Whitehaven, 5 August 1819.

Cheltenham, Aug. 5, 1819

My dear Friend,

         I received your letter yesterday, & thank you for it. I had been thinking about you, & resolving to write to you. I should have written sooner, but have been very ill one part of the time, & have been travelling so much the other part, that I have really had no time. But as I am come here to drink the water, I have now more leisure: this is the 26th letter I have written since I came here, & I have been here only 6 days

         I was glad to find that you had left off wandering from the flock; & that you have been enjoying the comforts of home & of the house of God, our better home—

“There my best friends, my kindred dwell,

There God my Saviour lives.”

         I had heard something of the loss of the place, & the visiting of the Trustees; but am glad that you have found a place of refuge, & have obtained a Chapel which was before almost useless; & if the Scotch minister be a good man, then you can say with Paul, the afflictions which have befallen you have tended to the furtherance of the Gospel. Ah! my friend, “the Lord can clear the darkest skies; can give us day for night.” When I left the ship my legs were much swelled as well as other parts of my body. I thought it was only the confinement, but when I got to Bristol, I found that I had a dropsy beginning to lay hold of me; & the Dr had some concern for my life; but these symptoms were soon removed; & I bless God that I am now much better, & hope that by remaining at this place for a week or two more I shall have gained a considerable degree of strength. I am glad to hear that you are so well, & that you appear to enjoy your Christian privileges: may you often be enabled to say “Verily God is in this place.” I rejoice too, that you are trying to be useful. This, my friend, is the very means of gaining good, for even Christ, though his sufferings were so dreadful, shall see of the travail of his soul & be satisfied:

“There on a green & flowery mount

         Our weary souls shall sit;

And with transporting joys recount

         The labours of our God.”

         Go on, then, my dear friend, live very near to God in your closet & in your daily walk, & resolve, by teaching the young, by conversing with your ungodly neighbours, by assisting in every attempt to call sinners to repentance, resolve, I say, in the strength of God, that you will snatch one sinner from the [illegible word] & take one sinner with you to heaven, to be your eternal joy, & your crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus. Wrestle with God to give you one sinner, & try to catch that one sinner, & I doubt not you will then save a soul from death, & even a multitude of sins.

         Remember me to your Minister. May the Lord give him those seals to his Ministry that shall make him shine as the stars for ever & ever. Remember me also to your partner in life; & forget not to pray for 

                  Your affectionate friend

                                             & companion on board the Princess Charlotte,

                                                               W Ward.

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), pp. 189-91 (annotated version); also Raffles Handlist, fasc. 34, fol. 20, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. Ward’s sermon of 23 June 1819, From the Power of Satan unto God, was preached at Zion Chapel and printed in the Baptist Magazine (1819), 305-307. On the day of the above letter, Ward spoke at Queen-Street Chapel, Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, London. Ward traveled from India on the Charlotte with Mr. Nelson who, the letter suggests, was a Scotch Baptist. Ward spent much of 1819-20 in England, leaving in October 1820 for a visit to America, before returning the next spring to England; he finally arrived back in Serampore in the fall of 1821. For more on Ward’s furlough, see F. A. Cox, History of the Baptist Missionary Society, from 1792 to 1842, 2 vols. (London: T. Ward, and G. and J. Dyer, 1842), 1: 280-84.