Note 10 — Chapter XXIV
Reading edition
These impressions of impending death he carried with him constantly during the year or two just preceding the final outbreak of this plot.
In the spring of 1873 he wrote to his wife:
“My dear Wife: Thanks for your letter from Jacksonville. It cheered me. God knows that I do not need any more loads; and a comforting letter never could come to a better market.
“My life is almost over. I am like one waiting for the stage, his things all packed. The world is bright enough and good enough, and I enjoy a hundred things in it, and am neither moody nor morbid. Yet I have an abiding sense that my work is almost done. Every new thing done, lecture, sermon, or course of lectures, I count as clear gain—so much more than I expected, What the other life is I do not know, and none know so little as those who pretend to know best. That it will be bright and gladdening I am sure; that is all. That I have had success and achieved something gives me pleasure, chiefly because my life has been used for those who were weak and helpless. My lot has been cast in a time when the rights of the under-classes were to be considered. That I have been identified with that great movement of humanity is reward enough, and is the chief satisfaction which I take in the retrospect. But enough, enough.”
In another letter:
“I wish I were with you. When you are gone I feel how much you are to me. May God keep you for me for many years to come, if many years are in store for me.
“Your loving but heavy-hearted husband,
“H. W. B.”
In his private diary he wrote:
“I have not lived for myself; all my force has been devoted to the promotion of men’s happiness—happiness through justice, truth, goodness. Whatever prosperity I have had came to me almost unconsciously, certainly not by any wit or wisdom of my own. I am grateful for having lived. I shall go without murmur or discontent.
“I hope that there will be those who will be sorry when I leave, and those beyond who will be glad when I arrive.”
This same feeling remained with him, more or less, though not in so pronounced a form, through the remainder of his life.