HOME LETTERS

HOME LETTERS.

The family letters which follow are some of a religious character, while others turn on more general topics.

Four letters written by Wilberforce to his daughter Elizabeth, aged fifteen at the date the correspondence begins, show the care with which he instilled into her mind all that he considered of most moment; also how he exercised "the privilege of a friend," for such he considered himself to his daughter, and "told her frankly all her faults."

Mr. Wilberforce to his daughter Elizabeth. "November 30, 1816.

"This is but a short letter to my dear Elizabeth. When I do address my dear girl, I ought to consider how I can best testify my friendship: for friendship let there be between us; never can you have a friend more warmly attached to you or more interested in your welldoing and happiness than myself. But if we are to be friends, you must allow me the privilege of a friend, a privilege by far the most valuable of all its excellencies. So thought your dear Uncle Stephen,[42] when in the very extreme bitterness of his grief, which was as great as that of any one I ever witnessed, though he is now able to control his feelings before company, he said to me while enlarging on the various particulars of my dear sister's extraordinary character, 'O, she was a friend to my soul! She told me frankly all my faults,' an office in which, I am obliged to confess, he charged me with having been deficient. This has arisen, however, solely from my scarcely ever having seen him alone, when only I could converse with him confidentially. But if I am to exercise this best prerogative, this most sacred and indispensable duty of friendship, it will be necessary for my dear Elizabeth to prepare her mind and temper for receiving it properly, and for deriving from it all the benefits it is capable of imparting. Shall I be honest, and I must be so or be silent; were I otherwise, the very sheet which I am writing would rise up in judgment against me at the last day; if then, I am frank and honest, I must declare to you, that it is on this quarter that it will be necessary for my dear girl to guard herself with the utmost watchfulness, and, still more, to prepare herself with conscientious care. This is what St. Paul terms "exercising herself to maintain a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man": what the Book of Proverbs styles, "keeping the heart with all diligence:" for unless we have accustomed ourselves to self-suspicion, if I may use such a phrase, we never benefit as we might from the friendly reproofs of a real friend. We may receive his remarks with civility, and even give him credit for his kind intentions, but we shall be almost sure to let it appear to any acute observer at least, that we rather tolerate his frankness out of principle, or put up with it in consideration of the friendly motives by which it has been prompted, than that we listen to it with a sincere desire of profiting from it, still less that we welcome it as one of the most valuable services in design, even when not in fact, that could be rendered to us. The grand preparation that is needed is, Humility: that sense of our own infirmities and our own weakness, which is felt by every true, at least by every flourishing Christian. We read in the Scripture that 'our hearts are deceitful above all things:' by which is meant, that we are all prone to flatter ourselves, to form too high an estimate of our own good qualities, and too low an idea of our bad ones. Now it is the first office of the Holy Spirit to teach us to know ourselves, and immediately to suspect ourselves as the first effect of that knowledge. Now be honest with yourself, my very dear child. Have you been accustomed to distrust the judgment you have been in the habit of forming of your own character, as you would have done if it had been formed and stated to you by any one whom you knew to be a notorious liar? Yet this is really the way in which we ought to feel; I know how difficult it is in practice from my own experience; and because it is so difficult, it is here that we need the special aid of the Holy Spirit, and should earnestly pray for His blessed influence to teach us to know ourselves. Be earnest, then, in prayer, my very dear Elizabeth, and frequent in self-examination on this very point. I have often detected my own self-partiality and self-deceit by observing how differently the same fault, be it small or great, appears to me when committed by myself, and when committed by others, how much more ready I am with apologies for it, or with extenuations for its guilt. If a servant has done anything wrong, or omitted some act of duty, I observe how it appears to me, and if I have done much the same fault, or been guilty of the same omission, how much less does it impress itself on me, how much sooner do I forget it. I assure you, I speak sincerely when I tell you I find this the case with myself: now observe whether you do; and if so, then it will be a subject for humiliation before God, and a motive for earnest prayer. Let my dearest Lizzie be particularly watchful to improve the present season; for as you have heard me say, Christ—as is stated in Rev. iii.—'stands at the door and knocks,' that is, He uses particular events and circumstances of our lives, for impressing us with the importance of spiritual things, and if the event and the circumstances pass over without producing their proper effect, there is always a positive bad consequence. So much grace is, as it were expended on us in vain. The heart becomes harder and less favourably disposed on another occasion. And though we must not limit the grace and power of God, yet it is a great point to know what the Scripture (2 Cor. vi.) terms "our appointed time, our day of salvation." I am sure you find your heart softened and affected more than usual just now. O try, my beloved girl, to render this permanently, let me say eternally, useful to you. I understand you are reading Doddridge's 'Rise and Progress.' You cannot read a better book. I hope it was one of the means of turning my heart to God. Certainly, there are few books which have been so extensively useful. Pray over some of the prayers at the conclusion of the chapters; as, for instance, if I remember right, that at the end of the chapter, 'After a state of spiritual decay.' But I have not the book at hand, and cannot quote it from memory. Don't read this till you have half an hour's leisure."

Of the privilege of friendship alluded to in this letter, Wilberforce also writes later to his daughter Elizabeth: "You will never find telling Robert" (afterwards Archdeacon Wilberforce), "of any fault offend him, if you do it when you are tête à tête, and when he sees from your manner and from the circumstances that you can only have his happiness at heart, I mean that this friendly regard can alone prompt you to such a proof of real attachment."

Mr. Wilberforce to his daughter Elizabeth. "Hastings, "January 17, 1817.

"My dearest Lizzy,—Your letter to-day gives me pleasure. We heard from Marianne (Thornton) of her having paid you a visit. Her friendly attachment to Barbara[43] and you, I account as one of the special blessings of Providence; and there are many particulars, though not all, in which I should be very glad to have her the object of your imitation. I am half asleep from not having had a good night, and find myself occasionally writing one word instead of another—a slip which I sometimes witness in my dear Lizzy's case; I know not whether it be from the same cause, I hope not. For my last night's wakefulness arose in part from my thinking on some subjects of deep interest from which, though I made several efforts, I could not altogether withdraw my thoughts. My mind obeyed me indeed while I continued wide awake, but when dropping half asleep, it started aside from the serious and composing train of ideas to which I had forced it up, and like a swerving horse, it chose to go its own way rather than mine. It is a delightful consideration, my dearest child, that there is a gracious and tender Saviour who, in our sleeping as well as waking hours, is watching over us for good, if we are of the number of those who look to Him habitually for consolation and peace, and such I trust will be more and more the case of my dear Elizabeth."

The next letter is in a more lively strain and explains to Elizabeth the system of Bishop Berkeley.

Mr. Wilberforce to his daughter Elizabeth. "Highwood Hill, "July 13, 1830.

"My dear Lizzy,—If many intentions to write could be admitted as making up one letter, you would have to thank me for being so good a correspondent. But I fear that this is a mode of calculation that will only come into use, when the system of good Bishop Berkeley has become established. I cannot explain what this is so well as Robert could, but its distinctive principle is that there are no such things as substances. You may suppose that you have had the pleasure of re-visiting a very dear friend, called Miss Palmer, and you probably would assure me, if I asked you whether they still continued at the Hall any such vulgar practice as that of eating, that the turkies and fowls were as good and as freely bestowed as when I used to partake of them in earlier years. All mere delusion. All imagination. All ideal. There is no Elizabeth (she only appeared to occupy an ideal place in an ideal carriage, when she travelled down to Mosely and Elmdon), there is no Miss Palmer, nor are the fowls and turkies a whit more substantial than the supposed eaters of them, I really am serious—such is the system of one of the ablest and best of men (he was spoken of by Pope as 'Having every virtue under heaven'); he held that the Almighty formed us so as to have impressions produced on us as if these were realities, but that this was all. I little intended when I took up my pen to give you such a Lecture in Metaphysics. I am sure I have had a Lecture, a practical one, on the duty of bearing interruptions with good humour. This morning (it is now 4 p.m. and dinner taking on the table) I took up my pen at 10 o'clock, and my first thoughts were naturally drawn to you. Scarcely had I finished my first sentence when in came Knowles (as queer he is as ever) and announced Lord Teignmouth. Up I went to him in the drawing-room, and as cordial a shake of the hand he received from me as one friend can give to another. But I own I began to wish I could be in two places at once. I had secured as I thought, several hours of quiet, and my eyes happened to be better than for sometime past, and I was therefore hoping to pay away a great part of my epistolary arrears, when in comes my friend, and remains with me between three and four hours, refusing to stay dinner, but not departing till after the post had gone out. However, such incidents are salutary, they accustom us to bear with cheerfulness the little vexatious interruptions which people sometimes bear with less equanimity than more serious grievances. Here enter Uncle Stephen——But with some pressing I have got him to agree to stay till to-morrow morning, so I may finish my letter. I must first tell you what I think a remarkably well-expressed description of Lady Raffles, contained in a letter from the Duchesse de Broglie, to whom I gave Lady R. a letter of introduction—'C'est une personne qui inspire un profond interêt. Elle a tant de dignité et de douceur.' The epithets appear to me very happy. And now, my dear Lizzy, I must conclude my very disjointed letter, written à plusiers reprises as the French phrase it."

Elizabeth would seem to have written to her father as to her solitariness of spirit in so confidential a strain that his sympathy had been thoroughly awakened. In his answer he excuses himself for not having been more of a companion to her on the ground that he had been so long engaged in public business, and also that as he had been almost an old bachelor before he married, he had got out of the habit of tender attention to young women of education and delicacy; but he assures her she will always find in him unfeigned tenderness of spirit for all her feelings, and all her infirmities. His remedies for "solitariness of spirit" are most practical.

Mr. Wilberforce to his daughter Elizabeth. "Highwood Hill, "July 26, 1830.

"My Very Dear Lizzy,—Though, owing to my having been betrayed into forgetfulness of the flight of time while sitting under the shade of the lime tree it is now so late that I shall not be able to write to you so fully as I wished and intended, I must not be so unjust to myself or so unkind to you as I certainly should be if I were not to reply to your last interesting letter as soon as possible. And yet, my dear girl, it could be only from nervous sensibility that you could doubt of my putting the right construction on your opening your heart to me without disguise. I wish you could have seen the whole interior of mine when I had read through it: I am not ashamed to say that I melted into tears of affectionate sympathy. Your letter really contained nothing but what tended to call forth feelings of esteem and regard for you. My dear Lizzy, I will return your openness by a similar display of it. I will confess to you that I have not seldom blamed myself for not endeavouring more to cheer your solitary hours, when you have had no friend of your own sex to whom you could open your heart, and I will try to amend of this fault. My not walking with you more frequently has, however, been often caused by the circumstance you mention, that at the very hour at which I can get out, just when the post has departed, you are yourself employed in a way of which I always think with pleasure, and which I doubt not will bring down a blessing on your head. But there is another cause which may have some effect in rendering me less tenderly attentive than young women of education and delicacy like persons to be, and must in some measure find them, before they can open their hearts to them with unreserved freedom. I allude to my having been so long and so constantly engaged in public business and having been almost an old bachelor before I married. Let my dear child, however, be assured that she will always experience from me an unfeigned tenderness of spirit and a kind consideration for all her feelings and even, shall I say it, all her infirmities. Meanwhile let me advise you, my dear child, whenever you do feel anything of that solitariness of spirit of which you speak, to endeavour to find an antidote for it in prayer. There is often much of bodily nervousness in it. I am ashamed to acknowledge that I am sometimes conscious of it myself. Another method which I would recommend to you for getting the better of it, is to engage in some active exertion, teaching some child, instructing some servant, comforting some poor sufferer from poverty and sickness. I deeply feel the Bishop and Mrs. Ryder's kindness to you, but it is of a piece with all their conduct towards me and mine. God bless them, I say from the heart."

In 1814, Mr. Wilberforce at the age of fifty-five, begins his correspondence with his son Samuel, aged nine. The father is already seeking for a proof of the grand change of conversion in his child.

Mr. Wilberforce to his son Samuel. "September 13, 1814.

"I was shocked to hear that you are nine years old; I thought it was eight. You must take great pains to prove to me that you are nine not in years only, but in head and heart and mind. Above all, my dearest Samuel, I am anxious to see decisive marks of your having begun to undergo the great change. I come again and again to look to see if it really be begun, just as a gardener walks up again and again to examine his fruit trees and see if his peaches are set; if they are swelling and becoming larger, finally if they are becoming ripe and rosy. I would willingly walk barefoot from this place to Sandgate to see a clear proof of the grand change being begun in my dear Samuel at the end of my journey."[44]

"March 25, 1817.

"I do hope, my dear Samuel, like his great namesake at a still earlier period of life, is beginning to turn in earnest to his God. Oh, remember prayer is the great means of spiritual improvement, and guard as you would against a wild beast which was lying in a bush by which you were to pass, ready to spring upon you—guard in like manner, I say, against wandering thoughts when you are at prayer either by yourself or in the family.[45] Nothing grieves the Spirit more than our willingly suffering our thoughts to wander and fix themselves on any object which happens at the time to interest us."

"June 5, 1817.

"My Dear Samuel,—Loving you as dearly as I do, it might seem strange to some thoughtless people that I am glad to hear you are unhappy. But as it is about your soul, and as I know that a short unhappiness of this kind often leads to lasting happiness and peace and joy, I cannot but rejoice. I trust, my dear boy, it is the Spirit of God knocking at the door of your heart, as the Scripture expresses it, and making you feel uneasy, that you may be driven to find pardon and the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, and so be made one of Christ's flock and be taken care of in this world and be delivered from hell, and be taken when you die, whether sooner or later, to everlasting happiness in heaven. My dearest boy, whenever you feel in this way, I beseech you, get alone and fall on your knees, and pray as earnestly as you can to God for Christ's sake to forgive you and to sanctify you, and in short to make you to be born again, as our Saviour expressed it to Nicodemus."

"July 19th.

"I will procure and send you Goldsmith's 'Grecian History,' if you will read it attentively, though it is by no means so good a history as Mitford's; it is little better than an epitome. Let me tell you I was pleased with your skeleton of Mr. Langston's sermon, and I should be glad of such another bag of bones. My dear boy, whenever you feel any meltings of mind, any sorrow for sin, or any concern about your soul, do not, I beg of you, stifle it or turn away your thoughts to another subject, but get alone and pray to God to hear and bless you, to take away the stony heart and substitute a heart of flesh in its place."

"August 15th, 1817.

"The great rule practically for pleasing our Saviour in all the little events of the day is to be thinking of Him occasionally and trying to please Him, by not merely not doing evil, but by doing good; not merely negatively trying not to be unkind, not to be disobedient, not to give pain, but trying positively, to be kind, to be obedient, to give pleasure."

"November 1, 1817.

"My very dear Samuel,—Though some company who are to dine with me are already in the drawing-room, I must leave them to themselves for two minutes while I express the very great pleasure I have received from Mr. Marsh's account of both my dear boys. Being a political economist, I cannot but admit the beneficial effects which always flow from the division of labour, and must therefore rather commend than blame the instance of it which is afforded by your writing the letter while Bob is building the house. It is quite a drop of balm into my heart when I hear of my dear boys going on well."

"May 2, 1818.

"Could you both but look into my heart and there see the tender and warm love I feel for you! How my heart bleeds at the idea of your being drawn into the paths of sin and bringing the grey hairs of your poor old father with sorrow to the grave—a most unlikely issue I do really hope; and, on the other hand, could you witness the glow of affection which is kindled by the prospect of your becoming the consolation of my declining years, you would want no more powerful motives to Christian obedience."

"April 25, 1818.

"Our West Indian warfare is begun, and our opponents are commencing in the way of some (I won't add an epithet) classes of enemies by the poisoned arrows of calumny and falsehood. But how thankful should we be to live in a country in which the law protects us from personal injury!"

"June 26, 1818.

"My dear children little think how often we parents are ruminating about them when we are absent from them, perhaps in very bustling scenes like that from which I come. Mr. Babington is a candidate for the county of Leicester, and I really trust he will succeed; the two other candidates are Lord Robert Manners, the Duke of Rutland's brother, and Mr. Phillips, a country gentleman of large property. My dear Samuel, keep going on well. Prayer and self-denial, as you used to be taught when a very little boy, are the grand things."

"February 13, 1819.

"I am very glad that you like your new situation. One of the grand secrets to be remembered, in order to enable us to pass through life with comfort, is not to expect too much from any new place or plan, or from the accomplishment of any new purpose."

"March 12, 1819.

"On the whole, Mr. Hodson's report of you is a gratifying one. But there is one ground for doubts and fears, and I hope my beloved child will endeavour to brighten that quarter of my prospect. I fear you do not apply to your business with energy. This, remember, was your fault at Mr. Marsh's, and you alleged, not without plausibility, that this arose in a great degree from your wanting spirits, in consequence of your having no play-fellows for your hours of recreation, no schoolmates for your season of business. A horse never goes so cheerfully alone as when animated by the presence of a companion, and a boy profits from the same quickening principle. But my dearest Samuel has not now this danger to plead at Mr. Hodson's, and I hope he will now bear in mind that this indisposition to work strenuously[46] is one of his besetting sins."[47]

"May 22, 1819.

"I hear with pleasure of your goings on, and I may add that we all thought our dear boy greatly improved when he was last with us. How delightful will it be to me in my declining years to hear that my dearest Samuel is doing credit to his name and family!"

"May 25, 1819.

"I do not like to write merely on the outside of this cover, though I have time to insert very little within, yet as when you were a little boy I used to delight in taking a passing kiss of you, so now it is quite gratifying to exchange a salutation with you on paper, though but for a minute or two. The sight of my handwriting will call forth in the mind of my dear, affectionate Samuel all those images of parental and family tenderness with which the Almighty permits us to be refreshed when children or parents are separated from each other far asunder. You have a Heavenly Father, too, my dearest boy, who loves you dearly, and who has promised He will never leave you nor forsake you if you will but devote yourself to His service in His appointed way. And so I trust you are resolved to do. I hope you got your parcel safe, and that the lavender-water had not oozed out of the bottle; the cork did not seem tight. Farewell, my very dear Samuel."

"September 17, 1819.

"My Dear Boy,—It is a great pleasure to me that you wish to know your faults. Even if we are a little nettled when we first hear of them, especially when they are such as we thought we were free from, or such as we are ashamed that others should discover, yet if we soon recover our good-humour, and treat with kindness the person who has told us of them, it is a very good sign. It may help us to do this to reflect that such persons are rendering us, even when they themselves may not mean it, but may even only be gratifying their own dislike of us, the greatest almost of all services, perhaps may be helping us to obtain an eternal increase of our happiness and glory. For we never should forget that though we are reconciled to God through the atoning blood of Christ, altogether freely and of mere undeserved mercy, yet when once reconciled, and become the children of God, the degrees of happiness and glory which He will grant to us will be proportioned to the degree of holiness we have obtained, the degree (in other words) in which we have improved the talents committed to our stewardship."

"Weymouth, September, 1820.

"I have this day learned for the first time that there were to be oratorios at Gloucester, and that some of the boys were to go to them. I will be very honest with you. When I heard that the cost was to be half a guinea, I greatly doubted whether it would be warrantable to pay such a sum for such a performance for such youth. This last consideration has considerable weight with me, both as it renders the pleasure of the entertainment less, and as at your early age the sources of pleasure are so numerous. But my difficulties were all removed by finding that the money would not merely be applied to the use of tweedledum and tweedledee (though I write this, no one is fonder than myself of music), but was to go to the relief of the clergy widows and children. I say therefore yes. Q.E.D."

"September 4, 1820.

"I am persuaded that my dear Samuel will endeavour to keep his mind in such a right frame as to enable him to enjoy the pleasures of the scenes through which he is passing, and to be cheered by the consciousness that he is now carrying forward all the necessary agricultural processes in order to his hereafter reaping a rich and abundant harvest. Use yourself, dear boy, to take time occasionally for reflection. Let this be done especially before you engage in prayer, a duty which I hope you always endeavour to perform with all possible seriousness. As I have often told you, it is the grand test by which the state of a Christian may always be best estimated."

"Bath, September 23, 1820.

"Did you ever cross a river with a horse in a ferry boat? If so, you must have observed, if you are an observing creature, which if you are not I beg you will become with all possible celerity, that the said horse is perfectly quiet after he is once fairly in the boat—a line of conduct in which it would be well if this four-footed navigator were imitated by some young bipeds I have known in their aquatic exercitations. And so said animal continues—the quadruped I mean, mind—perfectly quiet until he begins to approach the opposite shore. Then he begins to show manifest signs of impatience by dancing and frisking sometimes to such a degree as to overset the boat, to the no small injury of others (for whom he very little cares) as well as himself. This is what may be well called making more haste than good speed. None the less, though I am fully aware that the same frisking quadruped is a very improper subject of imitation, not only to an old biped but to an experienced M.P. of forty years' standing, yet I find myself in a state of mind exactly like that of the horse above mentioned, though it has not the same effects on my animal powers, and though, being on dry land and in a parlour, not a boat, I might frisk away if I chose with perfect impunity to myself and others. But to quit metaphor which I have fairly worn out, or, rather, rode to death, when I was a hundred miles from my dear Samuel, though my affection for him was as strong and my sentiments and feelings as much employed in him as now, yet these are now accompanied with an impatient longing to extinguish the comparatively little distance that is between us, and to have my dearest boy not only in my heart but in my arms, and yet on reflection this very feeling is beneficial. I recollect that our separation is an act of self-denial, and I offer it up to my Saviour with a humble sense of His goodness, in subjecting me to such few and those comparatively such easy crosses. My dearest Samuel will remember to have our blessed Lord continually in remembrance, and by associating Him thus with all the little circumstances of life, it is that we are to live in His love and fear continually."

"November 20, 1820.

"We quite enjoyed your pleasure in Robert's visit. In truth the gratification we parents derive from our children's innocent, much more their commendable, enjoyments is one of the greatest of our pleasures."

"Bath, November 18, 1820.

"My dear Samuel.—I am sorry to hear that your examination is, or part of it at least, disadvantageous to you. Does not this arise in part from your having stayed with us when your school-fellows were at Maisemore? If so, the lesson is one which, if my dear boy duly digests it and bottles it up for future use, may be a most valuable one for the rest of his life. It illustrates a remark which I well remember in Bishop Butler's 'Analogy,' that our faults often bring on some bad consequence long after they have been committed, and when they perhaps have been entirely banished from our memory. Some self-indulgence perhaps may have lost us an advantage, the benefit of which might have extended through life. But it is due to my dear Samuel to remark that, though his stay was protracted a very little out of self-indulgence (as much ours as his), yet it was chiefly occasioned by the necessity of his going up to London on account of his ancle. (By the way, tell me in two words—ancle better or worse or idem.) But my Samuel must not vex himself with the idea of falling below the boy who has commonly been his competitor, owing to his stay having prevented his reading what is to be in part the subject of the examination. It would really be quite wrong to feel much on this account, and that for several reasons. First, everybody about you will know the disadvantages under which you start, and will make allowances accordingly. Next, if you do as well or better in the parts you have read, you will show the probability of your having done well in the other also, if you had possessed with it the same advantage. And what I wish my dearest boy seriously to consider is, that any uneasiness he might feel on account of this circumstance would deserve no better a name than emulation, which the apostle enumerates as one of the lusts of the flesh. You should do your business and try to excel in it, to please your Saviour, as a small return for all He has done for you, but a return which He will by no means despise. It is this which constitutes the character of a real Christian: that, considering himself as bought with a price—viz., that of the blood of Jesus Christ—he regards it as his duty to try and please his Saviour in everything. And to be honest with you, my very dear boy, let me tell you that it appears to me very probable that the Heavenly Shepherd, whose tender care of His people is, you must remember, described to us as like that of a shepherd towards the tender lambs of his flock, may have designed by this very incident to discover to you that you were too much under the influence of emulation, and to impress you with a sense of the duty of rooting it out. Emulation has a great tendency to lessen love. It is scarcely possible to have a fellow-feeling (that is, duly to sympathise) with anyone if we are thinking much about, and setting our hearts on, getting before him, or his not getting before us. This disposition of mind, which includes in it an over-estimation of the praise of our fellow-creatures, is perhaps the most subtle and powerful of all our corruptions, and that which costs a real Christian the most trouble and pain; for he will never be satisfied in his mind unless the chief motive in his mind and feelings is the way to please his Saviour. The best way to promote the right temper of mind will be after earnest prayer to God to bless your endeavours, to try to keep the idea of Jesus Christ and of His sufferings, and of the love which prompted Him willingly to undergo them, in your mind continually, and especially when you are going to do, occasionally when you are doing, your business. And then recollect that He has declared He will kindly accept as a tribute of gratitude whatever we do to please Him, and call to mind all His kindness, all His sacrifices; what glory and happiness He left, what humiliation and shame and agony He endured; and then reflect that the only return He, who is then, remember, at that very moment actually looking upon you, expects from you, is that you should remember His Heavenly Father who sent Him, and Him Himself, and (as I said before) endeavour to please Him. This He tells us is to be done by keeping God's commandments. And my dear Samuel knows that this obedience must be universal—all God's commandments. Not that we shall be able actually to do this; but then we must wish and desire to do it. And when, from our natural corruption, infirmities do break out we must sincerely lament them, and try to guard against them in future. Thus a true Christian endeavours to have the idea of his Saviour continually present with him. To do his business as the Scripture phrases it, unto the Lord and not unto men. To enjoy his gratifications as allowed to him by his merciful and kind Saviour, who knows that we need recreations, and when they are neither wrong in kind nor excessive in degree they may and should be enjoyed with a grateful recollection of Him who intends for us still nobler and higher pleasures hereafter. This is the very perfection of religion; 'Whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, do all to the glory of God.'

"All I am now contending for is that my dearest Samuel may at least endeavour to do his school business with a recollection of his Saviour, and a wish to please Him, and when he finds the feeling of emulation taking the place of this right principle look up and beg God's pardon for it, and implore the Holy Spirit's help to enable you to feel as you ought and wish to feel. But let me also ask my dear Samuel to reflect if he did not stay too long at home in the last holidays. Too much prosperity and self-indulgence (and staying at home may be said to be a young person's indulgence and prosperity) are good neither for man nor boy, neither for you nor for myself."[48]

"Downing Street, December 11, 1820.

"Three words, or, rather, five lines, just to assure you that in the midst of all our Parliamentary business I do not forget my very dear Samuel; on the contrary, he is endeared to me by all the turbulence of the element in which I commonly breathe, as I thereby am led still more highly to prize and, I hope, to be thankful to God for domestic peace and love. Pray God bless you, my dearest boy, and enable you to devote to Him your various faculties and powers."

The mutual affection of father and son is touchingly shown in many passages scattered through their letters. Two may serve as specimens:—

"February 24, 1821.

"Perhaps at the very time of your being occupied in reading my sentiments, I may be engaged in calling you up before my mind's eye and recommending you to the throne of grace."

"September 5.

"Probably at the very same time you will be thinking of me and holding a conversation with me."

"London, June 30, 1821.

"My very dear Boy,—I congratulate you cordially on your success, and I rejoice to hear of your literary progress. But I should have been still more gratified, indeed beyond all comparison more, had Mr. Hodson's certificate of your scholarship been accompanied, as it formerly was, with an assurance that you were advancing in the still more important particulars of self-control, of humility, of love—in short, in all the various forms and phases, if I may so term them, which St. Paul ascribes to it in his beautiful eulogium (1 Cor. xiii.). Oh, my dear boy, I should be even an unnatural father instead of what I trust I am, an affectionate one, if, believing as I do, and bearing in mind that you are an immortal being who must be happy or miserable for ever, I were not, above all things, anxious to see you manifest those buds and shoots which alone are true indications of a celestial plant, the fruits of which are the produce of the Garden of God. My dear Samuel, be honest with yourself; you have enjoyed and still enjoy many advantages for which you are responsible. Use them honestly; that is, according to their just intention and fair employment and improvement. Above all things, my dearest boy, cultivate a spirit of prayer. Never hurry over your devotions, still less omit them. Farewell, my dearest boy."

"1821.

"In speaking of the pros and cons of Maisemore, you spoke of one great boy with whom you disagreed. I always meant to ask you about the nature, causes, and extent of your difference. And the very idea of a standing feud is so opposite to the Christian character that I can scarcely understand it. I can, however, conceive a youth of such crabbed and wayward temper that the only way of going on with him is that of avoiding all intercourse with him as much as possible. But, nine times out of ten, if one of two parties be really intent on healing the breach and preventing the renewal of it, the thing may be done. Now, my dear Samuel, may not you be partly in fault? If so, I beg of you to strive to get the better of it. I have recently had occasion to observe how much a frank and kind demeanour, when we conceive we have really just cause for complaint, disarms resentment and conciliates regard. Remember, my dearest boy, that you have enjoyed advantages which probably R. has not, and that therefore more Christian kindness and patience may be expected from you than from him. Again, you would be glad, I am sure, to produce in his mind an opinion favourable to true religion, and not that he should say, 'I don't see what effect Christianity has produced in Samuel Wilberforce.' Oh, my dear Samuel, I love you most affectionately, and I wish you could see how earnestly I long hereafter (perhaps from the world of spirits) to witness my dearest boy's progress into professional life that of a growing Christian, 'shining more and more into the perfect day.' My Samuel's conduct as it respects his studies, and, what I value much more, his disposition and behaviour, has been such for some time as to draw on him Mr. Hodson's eulogium, and so I trust he will continue doing."

"October 12, 1821.

"It is quite delightful to me to receive such an account of you as is contained in the letter Mama has this day had from Mr. Hodson. Oh that I may continue to have such reports of my dear Samuel wherever he may be. They quite warm his old father's heart, and melt his mother's."

"February 20, 1822.

"You never can have a friend, your dear affectionate mother alone excepted, whose interests and sympathies are so identically the same. Yet I have known instances in which, though children have been convinced in their understandings of this being the case between them and their parents, yet from not having begun at an early period of life to make a father a confidant, they could not bring themselves to do it when they grew older, but felt a strange shrinking back from opening their minds to the parent they cordially loved, and of whose love to them they were fully satisfied. I hope you will continue, my dear Samuel, to speak to me without constraint or concealment.

"The two chief questions you ask relate to Repentance and to Predestination. As to the former—sorrow for sin is certainly a part of it, but the degree of the feelings of different people will be as different as their various tempers and dispositions. If the same person whose feelings were very tender and susceptible on other topics and occasions were very cold in religion, that doubtless of itself is no good sign. But remember, repentance in the Greek means a change of heart, and the test of its sincerity is more its rendering us serious and watchful in our endeavours to abstain from sin and to practise known duty, than its causing many tears to flow, which effect may be produced in a susceptible nature with very little solid impression on the heart and character. The grand mark, I repeat it, of true repentance, is its providing a dread of sin and a watchfulness against it. As for Predestination, the subject is one the depths of which no human intellect can fathom. But even the most decided Predestinarians I have ever known have acknowledged that the invitations of God were made to all without exception, and that it was men's own fault that they did not accept these invitations. Again, does it not appear undeniably from one end of Scripture to the other that men's perishing, where they do perish, is always represented as their own bringing on? Indeed the passage in Ezekiel, 'As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but that he should repent and live.' Again, do compare the ninth of Romans, in which that awful passage is contained: 'Hath not the potter power over the clay to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour? What if God,' &c., &c.; and compare this with Jeremiah, I think xviiith, to which passage St. Paul manifestly refers, and you will see there that the executing or remitting a threatening of vengeance is made to depend on the object of the threats turning from his evil way or continuing in it. This is very remarkable. Only pray, my dearest boy, and all will be well; and strive not to grieve the Holy Spirit. Before you actually engage in prayer always pause a minute or two and recollect yourself, and especially practise my rule of endeavouring to imagine myself in the presence of God, and to remember that to God all the bad actions, bad tempers, bad words of my whole life are all open in their entire freshness of circumstances and colouring; and when I recollect how I felt on the first committing of a wrong action, and then call to mind that to God sin must appear in itself far more hateful than to me, this reflection I often find to produce in me a deep humiliation; and then the promise is sure—the Lord is nigh to them that are of a contrite heart, and will save such as be of a humble spirit. I rejoice that it has pleased God to touch your heart. May I live, if it please God, to see you an honour to your family and a blessing to your fellow-creatures."

"March 30, 1822.

"It is scarcely possible for children to have an adequate conception of the delight it gives to a parent's heart to receive a favourable report of a dear child. And of late God has been very gracious to me in this particular. I trust I shall continue to enjoy such gratification, and that the day will come when my dear Samuel will in his turn become a parent and be solaced and cheered with such accounts as he himself will now furnish. And then, when I am dead and gone, he will remember his old father, and the letter he had from him on Sunday, 31st March, 1822."

"April, 1822.

"Though honestly my purse is in such a state that I cannot buy books except very sparingly, I beg you will buy Hume and Smollett, 13 vols. large 8vo, for £5 10s., and Gibbon's 'Rome' you may also purchase, if you wish it, for £4 10s., 12 vols. But you must take these two birthday presents for Scotch pints—each double. Had I as much money as I have good will you should wish for no book that I would not get you."

"October 22, 1822.

"The train of your idea and feelings is precisely that which I believe is commonly experienced at the outset of a religious course. It was my own, I am sure; I mean specially that painful apprehension of which you speak, lest your sorrow for sin should be less on account of its guilt than its danger, less on account of its hatefulness in the sight of God, and its ingratitude towards your Redeemer, than on that of its subjecting you to the wrath and punishment of God. But, my dear Samuel, blessed be God, we serve a gracious Master, a merciful Sovereign, who has denounced those threatenings for the very purpose of exciting our fears; and thereby being driven to flee from the wrath to come and lay hold on eternal life. By degrees the humble hope of your having obtained the pardon of your sins and the possession of the Divine favour will enable you to look up to God with feelings of filial confidence and love, and to Christ as to an advocate and a friend. The more you do this the better. Use yourself, my dearest Samuel, to take now and then a solitary walk, and in it to indulge in these spiritual meditations. The disposition to do this will gradually become a habit, and a habit of unspeakable value. I have long considered it as a great misfortune, or rather, I should say, as having been very injurious to your brother William, that he never courted solitude in his walks, or indeed at any time. Some people are too much inclined to it, I grant; they often thereby lose the inestimable benefit which results from having a friend to whom we open our hearts, one of the most valuable of all possessions both for this world and the next. When I was led into speaking of occasional intervals of solitude ('when Isaac, like the solitary saint, Walks forth to meditate at eventide,' you remember the passage, I doubt not), I was mentioning that holy, peaceful, childlike trust in the fatherly love of our God and Saviour which gradually diffuses itself through the soul and takes possession of it, when we are habitually striving to walk by faith under the influence of the Holy Spirit. When we allow ourselves to slacken or be indolent in our religious exercises, much more when we fall into actual sin, or have not watched over our tempers so as to be ashamed of looking our Heavenly Father in the face (if I may so express myself, I am sure with no irreverent meaning), then this holy confidence lessens and its diminution is a warning to us that we are going on ill. We must then renew our repentance and supplications, and endeavour to obtain a renewed supply of the blessed influences of the divine Spirit; and then we shall again enjoy the light of God's countenance. There are two or three beautiful sections in Doddridge's 'Rise and Progress' on these heads, and I earnestly recommend especially to you that, the subject of which is, I think, the Christian under the hiding of God's presence. I have been looking, and I find the section, or rather chapter I allude to, is that entitled, 'Case of spiritual decay and languor in religion.' There is a following one on 'Case of a relapse into known sin,' and I trust you have a pretty good edition of this super-excellent book.

"I have a word to say on another topic—that, I mean, of purity—the necessity of most scrupulous guarding against the very first commencement or even against the appearance of evil is in no instance so just and so important as in the case of all sins of this class. Many a man who would have been restrained from the commission of sins of this class by motives of worldly prudence or considerations of humanity, has been hurried into sin by not attending to this warning. I myself remember an instance of this kind in two people, both of whom I knew. And as Paley truly remarks that there is no class of vices which so depraves the character as illicit intercourse with the female sex, so he likewise mentions it as a striking proof of the superior excellence of Christ's moral precepts, that in the case of chastity and purity it lays the restraint on the heart and on the thoughts as the only way of providing against the grossest acts of disobedience. Oh, my dear Samuel, guard here with especial care, and may God protect and keep you. Indeed, I trust He will, and it is with exceeding pleasure that I think of you, and humbly and hopefully look forward on your advancing course in life. I did not intend saying half so much, but when I enter into conversation with my Samuel I know not how to stop. 'With thee conversing I forget all course of seasons and their change.'"

"October 26, 1822.

"I cannot to-day send you the account of time, but I will transmit it to you. It was a very simple business, and the chief object was to take precautions against the disposition to waste time at breakfast and other rendezvous, which I have found in myself when with agreeable companions, and to prove to myself by the decisive test of figures that I was not working so hard as I should have supposed from a general survey of my day. The grand point is to maintain an habitual sense of responsibility and to practise self-examination daily as to the past and the future day."

"March 17, 1822.

"No man has perhaps more cause for gratitude to God than myself. But of all the various instances of His goodness, the greatest of all, excepting only His Heavenly Grace, is the many kind friends with whom a Gracious Providence has blessed me. Oh remember, my dearest boy, to form friendships with those only who love and serve God, and when once you have formed them, then preserve them as the most valuable of all possessions.

"One of my chief motives now for paying visits is to cultivate the friendship of worthy people who, I trust, will be kind to my dearest children when I am no more. I hope you and the rest will never act so as to be unworthy of the connections I have formed."

"November 22, 1822.

"Robert Grant's[49] election has cost my eyes more than they could well expend on such a business. But both his hereditary, and his personal, claim to all I could do was irresistible. Your mother, Elizabeth, and I have of late been moving from place to place, staying a few days with the Whitmores, with the Gisbornes and Evans's, and from them with a Mr. Smith Wright and his wife, Lady Sitwell. She is a sensible, interesting woman. They live in a residence, Okeover, which is in the most beautiful part of Derbyshire, very near Dovedale, close to Ilam, &c. My dear Samuel will one day, I trust, delight himself in these beautiful and romantic vallies. My chief object in these visits was to provide future intimacies and I hope friendships for you and your brothers. And how thankful ought we to be, to be enabled thus to select for our associates the best families in so many different counties; best, I mean, in the true sense of the word,—men of real worth, who, I am sure, will always receive you with kindness for my sake. I often look up with gratitude to the Giver of all good, for the favour with men—which it would be affectation not to confess where it is not improper to mention such things, that He has graciously given me, chiefly in the view of its ensuring for my children the friendly regard and personal kindnesses of many good people after I shall be laid low in the grave.

"I could have made them acquainted with great people, but I have always avoided it, from a conviction that such connections would tend neither to their temporal comfort in the long run, nor to the advancement of their eternal interests. But it is most gratifying to me to reflect that they will be known to some of the very best people in the kingdom, and to good people of other countries also. Oh, my dear Samuel, how thankful should we be to our Heavenly Father who has made our cup to overflow with mercies. How rich will our portion appear when compared with that of so many of our fellow-creatures. It used, when I was a bachelor especially, when I often spent my Sundays alone, to be my frequent Sunday habit to number up my blessings, and I assure you it is a most useful practice; e.g., that I had been born in Great Britain, in such a century, such a part of it, such a rank in life, such a class and character of parents, then my personal privileges. But I have no time to-day for long conversation."

The next letter touches on topics of the day, and then refers to the son's question, Why had not his father a settled home? Evidently Samuel felt it a desolate arrangement, but Wilberforce, as was his wont, finds certain advantages in the very discomforts of the plan.

"December 5, 1822.

"I believe I never answered your question who it was that advised me to retire from Parliament. I entirely forget. Your question, Will there be war? I answer, I know no more than you do, but I am inclined to believe the French will attack Spain, very unadvisedly in my opinion, and I shall be surprised if the French Government itself, however priding itself on its policy, will not ultimately have reason to form the same judgment.... Never was there before a country on earth, the public affairs of which (for many years past at least I may affirm it,) were administered with such a simple and strong desire to promote the public welfare as those of Great Britain. And it is very remarkable that some of those very measures which were brought forward and carried through with the most general concurrence have subsequently appeared most doubtful. The present extreme distress of the agricultural class throughout the whole kingdom, is admitted by all to have been in some degree, by many to have been entirely, caused by our ill-managed if not ill-advised return to cash payments, in which nearly the whole of both Houses concurred. Surely this should teach us to be diffident in our judgments of others, and to hold our own opinions with moderation. In short, my dear Samuel, the best preparation for being a good politician, as well as a superior man in every other line, is to be a truly religious man. For this includes in it all those qualities which fit men to pass through life with benefit to others and with reputation to ourselves. Whatever is to be the effect produced by the subordinate machinery, the main-spring must be the desire to please God, which, in a Christian, implies faith in Christ and a grateful sense of the mercies of God through a Redeemer, and an aspiration after increasing holiness of heart and life. And I am reminded (you will soon see the connection of my ideas) of a passage in a former letter of yours about a home, and I do not deny that your remarks were very natural. Yet every human situation has its advantages as well as its evils. And if the want of a home deprive us of the many and great pleasures which arise out of the relations and associations, especially in the case of a large family, with which it is connected, yet there is an advantage, and of a very high order, in our not having this well-known anchoring ground, if I may so term it. We are less likely to lose the consciousness of our true condition in this life; less likely to forget that while sailing in the ocean of life we are always exposed to the buffeting of the billows, nay, more, to the rock and the quicksand. The very feeling of desolateness of which you speak—for I do not deny having formerly experienced some sensations of this kind, chiefly when I used to be long an inmate of the houses of friends who had wives and families to welcome them home again after a temporary absence—this very feeling led me, and taught me in some measure habitually to look upwards to my permanent and never failing inheritance, and to feel that I was to consider myself here as a pilgrim and a stranger who had no continuing city but who sought one to come. Yet this very conviction is by no means incompatible with the attachment and enjoyment of home-born pleasures, which doubtless are natural and virtuous pleasures, such as it gratifies me and fills me with hope to see that my very dear Sam relishes with such vivid delight and that he looks forward to them with such grateful anticipations.

"I have not time now to explain to you, as otherwise I would, how it happened that I do not possess a country house. But I may state to you in general, that it arose from my not having a large fortune, compared, I mean, with my situation, and from the peculiar duties and circumstances of my life."

"March 23, 1823.

"Above all remember the one thing needful. I had far rather that you should be a true Christian than a learned man, but I wish you to become the latter through the influence of the former. I had far rather see you unlearned than learned from the impulse of the love of human estimation as your main principle."

On the 15th of May Mr. F. Buxton moved this resolution in the House of Commons: "That the state of slavery is repugnant to the principles of the British Constitution and of the Christian Religion, and that it ought to be abolished gradually throughout the British Colonies with as much expedition as may be found consistent with a due regard to the well-being of the parties concerned." The main point was that all negro children born after a certain day were to be free.

"May 17, 1823.

"The debate was by no means so interesting as we expected. Buxton's opening speech was not so good as his openings have before been. His reply however, though short, was, not sweet indeed, but excellent. I was myself placed in very embarrassing circumstances from having at once to decide, without consulting my friends, on Mr. Canning's offers, if I may so term them. However, I thank God, I judged rightly, that it would not be wise to press for more on that night, as subsequent conversation with our friends rendered indubitably clear; and on the whole we have done good service, I trust, by getting Mr. Canning pledged to certain important reforms. I should speak of our gain in still stronger terms but for his (Canning's) chief friend being a West Indian, Mr. Charles Ellis, a very gentlemanly, humane man, but by no means free from the prejudices of his caste.

"Dear Robert has just been prevailed on by William's kind importunity to try to study for a while at Brompton Grove. I am glad of it on all accounts. It would add substantially to the pleasures of my life, if my dear boys could acquire firmness enough to study at home. I would do my best to promote the success of the experiment; but, believe me, it is a sad habit that of being able to study only when you have 'all appliances and means to boot.'

"I just recollect this letter will reach you on the Sunday. Allow me, therefore, to repeat my emphatic valediction Remember. You will be in my heart and in my prayers, and probably we shall be celebrating about the same time the memorial of our blessed Lord's suffering and the bond of the mutual affection of His disciples towards each other. The anniversaries which have passed remind me forcibly of the rapid flight of time. My course must be nearly run, though perhaps it may please that God who has hitherto caused goodness and mercy to follow me all my days, to allow me to see my dear boys entered into the exercise of their several professions, if they are several. But how glad shall I be if they all can conscientiously enter into the ministry, that most useful and most honourable of all human employments."[50]

"June 14.

"All may be done through prayer—almighty prayer, I am ready to say; and why not? for that it is almighty is only through the gracious ordination of the God of love and truth. Oh then, pray, pray, pray, my dearest boy. But then remember to estimate your state on self-examination not by your prayers, but by what you find to be the effects of them on your character, tempers, and life."

"July 12, 1823.

"It has often been a matter of grief to me that both Henry and Robert have a sad habit of appearing, if not of being, inattentive at church. The former I have known turn half or even quite round and stare (I use the word designedly) into the opposite pew. I am not aware whether you have the same disposition (real or apparent) to inattention at public worship. I trust I need not endeavour to enforce on you that it is a practice to be watched against with the utmost care. It is not only a crime in ourselves, but it is a great stumbling-block of offence to others. The late Mr. Scott, though an excellent man, had contracted a habit of staring in general while reading the prayers of our excellent liturgy; and he once told me himself he actually did it most, when his mind was most intent on the solemn service he was performing. But to others he appeared looking at the congregation, especially at any persons entering the chapel, and many I fear were encouraged to a degree of distraction and inattention in prayer by the unseemly habit he had contracted. Now let me entreat you, my dearest boy, to watch against every approach to inattention in yourself, and to help dear Henry, in whom I have remarked the practice, to get the better of it. I have always found it a great aid in keeping my thoughts from wandering at church to repeat the prayers to myself, either in a whisper or mentally, as the minister has being going along, and I highly approve of making responses, and always when you were children tried to have you make them; but I used to think your mother did not join me in this when you were next to her, partly probably from her own mind being more closely engaged in the service—prayer being the grand means of maintaining our communication with heaven, and the life of religion in the soul claiming all possible attention."

In the next letter Wilberforce mentions that he had limited his personal expenditure so as to have larger sums to give away. He says that he had left off giving claret, then a costly wine, and some other expensive articles still exhibited by those of his rank. He speaks strongly against gratifying all the cravings of fashion, thoughtlessness, or caprice.

"Barmouth, October 14, 1823.

"My very dear Samuel,—I again take up my pen to give you my sentiments on the important subject on which I promised to write to you, and on which you have kindly asked my advice. But before I proceed to fulfil this engagement let me mention what I had intended to state in my last, but omitted, that I have reason to believe dear Robert has suffered in the estimation of some of my friends, whether rightly or wrongly I really know not, from the idea that his associates were not religious men (irreligious in its common acceptation would convey more than I mean), and therefore that he preferred that class of companions. Now when people have once conceived anything of a prejudice against another, on whatever grounds, they are disposed to view all he says and does with different eyes, and to draw from it different conclusions from those which would otherwise have been produced, and I suspect dear Robert has suffered unjustly in this way. However, he will, I doubt not, live through it, and so long as all is really right, I care less for such temporary misconceptions, though, by the way, they may be very injurious to the temporal interests, and to the acceptance of the subject of them.

"But now let me state to you my sentiments concerning your principles and conduct as to society, and first I must say that if I were in your case I should be very slow in forming new acquaintances. Having already such good companions in Robert, Sir G. Prevost, and I hope Ryder, it would surely be wise to be satisfied with them at the first, unless there were any in whose instance I was sure I was on safe and good ground. But now to your question itself. There are two points of view in which this subject of good associates must naturally be regarded. The one in that which is the ordinary object of social intercourse, that I mean of recreation: for it certainly is one of the very best recreations, and may be rendered indeed not merely such, but conducive to higher and better ends. On this first head, however, I trust I need say nothing in your case, I will therefore pass it by for the present. It would, I am persuaded, be no recreation to you to be in a party which should be disgraced by obscenity or profaneness. But the second view is that which most belongs to our present inquiry—that, I mean, of the society in which it may appear necessary to take a share on grounds of conformity (where there is nothing wrong) to the ordinary customs of life, and even on the principle of 'providing things honest in the sight of all men' (honest in the Greek is δἱκαιοϛ) and not suffering your good to be evil spoken of. Now in considering this question, I am persuaded I need not begin in my dear Samuel's instance with arguing for, but may assume the principle that there are no indifferent actions properly speaking, I should rather say none with which religion has nothing to do. This however is the commonly received doctrine of those who consider themselves as very good Christians. Just as in Law it is an axiom, 'De minimis non curat lex.' On the contrary, a true Christian holds, in obedience to the injunction, 'Whatever you do in word or deed' that the desire to please his God and Saviour must be universal. It is thus that the habit of living in Christ, and to Christ is to be formed. And the difference between real and nominal Christians is more manifest on small occasions than on greater. In the latter all who do not disclaim the authority of Christ's commands must obey them, but in the former only they will apply them who do make religion their grand business, and pleasing their God and Saviour, and pleasing, instead of grieving the Spirit, their continual and habitual aim. We are therefore to decide the question of the company you should keep on Scriptural principles, and the principle I lately quoted 'Provide things honest,' &c. (There are several others of a like import, and I think they are not always sufficiently borne in mind by really good people, this of course forbids all needless singularities, &c.) That principle must doubtless be kept in view. But again, you will not require me to prove that it can only have any jurisdiction where there is nothing wrong to be participated in or encouraged. And therefore I am sure you will not deny that you ought not to make a part of any society in which you will be hearing what is indecent or profane. I hope that there are not many of the Oriel undergraduates from whom you would be likely to hear obscenity or profaneness, and I trust that you will not knowingly visit any such. As to the wine parties, if I have a correct idea of them they are the young men going after dinner to each other's rooms to drink their wine, eat their fruit, &c.; and with the qualification above specified, I see no reason for your absenting yourself from them, if your so doing would fairly subject you to the charge of moroseness or any other evil imputation. I understand there is no excess, and that you separate after a short time. Its being more agreeable to you to stay away I should not deem a legitimate motive if alone. But in all these questions the practical question often is, how the expenditure of any given amount of time and money (for the former I estimate full as highly as the latter) can be made productive of the best effect. There is one particular member of your college with whom I hope you will form no acquaintance. Would it make it more easy for you to avoid this, if you were able to allege that I had exacted from you a promise to that effect? It was not from Robert, but from another person, that I heard of him a particular instance of misconduct, which I believe even in the more relaxed discipline of Cambridge would have drawn on the offender exemplary punishment. Such a man must, I am sure, be a very dangerous companion. If it be necessary for you to know him, of course you will treat him like a gentleman; but further than this I hope you will not go. From what Robert said to me I have a notion that there is a very foolish practice, to call it by the softest name, of spending considerable sums in the fruit and wine of these wine drinkings, where I understood that there was no excess, every man also being allowed to please himself as to the wine he drinks. But for a young man, the son perhaps of a clergyman who is straining to the utmost to maintain him at college, stinting himself, his wife and daughters in comforts necessary to their health, for such a young man to be giving claret and buying expensive fruit for his young companions is absolutely criminal. And what is more, I will say that young men are much altered if any youth of spirit who should frankly declare, 'My father cannot afford such expensive indulgences, and I will not deprive him or my brothers and sisters for my own gratification,' would not be respected for his manliness and right feeling. Your situation is different, though, by the way, your father has left off giving claret except in some very special cases, and has entirely left off several other expensive articles, which are still exhibited by others of his rank. But then I know this will not commonly be imputed to improper parsimony in me. And if you or any other Oxonian could lighten the pressure on young men going to college, you would be rendering a highly valuable service to the community, besides the too little considered obligation of limiting our own expenditure for our own indulgence as much as we can, consistently with 'good report,' and with not suffering our good to be evil spoken of. I say this deliberately, that it is a duty not sufficiently borne in mind even by real Christians, when we read the strong passage in the 15th of Deuteronomy, and still more when we remember our Saviour's language in the 25th of St. Matthew, we shall see reason to be astonished that the generality of those who do fear God, and mean in the main to please Him, can give away so small a proportion of their fortunes, and so little appear sensible of the obligation under which they lie to economise as much as they can for the purpose of having the funds for giving away within their power. We serve a kind Master, who will even accept the will for the deed when the deed was not in our power. But this will not be held to be the case when we can gratify all the cravings of fashion and self-indulgence, or even thoughtlessness or caprice. What pleasure will a true Christian sometimes feel in sparing himself some article which he would be glad to possess, and putting the price instead into his charity purse, looking up to his Saviour and in heart offering it up to His use. Oh, my very dear Samuel, be not satisfied with the name of Christian. But strive to be a Christian 'in life and in power and in the Holy Ghost.' I think a solitary walk or ride now and then would afford an excellent opportunity for cultivating spirituality of mind, the grand characteristic of the thriving Christian.

"But my feelings draw me off from the proper subject I was writing upon—expense. And really, when I consider it merely in the view of the misery that may be alleviated, and the tears that may be wiped away by a very little money judiciously employed, I grow ashamed of myself for not practising more self-denial that I may apply my savings to such a purpose. Then think of the benefits to be rendered to mankind by missionary societies. Besides all this, I really believe there is commonly a special blessing on the liberal, even in this life, and on their children; and I hesitate not to say to you that, as you will, I hope, possess from me what, with the ordinary emoluments of a profession, may afford you a comfortable competence, I am persuaded I shall leave you far more likely to be happy than if you were to have inherited from me £10,000 more (and I say the same for your brothers also), the fruits of my bachelor savings. In truth, it would be so if the Word of God be true, for it is full of declarations to that effect. Now all this is general doctrine. I am aware of it. I can only give you principles here. It must be for you to apply them, and if you apply them with simplicity of intention, all, I doubt not, will be well. But again I cannot help intimating my persuasion that you would do well to confine yourself at first to the few friends you already have and on whom you can depend. And also let me suggest that it would be truly wise to be looking around you, and if you should see anyone whose principles, and character, and manners are such as suggest the hope that he might be desirable even for a friend, then to cultivate his acquaintance. May our Heavenly Father direct and prosper you, carry you safely through the ordeal into which you are just about to enter, and at length receive you into that blessed world where danger will be over, and all will be love and peace and joy for evermore.

"I am ever affectionately yours, "W. Wilberforce."

"November 5, 1823.

"I trust I scarcely need assure you that I must always wish to make you comfortable quoad money matters, and on the other hand that the less the cost of rendering you so, the more convenient to me. My income is much diminished within the last few years, while the expenses of my family have greatly increased....

"What a comfort it is to know that our Heavenly Father is ever ready to receive all who call upon Him. He delighteth in mercy, and ever remember that as you have heard me say, mercy is kindness to the guilty, to those who deserve punishment. What a delightful consideration it is that our Saviour loves His people better than we love each other, than an earthly parent loves his child."

"November 7, 1823.

"There is a vile and base sentiment current among men of the world that, if you want to preserve a friend you must guard against having any pecuniary transactions with him. But it is a caution altogether unworthy of a Christian bosom. It is bottomed in the mistakenly supposed superior value of money to every other object, and in a very low estimate of human friendship. I hope I do not undervalue my money, but I prize my time at a still higher rate, and have no fear that any money transaction can ever lessen the mutual confidence and affection which subsists between us and which I trust will never be diminished. And let me take this opportunity also of stating that you would give me real pleasure by making me your friend and opening your heart to me as much in every other particular. I trust you would never find me abusing your confidence. Even any indiscretions or faults, if there should be any, if I can help to prevent your being involved in difficulties by them. But I hate to put such a case. It is no more than what is due to my dear Samuel, to say that my anticipations are of a very different sort. And I can truly declare that the good conduct and kindness of my children towards me is a source of the purest and greatest pleasure I do or can enjoy."[51]

"August 6, 1824.

"I can bear silence no longer, and I beg you will in future send me or your dear mother a something, be it ever so short, in the way of a letter once a week, if it be merely a certificate of your existence. I have been for some days thinking of writing to you, in consequence of my having heard that your friend Ryder and Sir George Prevost were reading classics with Mr. Keble. Could you not have been allowed to make it a triumvirate? Much as I value classical scholarship, I prize still more highly the superior benefit to be derived from associating with such good young men as I trust the two gentlemen are whose names I have mentioned, and I have the satisfaction of knowing that you have the privilege of calling them your friends. Is it yet too late?"

"September 10, 1824.

"As I was talking to your mother this morning on money matters it shot across my mind that you had desired me to send you a supply, which I had neglected to do. I am truly sorry for my inadvertency, and will send you the half of a £20 bank note which I happen to possess, the other half following of course to-morrow. Ask for what you want, and we will settle when you are here. It gives me real pleasure to believe that you are economical on principle, and it is only by being so that one can be duly liberal. Without self-denial every man, be his fortune what it may, will find himself unable to act as he ought in this particular, not that giving is always the best charity, far from it; employing people is often a far preferable mode of serving them. To you I may say that if I have been able to be liberal not less before my marriage than after it, it was from denying myself many articles which persons in my own rank of life and pecuniary circumstances almost universally indulged in. Now when I find my income considerably decreased on the one hand, and my expenses (from my four sons) greatly increased on the other, economy must even be made parsimony, which, justly construed, does not in my meaning at all exclude generosity."

This letter is here interrupted, he says, by "two young widows—both of whom had recently lost their husbands in India—with their four little children, all in deep mourning. Yet the two widows have the best of all supports in the assured persuasion that their husbands were truly pious, and in the hope that they themselves are so."

It is easy to imagine the reception given to the "two young widows" by Wilberforce. He had not yet learned the lesson of "economy or even parsimony" as regarded his charities—even when he had to reduce his expenses he spent £3,000[52] in one year on charity.

"December 10, 1824.

"I have deemed it quite a duty on this delicious day to prolong my country walk in a tête-à-tête with your dear mother, a tête-à-tête, however, from which our dear children's images are not excluded. I own that those who are termed Methodists by the world do give more liberally to the distressed than others, yet that I think they do not in this duty come up to the full demands of Scripture. The great mistake that prevails as I conceive is, it's being thought right that all persons who are received on the footing of gentlemen are to live alike. And without economy there cannot be sufficient liberality. I can sincerely declare that my wish that my sons should be economical, which is quite consistent with being generous, nay, as I said before, is even necessary to it, arises far more from my conviction of the effects of economical habits on their minds and happiness in future life, than on account of the money that will be thereby saved. You have heard me, I doubt not, praise Paley's excellent remark on the degree in which a right constitution of the habits tends to produce happiness, and you may proceed with the train of ideas I have called up in your mind."

"October 26, 1825.

"You ask me about your Uncle Stephen's having been a newspaper reporter. He was. The case was this. At the age of, I believe, eighteen, he came up to town to study the law, when the sudden death of his father not only stopped his supplies, but threw on his hands the junior branches of the family, more especially three or four sisters. Seeing no other resource, he embraced an offer, made to him I believe through or by Mr. Richardson, the friend of poor Sheridan. Richardson afterwards came into Parliament, and the fact respecting Stephen came out thus, a few years ago. A regulation was proposed by some of the benchers of Lincoln's Inn that no one should be permitted to be called to the Bar who ever had practised the reporting art. Sheridan brought the question forward in the House of Commons. Stephen, who was then in Parliament, spoke to the question, and in arguing against the illiberal and even cruel severity of the regulation, put a supposed case, that the son of a gentleman, by a father's sudden death was at once deprived of the means of pursuing the legal profession on which he was just entering, being also harassed in his mind by the distressed state of some affectionate sisters. Thus embarrassed, he received an offer of employment as a reporter, and gladly accepted it and discharged its duties, thereby being enabled to prosecute his professional studies as well as to assist his relatives. 'But,' added Stephen, 'the case I have just stated is no imaginary one. It is the story of a living individual. It is that, sir, of the individual who has now the honour to address you.' There is in all bodies of Englishmen a generous feeling which is always called forth powerfully when a man confesses, or rather boldly avows any circumstance respecting himself which, according to the false estimate of the world, might be supposed to disparage him; as when Peel at the meeting for a monument to James Watt declared that, 'owing all his prosperity to the successful industry of a person originally in the humble walks of life,' the applause was overpowering. And I never remember a more general or louder acclamation than immediately broke out when Stephen had (indeed before he had completely) closed his declaration."

"December 16, 1825.

"It is Henry Thornton[53] that was connected with the house of Pole & Co. He became a partner about five months ago. The storm through which he has been passing has been indeed violent; but the call for self-possession, temper, judgment, and above all scrupulous, punctilious integrity has been abundantly answered. He has behaved so as to draw on him the universal applause of all who have witnessed his conduct. Mr. Jno. Smith especially speaks of it in the highest terms, and has been acting towards him with corresponding generosity and kindness. It has been very strikingly evidenced that commercial transactions on a great scale enlarge the mind, and the obedience which, with men of real principle, is paid to the point of mercantile honour, produces a habit of prompt, decisive integrity in circumstances of embarrassment and distress. I am happy to be able to tell you that there is reason to believe that while Henry will gain great credit he will lose no money. He has borne the trial with the calmness of a veteran."

"Sunday, January 22, 1826.

"You may have heard me mention, that when in my solitary bachelor state I was alone all day on the Sunday, I used after dinner to call up before me the images of my friends and acquaintances, and to consider how I could benefit or gratify them. And when the mind is scarcely awake, or, at least, active enough for any superior purpose, this is no bad employment for a part of the day, especially if practised with religious associations and purposes. The day is so raw here that I have yielded to your mother's kind entreaties that I would not go to church, where the greater part of the family now is at afternoon service. So I am glad to spend a part of my day with my dearest Samuel.

"I will remind you of an idea which I threw out on the day preceding your departure—that I feared I had scarcely enough endeavoured to impress on my children the idea that they must as Christians be a peculiar people. I am persuaded that you cannot misunderstand me to mean that I wish you to affect singularity in indifferent matters. The very contrary is our duty. But from that very circumstance of its being right that we should be like the rest of the world in exterior, manners, &c., &c., results an augmentation of the danger of our not maintaining that diversity, nay, that contrast, which the Eye of God ought to see in us to the worldly way of thinking and feeling on all the various occasions of life, and in relation to its various interests. The man of the world considers religion as having nothing to do with 99-100ths of the affairs of life, considering it as a medicine and not as his food, least of all as his refreshment and cordial. He naturally takes no more of it than his health requires. How opposite this to the apostle's admonition, 'Whatever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.' This is being spiritually-minded, and being so is truly declared to be life and peace. By the way, if you do not possess that duodecimo volume, 'Owen on Spiritual Mindedness,' let me beg you to get and read it carefully. There are some obscure and mystic passages, but much that I think is likely to be eminently useful; and may our Heavenly Father bless to you the perusal of it...."

"February 27, 1826.

"Let me assure you that you give me great pleasure by telling me unreservedly any doubts you may entertain of the propriety of my principles or conduct. I love your considering and treating me as a friend, and I trust you will never have reason to regret your having so done, either in relation to your benefit or your comfort. In stating my suspicions that I had not sufficiently endeavoured to impress on my children, and that you were scarcely enough aware of the force of the dictum that Christians were to be a peculiar people, I scarcely need assure you that I think the commands, 'Provide things honest in the sight of all men, whatever things are lovely, whatsoever of good report,' &c. (admirably illustrated and enforced by St. Paul's account of his own principles of becoming all things to all men), clearly prove that so far from being needlessly singular, we never ought to be so, but for some special and good reason. Again, I am aware of what you suggest that, in our days, in which the number of those who profess a stricter kind of religion than the world of soi-disant Christians in general, there is danger lest a party spirit should creep in with its usual effects and evils. Against this, therefore, we should be on the watch. And yet, though not enlisting ourselves in a party, we ought, as I think you will admit, to assign considerable weight to any opinions or practices which have been sanctioned by the authority of good men in general. As again, you will I think admit, that in any case in which the more advanced Christians and the less advanced are both affected, the former and their interests deserve more of our consideration than the latter. For instance, it is alleged in behalf of certain worldly compliances, that by making them you will give a favourable idea, produce a pleasing impression of your religious principles, and dispose people the rather to adopt them. But then, if you thereby are likely to become an offence (in the Scripture sense) to weaker Christians, (persons, with all their infirmities, eminently dear to Christ,) you may do more harm than good, and that to the class which had the stronger claim to your kind offices. Let my dear Samuel think over the topic to which I was about next to proceed. I mean our Saviour's language to the Laodicean Church expressing His abhorrence and disgust at lukewarmness, and the danger of damping the religious affections by such recreations as He had in mind. Of course I don't object to domestic dances. It is not the act, the saltus, but the whole tone of an assembly."

"Clifton, May 27, 1826.

"I am very glad to think that you will be with us. Your dear mother's spirits are not always the most buoyant, and, coming first to reside in a large, new house without having some of her children around her, would be very likely to infuse a secret melancholy which might sadden the whole scene, and even produce, by permanent association, a lasting impression of despondency. I finish this letter after hearing an excellent sermon from Robert Hall. It was not merely an exhibition of powerful intellect, but of fervent and feeling piety, especially impressing on his hearers to live by the faith of the love of Christ daily, habitually looking to Him in all His characters. Prayer, prayer, my dear Samuel; let your religion consist much in prayer. May you be enabled more and more to walk by faith and not by sight, to feel habitually as well as to recognise in all your more deliberate calculations and plans, that the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal. Then you will live above the world, as one who is waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ."[54]

"April 20, 1826.

"I would gladly fill my sheet, yet I can prescribe what may do almost as well. Shut your door and muse until you fancy me by your side, and then think what I should say to you, which I dare say your own mind would supply."

"September 30.

"I am thankful to reflect that at the very moment I am now thinking of you and addressing you; you also are probably engaged in some religious exercise, solitary or social (for I was much gratified by learning from a passage in one of your letters to your mother that you and Anderson went through the service of our beautiful liturgy together). Perhaps you are thinking of your poor old father, and, my dear boy, I hope you often pray for me, and I beg you will continue to do so.