Chapter V: Part 5

"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._