Chapter XXXIX: Letter XL: Valley of Achor, June 1st, 1819

Dear Miss SMITH,

The little Poem on Friendship which I read to you, and you was so kind as to compliment, will be published shortly, separate from this little work. It is a good remark I have somewhere met with, that Friendship is a plant of too delicate a nature to grow, with any great degree of luxuriancy and fruitfulness, in the soil of the human heart; but I ever wish to prize its buds, its blossoms, its fruits, its very leaves, and above all, its Divine Root; and I have a hope founded upon the doing and dying of the adorable Friend of guilty man, that I shall enjoy this best of gifts in its eternal bloom, in a brighter better world, when the winds of scandal shall howl no more; the tumultuous waves and the roaring billows of complicated grief shall distress my already tempest-tossed mind no more for ever. I have found many acquaintance who hummed about me in the warmth of prosperity, but like summer insects, those butterflies disappeared, when the cold blasts of adversity, by reproach, struck a few of my outward enjoyments; but I am more divinely led to the enjoyment of that love which can never alter or decay. I have learned wisdom now, in some measure, to discriminate between friends and acquaintance; and although the latter have started back in the day of battle, yet the former still bear me on their hearts in the right place, and _here_ they present me, that my trials may be sanctified to me, and to the Church at large. David had many acquaintances, but did not find a _Jonathan_ every day. In the Church, or in the world, my trials are great; but these would not have been so (speaking after the manner of men) if all my acquaintance had been real friends.

I beg to conclude this note with a few jingling verses, with my most affectionate and grateful respects to your dear father and mother, and hope ever to bear in mind their unwearied kindness.

Had all mine acquaintance been friends,
At whose urgent request I have run,
To answer some frivolous end,
And injure me when I had done—

Had all mine acquaintance been friends,
My case before God they would lay,
And, knowing his will in his word,
Have helpt me to watch and to pray.

Had all mine acquaintance been friends,
They ne’er would have robb’d me of peace,
But comforted, cheer’d, and upheld,
And wish’d me an increase of grace.

Had all mine acquaintance been friends,
They ne’er would have wounded my name,
But covered my errors in love,
And reproved when I was to blame.

Had all my acquaintance been friends,
They’d ne’er have rejoic’d in my fall,
But pitied, and prayed, and upheld,
And for strength on my Saviour wou’d call.

Had all mine acquaintance been friends,
They ne’er would have left me in woe,
But wept in my grief and distress,
And encourag’d me onward to go.

Were all my acquaintance such friends
As Miss S— and her parents so kind,
My spirits much higher would tend,
While gratitude fir’d my mind.

_Ruhamah_.