Page:A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury.pdf/43

Rh of the sleet, which fell last night, and the bleak wind which whistling at the windows. Last Sunday I wrote to our good old mother, and during the week I mailed to her a religious newspaper—which Ann takes—and proposes, after she herself shall have finished it, to send for Ma's entertainment. . ..

Aleck tells me, Dick, that you have joined the Campbellites and become a disciple. . ..

I do not regret to hear that you have turned away from worldy things. . ..

There is another thing, Dick, persons professing to be Christians are very apt to make the conduct of their brother professors around them a standard for their own conduct towards God. This may, without knowing it, and unless one keep a watchful eye upon his own heart, tend, more or less, to lead us to regard unduly the opinions of the world, and prompt us to do what an untrammeled conscience would condemn. Learn your duties, Dick, from the Bible. There you have them laid down in example, law, and precept. I love to see Christians after the Bible and according to their own consciences, and not according to the opinions of other men. I hope, Dick, whatever persuasion you join, that you will be a Christian according to the Bible as you understand it.

After being engaged on surveying work for more than a year, Maury obtained a few weeks leave to visit his parents in Tennessee, and attend to some business-matters for his father, who was now old and infirm. He also wished to make arrangements for bringing his parents into Virginia to live with him. On his way back to New York he was thrown from the top of a stage-coach, he having given his seat inside to a poor woman who could not stand the exposure of the cold night air.

His leg was broken at the knee. It was set by an incompetent surgeon, and he languished for three months at Somerset, Ohio. It was found necessary to