Page:Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray.djvu/249

Rh for you, and the estimation in which they hold you. It is so rare to meet with liberal and enlarged minds, that when I do, I exult at the discovery, and my soul leaps to embrace them. Should you have a vacant moment, you will do well to fill it by writing to us, your children."

"Never, my dear Murray, can I forget you, while memory holds her seat in this benighted vale. The impressions are too lasting to be effaced, and so deeply are they marked together, that, when the ideas of the great redemption arise in my mind, those of Relly and Murray, are inseparable therefrom, as the mediums through which sublime truth beamed upon my soul. I am desirous of anticipating that adult age, you so beautifully describe, when knowledge shall be conveyed, not by the obstructed tongue, or tardy pen, but by intuition. But, my dear sir, you must wait till that expected day, before I can tell you how much I esteem, how much I love you. Among a number of things you have taught me, I reckon it not the least, that the disposal of human affairs is in the direction of a Being, whose operations will always produce the best consequences. I, however, find it difficult to suppress the indignation I feel at the treatment you receive. What shall cure these distempered minds? what shall compose the tumult of their frenzy, or rouse their feverish repose? not the skill of an Isaiah, nor the prayers of a Paul; nothing short of the prescription of the grand Physician, who is the Healer of the Nations, and the application of that tree, whose leaf is for medicine. My wishes for you in this case are vain; but I can never appreciate the aspirations of my heart; not that you may be exempt from the conflict, but that you may conquer, and you will conquer; your reward is above, secure from the rage of impotent man, and the invasion of the grand adversary of human nature."

"To be possessed of your confidence and frindship, would be flattering to me in the highest degree. My wishes are to deserve both. You do indeed appear to me a chosen one, an elect soul. Call these expressions extravagant if you please, but they are as far short of what I feel, as language is inadequate to the expression of the refined taste of the mind."

"Among the almost innumerable systems, respecting our nature, being, and our end, in which the world has been so perplexed, and have exposed themselves so variously, none claims so fair a title to truth as the one you promulgate. But the world have not so liberally attributed goodness to Deity. Our benignant religion develops the goodness of God in the enlightening sun, the fructifying rain, the cheering