ven stars from my social
sky. Many, many a thick cloud of anguish has pressed my brow and sent
deep down into my soul the bitter waters of sorrow in consequence. And
you have doubtless had your troubles and anxious seasons also about your
fugitive star.

I have learned that some of you have been sold, and again taken back by
Colonel ----. How many of you are living and together, I cannot tell. My
great grief is, lest you should have suffered this or some additional
punishment on account of my _Exodus_.

I indulge the hope that it will afford you some consolation to know that
your son and brother is yet alive. That God has dealt wonderfully and
kindly with me in all my way. He has made me a Christian, and a
Christian Minister, and thus I have drawn my support and comfort from
that blessed Saviour, who came _to preach good tidings unto the meek, to
bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the
opening of the prison to them, that are bound. To proclaim the
acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God; to
comfort all that mourn. To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give
unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of
praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of
righteousness, the planting of the Lord that he might be glorified._

If the course I took in leaving a condition which had become intolerable
to me, has been made the occasion of making that condition worse to you
in any way, I do most heartily regret such a change for the worse on
your part. As I have no means, however, of knowing if such be the fact,
so I have no means of making atonement, but by sincere prayer to
Almighty God in your behalf, and also by taking this method of offering
to you these consolations of the gospel to which I have just referred,
and which I have found to be pre-eminently my own stay and support. My
dear father and mother; I have very often wished, while administering
the Holy Ordinance of Baptism to some scores of children brought forward
by doting parents, that I could see you with yours among the number. And
you, my brothers and sisters, while teaching hundreds of children and
youths in schools over which I have been placed, what unspeakable
delight I should have had in having you among the number; you may all
judge of my feeling for these past years, when while pre