yours of
July 24th is before me. I rejoice al
ways to hear of your
health and prosperity and have never failed
of a disposition to promote your usefulness
and your
Comfort, but to use the same freedom which You
approve and set me an example of, I must tell You
I either very much want a good
spiritual taste
or your letter has a very ill savor for a Christian
or rather if I have any good taste at all, it much
savors of pride,
arrogance and a want of proper
concern to heal the bleeding wounds of our
glorious
Redeemer. You discover very great Ig
norance of my plan, my
object, my reasons and
motives, my views and prospects, and as great a
degree of uncharitableness as of ignorance. You
show no degree of brotherly and
Christian Sympathy
towards me in my long and weary travail, notwith
standing your nation have been invariably my
chief object, nor any
disposition to encourage
my Heart or strengthen my hands, though un
der a weight heavy enough to crush an Angel,
and in a Cause which has been and still is, so
astonishingly owned of God —
To Rev.
Mr. Occom
August
15th 1771 —
And though my memory be poor, yet matters which
impress my mind, as the following particulars have
done, I am far from imagining that I have only
dreamed about them viz 1st when I saw you after
your return from
Europe I proposed your going on a
mission among remote tribes, as those near you
were a
[illegible]nder the care of and supplied by the
London Board in Boston. you insisted upon your
staying at home
one Year, I proposed your
making a settlement for yourself and
Wife
and part
of your family among some remote na
[illegible][guess: ]tion,
and
promised you my assistance, and friend
[illegible]ship as to your
comfortable support there, You rejected the proposal.
I offered to take part of your Children, viz all
that were suitable for it, if you pleased and educate
them in the best manner I could in
my
School,
You showed no disposition to comply with it. 2ndly
I never discouraged your going into the Indian
Country, nor showed any coldness towards it, unless
when you proposed only just to make a short
visit, which I was not sure would answer the
expense which You let me know would be necessary
to prepare You for and support you in it —
3rdly You always knew there was money enough and
my Heart always open to supply you as soon
as I could see your Heart
in earnest to serve
the Redeemer's Cause in that capacity.
4thly the first I ever heard of your being dis
posed to seek a settlement in the wilder
ness, was by
Mr. Woodward last Winter,
Whereupon I wrote a judicious Christian
friend, to inquire of your moral Charac
ter, and advise whether it was such, as that
I might with honor to the
Redeemer's,
Cause employ you, and
hoped to hear, that
which might warrant my proceeding
thereto. And there is nothing wanting at this
time, but proper satisfaction that it
may be done without reproach to the Re
deemer's Cause, in
order to engage all my
heart and powers therein. 5thly I believed
your brother
David did very
sinfully in leaving
the Cause in the wilderness as he did.
and that his treatment of me was very ungenerous
and abusive, the particulars whereof I have
told him. I have constantly wished to
see him convinced of this rashness
and folly, and have
been propense to forgive and restore him, and am so
at this moment, thus I have given you a
little sketch of things
as they lie in my
mind. My dear Man, I think you much dis
honor
God, in treating his great goodness to You
in opening such a favorable door to go on your
so much improving and
advantageous tour to
Europe almost as though you had gone through a most tragical
Scene of persecution. I am now got near my
journey's end, and long to be at rest, God grant
we may both appear before him, washed in
the Redeemer's blood and clothed with his white
Robes.
P.S. I shall be glad to employ your Brother
David
and give him a reasonable
Consideration, or as much as you mention, provided
he be in
earnest engaged to promote the Cause proposed. I am weary
of
connections with Men in whom there is no Faith.