2.    24 January 1794 [to Mr Ring, surgeon, Reading] [franked with a Thornton signature, 25 January 94] My dear friends,   I serve you no worse, nor quite so bad, as I do some of my friends. I have many letters unanswered of much longer date than yours, but I write when I can.   Mr Ring's friend called when I could not well converse with him. I gave him the strongest assurances that he would be a welcome guest, on any or every Tuesday and Saturday, and he promised to come soon, but I have not seen him since. [1] My old head soon forgot his name, and as it is not mentioned in Mr Ring's letter.   We were glad and thankful to hear of your safe return to Reading; I have heard of you since more than once, via Heckfield. [2] You both have a place in my heart, and in my prayers. I am often thankful that I was led to your house, and that I have had the pleasure of seeing you in mine. The friendship commenced between us, will, I trust, subsist and grow, though perhaps opportunities of personal intercourse will not be frequent. A union of hearts in grace, is not affected by absence or local distance. A glance of thought conveys me to you whenever I please. The throne of grace is very near to you and to me, and if we often meet there, we cannot be far distant from each other. By and by, we hope to rejoice together before the throne of glory. Then we shall be ever with the Lord, and with each other!   May this thought animate us, while we stay here. We are not our own. We are bought with a price. There is but one thing to us, worth living for – that we may live to him, and for him – to show forth his praise, by obedience, by submission, by usefulness to others – in visiting the afflicted, assisting them by our sympathy, counsel, prayers, or purse, as the case requires, in supporting the cause of the Gospel, and forwarding whatever bids fair for the good of society. [3] These aims ought chiefly to engage our time, talents and influence. Oh, what an honour [it] is to be the instruments of the Lord in defusing his benefits around us! to be the followers of Him who went about Doing good! [4]   On Tuesday last I had a fall in the street; it was rather violent, but though the middle of my leg came plump upon the edge of the curb stone, neither bone nor skin were broken – but my instep is much strained. I am now confined to the sofa and if you were now to enter the drawing room, I could not easily rise to welcome you, much less advance one step to meet you. But my prison is very comfortable, and my Keepers (Miss Catlett and my three maids) are very kind and attentive. I feel little or no pain, and can sleep very well. So that I am not much to be pitied. I more wonder that such things do not happen every day, than that they do now and then. During the fourteen years I have been in London, I have had but four falls. The first dislocated my shoulder, by the second I received a good polt [hard knock] on the grate, the third cost my nose a few drops of blood, but none of them did me essential harm. Undoubtedly there was a ‘Need be’ [5] for this last. Perhaps my being confined now may be a mean[s] of preserving me from something worse which I might otherwise have met with. I hope it will make me more sensible of the value of my legs, if I should be able to walk again, and more dependent upon the Lord to hold me up, that I may be safe. For neither in a temporal, nor in a spiritual sense, am I able to take care of myself, for an hour or a minute.   How much does it behove us, to watch and pray for grace that we may be always prepared for the contingencies we may meet with in this present state. For who knows what a day, or an hour, may bring forth. In the midst of life, we are in death; [6] in the midst of apparent safety, we are always in danger. We are indeed, if believers, always safe under the Lord's protection, and immortal till our work is done. [7] But we can perceive it would not be conducive to the life of faith, if his people were visibly marked in the forehead, to distinguish them from the world. A general exemption from such afflictions as are common to others, would be equivalent to such a mark. And therefore they are liable to the various calamities with which sin has filled the world. They are freed from condemnation, but not from pain, sickness, poverty, losses, crosses, and sudden trying changes, and what we call premature death. These trials likewise give occasion for the exercise and manifestation of many graces, which are not so visible in the sunshine of prosperity. And they are farther sanctified, to wean them more from the world, and to weaken the body of sin which still dwelleth in them. On these accounts for a time, in his providential appointments, all things seem to happen nearly alike to all. But even now they have supports and consolations in their troubles, peculiar to themselves, and which strangers intermeddle not with. [8] And hereafter the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not, will be perfectly manifested.   I have written rather towards filling up the paper, than for your information. I trust you already know these things. You have been enabled to count the cost, and to choose your side. You are desirous and determined to be the Lord's – to be his upon his own terms. To live upon his mercy, to build all your hopes upon the foundation he has laid, to expect all your supplies from the fountain which he has opened. To receive Christ Jesus the Lord as your Prophet, Priest and King. To receive all as from his hands, and to do all for his sake. Go on and be of good courage. He who has wrought in you to will, will likewise enable you to do according to his good pleasure. [9] But you must expect that your profession will be a warfare. We are encouraged to look forward to victory and triumph. But these terms of course imply a previous conflict. There could be no victory, if there were no enemies to fight with.   As I know there are many ready scribes at Heckfield, [10] I suppose you have a copy of the Third Anniversary, or I would have enclosed one. [11]   I hope Mrs Skeet[e] [12] and Miss Mary are well. Miss Catlett joins me in affectionate remembrance to them, to you, and to all our common friends as they come in your way. Please to remember us likewise to your servants.   May the Lord bless, guide and guard you, make you happy in yourselves, and in each other, and honourable and useful in all your connections. So prays Dear Sir and Madam Your affectionate and obliged John Newton   Coleman Street Buildings 24 January 1794   If you see Mr Serle and his family before I can write, tell them I love them all dearly. But as he said in his last letter that he was confined, I must if possible write soon, to enquire after his [welfare] [torn].   Endnotes:   [1] Josiah Bateman writes of Newton in The Life of the Rt Rev Daniel Wilson, 1860: ‘It was the custom of that excellent clergyman to open his house for religious purposes on Tuesday and Saturday evening.  On Saturday evenings, several of the London clergy regularly met there: on Tuesday evenings, he received (to use his own words) “Parsons, Parsonets, and Parsonettas.”  On these occasions some religious subject was freely discussed and conversed upon, and the meeting closed with prayer… Mr. Newton also had his breakfast-parties, open to friends by invitation. They were perhaps the most edifying; for the good old man, in his velvet cap and damask dressing-gown, was then fresh and communicative, always instructive, always benevolent. His expositions of Scripture with his family, which consisted of a niece, some aged servants, and some poor blind inmates of his house, were peculiarly simple and devout.’ [2] This is a reference to Ambrose Serle and family, qv, who lived in Heckfield. It was at Serle’s home that Newton first met the Rings. [3] That Thomas Ring heeded Newton’s advice is evidenced in his obituary in 'The Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association', vol 9, 1841: ‘If unwearied assiduity in the discharge of his professional duties, unblemished integrity, and extensive benevolence, founded on Christian Principle, can entitle the memory of any individual to the gratitude of his fellow members, it ought to be accorded to Dr Thomas Ring, who for more than half a century was actively and extensively engaged in the practical duties of his art… he occupied a sphere of usefulness in the district of his labours, extending far beyond the circle of his professional duties: and throughout a long life he pursued undeviatingly a course of conduct highly calculated to secure the respect of the public. Such men deserve our warmest gratitude and acknowledgements, elevating, as they do, the moral influence of the medical profession… Dr Ring was the principal founder of the Reading Dispensary, and mainly instrumental in the erection of the Royal Berkshire Hospital.’ Memorial in St Laurence: ‘a fearless professor of the faith of Christ crucified’. Ring founded the Reading Dispensary in Chain Lane in 1802, offering advice and medicine free of charge to ‘the industrious poor’. [4] Acts 10:38 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. [5] the phrase “a need be” was in use in this period e.g. The Assemblies Shorter Catechism, Ebenezer Erskine & James Fisher, 1753. It is drawn from 1 Peter 1:6 Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: [6] The statement ‘In the midst of life we are in death’ appears in the Book of Common Prayer Burial Service. [7] Newton often quoted this to William Wilberforce, eg on 1 November 1799: ‘we are invincible and immortal, till His appointed hour’. [8] Proverbs 14:10 The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy. [9] Philippians 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. [10] The many ready scribes would be the children of Ambrose and Martha Serle: Mary (17), William (12), Philip (10), Charlotte (7) and Esther Sarah (5) – another daughter Jane Maria had died in 1792, aged 11. Ambrose had two children by his first wife Elizabeth: Ambrose jnr (1770-1832) and Betsy, who was 83 when the 1851 census was taken, and living near her brother. Both are mentioned in their father's will. [11] This refers to the Hymn Newton wrote on the Third Anniversary of his wife’s death, 15 December 1793. It begins: Enough of the language of Sense, Still harping on sorrow and Death! I turn my attention from thence, T o hear the glad tidings of Faith. For Faith has intuitive skill, (Believers best know what I mean) To pierce thro’ the veil at her will, And realize objects unseen. [12] Mary Skeete, sister of Thomas Ring, and widow of Thomas Skeete (1757-1789) of Paternoster Row, London. Acknowledgements: Descendants of Sophia Ring British Library Lambeth Palace Library