4.         1 October 1794

[to Mr Ring, Surgeon, Reading][franked with a Thornton signature, London one Octr 94]

 
My dear Madam,
 
Though I cannot write a long letter at present I must thank you for the favour of yours. It always gives us pleasure to hear of or from you.
 
Mr Woodroffe [1] is sometimes at our Society, [2] but his coming is very uncertain. Perhaps we do not see him for many months together. As I know not where he is, nor how to direct to him, I thought it best to send the letter to Mrs Serle, which I did this morning, and for the greater certainty, I sent it by Crabb. [3]
 
After the kind reception I had at Reading, and particularly at a certain house in the Market Place, [4] I need little solicitation to visit you again were it in my power. But it is not. I am not my own. I have a numerous, affectionate, and I trust a thriving people. These are my charge, and this is my Post. Suitable supplies are not easily procured, and they must be suitable for I could not be content to get a Minister to fill the pulpit in my absence, unless I believed he could answer the expectations of my hearers. [5] And perhaps some who are better men than myself, could not so well do this. For as we have been together so long, we seem now as formed for each other; and without something in my own way and cast of preaching, they might complain if I left them. I have been abroad four successive summers, and in these excursions, I have visited most of my former haunts, and, as I think, taken my leave of them. [6] My desire of seeing my old friends has been granted, and my plan completed. When I took leave of my people, the Sunday evening before I left Town this year I told them, that except I should have an express providential call of duty, I did not intend to be absent from them any more on a Lord’s Day. I purposed if I should live to enter my 70th year, I would give up the thoughts of rambling. My opportunities of preaching to the people whom I love, and to whom I am united, will now probably be but few. I may expect to be called home, or laid aside, very soon. [7] And it is much upon my heart (if the Lord please) to live and die with them.
 
The question is not, where or how far inclination might lead me, but what is the path of duty? And the answer to this question, is pretty plain to my own mind – that I am bound to remain upon my appointed spot. The motives of friendship and personal regard, which tempt me to go to one place, would tempt me to go to twenty. And setting these aside, there is hardly a place in the kingdom, where my assistance seems less necessary than at Reading. [8]
 
But whether I see Reading again or not, the Lord’s interest and people there, those to whom I am personally known, and particularly my dear Mr and Mrs Ring, will always have a warm place in my heart, and I trust in my prayers. I often recollect with pleasure and thankfulness your great kindness to me and Miss Catlett, and did not my engagements here forbid, I would gladly and often go farther than Reading to tell you so. But I believe I must content myself with the hope of hearing from you, and writing to you, now and then.
 
Well! – Blessed be God for the prospect of a better state. There I trust we shall meet to part no more. Oh how shall we love and sing, and wonder and praise! [9] when we see Him as he is, and look back by a clearer light upon all the way by which He led us through this wilderness! [10] He is faithful that has promised!
 
It is preaching morning. [11] I can only add my love and Miss Catlett’s. The good Lord bless you both, jointly and separately, temporally and spiritually. Amen. I am your affectionate and obliged

John Newton
 
1 October 1794
 
 
Endnotes:

 [1] Ambrose Serle (1742-1812) married Martha Woodrooffe, neé Priaulx (1742-1817), in London on 29 Oct 1774. She was the widow of Thomas Woodrooffe (d 1771), London hosier. ‘Mr Woodroffe’ may be the recently ordained son of Martha, the Rev Nathaniel George Woodroffe (1766-1851).
[2] The ‘Society’ is probably the Eclectic Society. Josiah Pratt’s Eclectic Society notebook lists ‘Woodrooffe’, as a ‘visitor’ (e.g. 22 January 1796 and at least between 1801 and 1805.
[3] Elizabeth Crabb, the Newton’s faithful servant, died shortly before he did. She was interred at St Mary Woolnoth on 8 May 1807(see 5 December 1807 letter).
[4] The Rings lived at 17/18 Market Place, Reading. By at least 27 July 1799 they had moved round the corner to property in Friar Street.
[5] John Bacon (1740-1799) quotes Newton’s response to a question posed at the Eclectic Society meeting on 20 May 1793: What will justify the refusal of a pulpit? Newton had said. ‘We should know that the man's turn and manner suits our people - sometimes a man preaches to believers as though they were all pickpockets!’
[6] Newton did go travelling again later, by which time he had acquired suitable curates. His journal for 1800 and 1803 may be read here.
[7] In fact Newton lived to be 82. He died in December 1807, preaching right up to the year before his death. His last sermon was on the first anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, a charity sermon in aid of the widows and orphans.
[8] This would be due to the evangelical ministries of William Bromley Cadogan, vicar of St Giles, the Independent minister Thomas Noon (1740-1795) of Broad Street Chapel and the Anabaptist Thomas Davis (1734-1796) pastor of Hosier’s Lane.
[9] This is the title of one of Newton’s hymns, Olney Hymns, Book 3, Hymn 82:
Let us love, and sing, and wonder,
Let us praise the Saviour’s name!
[10] A reference to one of Newton’s favourite texts: Deuteronomy 32:10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
[11] On Wednesday mornings Newton gave a lecture at St Mary Woolnoth (he shortened his sermons to encourage the bankers in adjacent Lombard Street to attend!)

 
Acknowledgements:
Descendants of Sophia Ring
British Library
Lambeth Palace Library