LETTERS TO DR. JOHN GRISCOM. Ill 



best regards^to your amiable and worthy partner and daugh- 

 ter, I remain, as ever, 



Your faithful and affectionate friend, 



B. SILLIMAN. 



I have written this hasty letter by the light of the lamp 

 of my dear wife's sick-room, between five and six o'clock 

 in the morning. 



TO DR. JOHN GRISCOM. 



NEW HAVEN, December 14, 1851. 



MY DEAR FRIEND, Your very friendly letter of the 3d 

 and 26th ult., was most gratefully received, and I avail 

 myself of the quiet of a Sabbath evening to reply. I had 

 thought frequently of you, and have been solicitous to know 

 how it has fared with you since my brief call upon you, I 

 think two years ago last July, as I have had no informa- 

 tion of a later date. I thank you and your kind amanuensis 

 (a good wife or daughter) for the facts regarding your con- 

 dition. I grieve to learn that your eyes are failing you ; it 

 is however, a great alleviation that you can still walk the 

 streets without a guide, and that you can recognize your 

 friends. It is also a great favor that you have such assidui- 

 ties of friendly attention, and that your females can supply 

 eyes, and that your hearing permits you to receive gratifica- 

 tion through that inlet. You do not advert to an, irregu- 

 larity of the heart which you mentioned when I saw you 

 last, and I trust that it does not disturb your quiet. Amidst 

 bodily decay I trust you have the hopes of a Christian 

 depending upon the great salvation, without which our con- 

 dition in old age and in death is indeed forlorn. Our dif- 

 ferent modes of worshipping God in this world are of little 

 moment, if our hearts are right with Him, and there is no 

 safety in any reliance except upon our divine Saviour. As 

 we go on in life He becomes more and more precious to us ; 

 He has paid our debt, and sustained the penalty of the law 

 for us, and salvation through Him is a gift as free as it is 

 all-sufficient and indispensable. 



