256 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



commensurate with time and reaching through eternity. I 

 will still hope that you may seek and find salvation through 

 the Redeemer, and that through his intercession we may 

 rejoice together in acceptance at the great day before the 

 throne of God, our sins and follies being mercifully for- 

 given. Pardon me if, in my honest zeal for your welfare 

 in both worlds, I have transcended the limits of that kind- 

 ness and- courtesy which we have always maintained to- 

 wards each other, and I beg you to accept this letter as a 

 proof that I am still, as ever, 



Your faithful friend, 



B. SILLIMAN. 



P. S., June 6. This letter has lain by me for some 

 weeks, partly because I could not, until yesterday, obtain a 

 copy of " The Christ of History," and partly that I might 

 not hastily, and without due consideration, approach you. 

 On reperusal, I do not find cause to suppress or alter what 

 I have written ; nor do I wish to draw you into an argu- 

 ment or a vindication. The letter is intended as a friendly 

 protest ; pray, when you have read it, lay it by for a few 

 days, and then read it again with a cool and un excited 

 mind. I do not ask a reply. I am content that I have re- 

 lieved my own mind by appealing to yours in a spirit of 

 candor and kindness. Before I seal the envelope, allow 

 me to mention a fact which appears to me not inappropriate. 

 Last week I went with Mrs. Silliman one hundred miles, 

 to Woodstock, Conn., to visit her venerable father, John 

 McClellan, Esq., uncle of the late Dr. McClellan of 

 Philadelphia, a lawyer by profession, now some months 

 over ninety years of age, but for seven years confined by 

 the paralysis of one limb and arm, cheerful, however, 

 and affectionate, and with an active mind, still sound and 

 discerning. One morning, while we were there, as he 

 closedfhis Bible, he said : " I have read it all through dur- 

 ing the past and current year," and at that moment he fin- 



