My dear G.o.dchild!--You received from Christ"s minister at the baptismal font, as your Christian name, the name of a most dear friend of your father"s, and who was to me even as a son, the late Adam Steinmetz, whose fervent aspiration and ever-paramount aim, even from early youth, was to be a Christian in thought, word, and deed--in will, mind, and affections.
I too, your G.o.dfather, have known what the enjoyments and advantages of this life are, and what the more refined pleasures which learning and intellectual power can bestow; and with all the experience which more than threescore years can give, I now, on the eve of my departure, declare to you (and earnestly pray that you may hereafter live and act on the conviction) that health is a great blessing,--competence obtained by honorable industry a great blessing,--and a great blessing it is to have kind, faithful, and loving friends and relatives; but that the greatest of all blessings, as it is the most enn.o.bling of all privileges, is to be indeed a Christian. But I have been likewise, through a large portion of my later life, a sufferer, sorely afflicted with bodily pains, languors, and bodily infirmities; and, for the last three or four years, have, with few and brief intervals, been confined to a sick-room, and at this moment, in great weakness and heaviness, write from a sick-bed, hopeless of a recovery, yet without prospect of a speedy recovery; and I, thus on the very brink of the grave, solemnly bear witness to you that the Almighty Redeemer, most gracious in His promises to them that truly seek Him, is faithful to perform what He hath promised, and has preserved, under all my pains and infirmities, the inward peace that pa.s.seth all understanding, with the supporting a.s.surance of a reconciled G.o.d, who will not withdraw His Spirit from me in the conflict, and in His own time will deliver me from the Evil One!
O, my dear G.o.dchild! eminently blessed are those who begin early to seek, fear, and love their G.o.d, trusting wholly in the righteousness and mediation of their Lord, Redeemer, Saviour, and everlasting High Priest, Jesus Christ!
O, preserve this as a legacy and bequest from your unseen G.o.dfather and friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
July 13, 1834. [2]
[Footnote 1: See "ante", p. 291. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: He died on the 25th day of the same month.]
END OF VOL. III.