6808 LETTERS. HE following letters are a portion of those received from friends of Dr. Blagden, who were invited to be present and participate in the Anniversary Exercises, but were prevented from doing so, from various causes. They were written in reply to the invitations issued by the Committee of Arrangements, a portion of them being addressed to the Committee, and the remainder to Dr. Blagden. It has been thought proper to embrace them in this volume, from a conviction that any record of the events of the occasion would be incomplete without them. FROM REV. JOHN NELSON, D. D., OF LEICESTER, MASS. LEICESTER, SEPT. 12, 1861. Gentlemen: Accept my thanks for your kind and acceptable invitation to me to be present on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the settlement of your esteemed. pastor, and my esteemed friend, the Rev. Dr. Blagden. While my age and infirmities must prevent my complying with this invitation in the sense of being personally present with you on the 28th, I assure you, that my veneration for the long list of distinguished pastors who have ministered to the Old South Church in Boston, my knowledge of the stable position which that ancient church, and the society connected with it, have maintained amidst the changes that have taken place around it, my respect and friendship for many who have composed and now compose it, and my high appreciation of the ministerial, christian and social character of Dr. Blagden, all conspire to make the occasion to which you invite me, one of peculiar interest, and one with which I shall most cordially sympathize, though absent in the body. That God may graciously smile, not only on the occasion, but on the Church and Society, and on the Junior Pastor, now in the freshness of his labors; and that he may sustain and greatly bless the laborer who has so faithfully borne the burden and heat of the day, and cause his ministrations to continue for more than twice twenty-five years is the sincere and fervent prayer of JOHN NELSON. FROM REV. RICHARD S. STORRS, D. D., OF BRAINTREE. BRAINTREE, SEPT. 27, 1861. Dear Brethren: Your very kind invitation to share in the approaching celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of your beloved Pastor's settlement, is most gratefully acknowledged. I ought not to say that I regret my inability to accept it, since the providence of God, always wise and good, forecloses so great a pleasure. But the opportunity may not be unim proved, to assure you of the warmest congratulations, on the continuance of the sacred relation through so long a perioda relation so richly fraught with blessings from on high, for him, for you, and for the church at large. The ministries of Huntington, Wisner, and Stearns, so familiar to the earlier recollections of my ministerial life, and so honored of God, as well as eminently useful to man, were yet comparatively short, by reason of death; and that you have now found such favor with God, as to look on the face of a pastor ever loving and active, whose ministry over a period nearly as long as that occupied by all those worthy predecessors, is surely a matter of fervent congratulation and thanksgiving; more than that, a ground of strong hope that God is about to turn the captivity of Zion, and deliver her from the grievous delusion, issuing from the Pit, that "the short ministry is the blessed one." My personal attachment to your pastor and his family, with the whole-souled confidence felt in his ability, fidelity to conscience, and devotedness to Christ, no more requires expression here, than my undying affection to the church you represent, for having once prepared me a treasure, richer than the gold of Ophir could procure; it is enough, that his praise is in all the churches—that his record is in heaven. Wishing you the presence and smiles of Jesus, in the hallowed and hallowing celebration before you, and praying that it may prove a precious antepast of the yet nobler celebration of your union with Christ and all his saints in the kingdom of his Father, I remain in all truth and sincerity, Your affectionate brother in the Lord, R. S. STORRS. |