FROM MR. JOHN MASSEY.

London, April 30, 1729.

In the midst of all my smarting sorrows and heavy difficulties I cannot but tell my dear and valuable friend how pleasant and consolatory I found his reviving letter, which came just in time to be communicated to my poor, dying father, a circumstance which gave me peculiar pleasure. I received it last Sabbath day morning, and immediately read it to him. He said it was a very sympathizing letter, and seemed to derive a great deal of satisfaction from it, as it gave him some prospect of his unhappy son's being provided for, by the means of his kind. friend Mr. Some. All that day he continued in a very weak condition, earnestly desiring to be dissolved, and, as he often expressed it, "to go home!" In the evening the agonies of death poured in fast upon him, and the next morning, about six o'clock, my mother being called to him, he faintly told her that he was in prodigious pain; and, upon her saying I hope the Lord Jesus Christ will release you; he replied, “ay, ay,” raising his hands and his eyes, and presently after received the wished for discharge from that blessed Redeemer, by breathing out his willing spirit into his hands.

A dismal event was this to each of us, but a most glorious one to him. O what an infinitely happy alteration was there then made in his circumstances! One hour he was suffering torment and misery in this world of sorrow, and the next in an absolute freedom from every feeling of distress, and singing

hallelujahs before the throne of God! But I cannot linger on a theme which, though it is extremely delightful in one view, yet, in another, is so melancholy as to fill me with ten thousand gloomy ideas; and I am indeed, at this time, but too apt to dwell on the darker side.

What shall I say to you, my good friend? I never was qualified to entertain you; for the man who attempts it should have a clear head, and talents polished and refined to an unusual degree; and if I had ever been endowed with this happy capacity, I am sure it would fail me now. Sorrow enervates the mind, unhinges its powers, destroys its activity, and throws the thoughts into tumultuous hurries and distractions, which break in upon us like a deluge and often prove as fatal. How much this sad case is mine you must be sensible, from the late changes which have happened to my ruin. Alas! I am now undone, and fatherless; exposed to innumerable hardships and unknown anxieties. The storms and tempests of an unkind world beat fast upon me. Huge troubles spread around me, and frightful prospects present themselves on every side. But shall I forget that I have a God; and when I say so, can I not declare myself possessed of all things? whatever earthly blessing I am deprived of, eminently enjoy in him! Here then I will rest, and in him repose an unshaken confidence.

I am, Dear Sir,

Your most affectionate Friend,

For

may

JOHN MASSEY.

DEAR SIR,

TO THE REV. SAMUEL CLARK.

August 7, 1729.

It was not merely the hurry of new business, and much less the forgetfulness of so good a friend, which hindered me thus long from writing to you. The true reason was, that I wished to avoid putting you to the charge of a double postage, when I had nothing to communicate which required haste. You will probably expect to hear something of my pupils. They have now been five weeks under my care, and in that time have given me a great deal more pleasure than trouble, for they have treated me with a great deal of respect; and, as far as I can see, have behaved very well to each other. The three who are intended for the ministry had made a very considerable progress both in Latin and Greek, indeed far beyond what many others have done who have just left a grammar school, and they are all industrious, ingenious, and I hope truly religious. We have generally been employed in mathematics in the morning, and Hebrew in the afternoon, for I did not care to follow Mr. Jennings's example, in mixing other studies until they became a little more familiar with these. We have not yet made any great progress in either, a fact the less to be wondered at, considering that they were utterly unacquainted with these studies, and I was loath to overload them at first. We have only gone over the

first book of Euclid's Elements, in which however I rendered them so perfect, that they were able readily to demonstrate all the propositions without referring to the book. We have also entered upon Mr. Jennings's Algebra, and read about twenty pages daily. I should have told you before, that after having gone over the first book of Euclid we reviewed all the propositions again, and observed the principal uses of each, as taught by Whiston and Du Chalet, which made them easier than if we had taken them at first, for the use of the first proposition in its demonstration depends on the 26th, and that of the 4th on the 15th. Several of the more difficult uses we omitted, especially since most of them will come in with much greater advantage when we enter upon physics; accordingly I have made references to them.

For Hebrew, we first read all the rules in Bythner which relate to the mode of reading it; and then spent above a week in practising upon them till they could read the four first Psalms pretty readily; we then went on to other rules of grammar, still continuing to practise our reading, till we came to the paradigm of the regular verbs. I wrote out a few easy rules about the changes made on them in the beginning and ending of each person, gender, tense, &c. in Kal; which, as you, sir, well know, will be a sufficient guide to them in all the rest, if they attend

* We principally used Barrow; but compared other editions as we went along. I wrote out several of the more difficult demonstrations in a method which seemed plainer to them than any other.

to the names of the conjugations, which are themselves examples of the third masculine singular future, from which the rest are formed. After learning these rules, I set them to the paradigms, which they have learned perfectly; they are now declining other regular verbs on that model; and we have taken a general view of the rules for the quiescents. We enter on the defectives to-day; and I propose that they should go through many examples of each. They have already learnt the pronouns, in which, as you know, sir, they have examples of all the affixes, and several of the mosche vechaleb so that I hope we shall enter on our Psalter before the end of this month. We have every day read some latin author, unless something more than ordinary has prevented. We generally spend about half an hour upon it. One or another of us reads the original, and we inquire into the most difficult passages; which, if they do not understand, I endeavour to explain as well as I can; and that I may be better prepared to do so, I look over the lesson before in the best edition I can get. We have read some passages from Horace, Juvenal, Ovid, and Pliny ; but as we propose talking latin, have spent more time in Terence, than in either of the former. To these classics we join Erasmus; whose dialogues may, if I mistake not, be exceedingly useful to us in our present design. We have, out of respect to Dr. Ker*, spent some time in Bandius; but my

* He was a celebrated theological tutor among the Nonconformists, at whose Academy Dr. Clark had studied.