
I send you just a few lines to thank you for your very great kindness in sending me your Book, a kindness I shall never forget. I have not seen you in the flesh but yet I feel that I understand you, & be assured, it raises within me a psalm of thanksgiving to know that there is a man (yourself) whose thoughts, feelings, actions have from first to last been of the purest, noblest, best; whose life stands out in all the perfect symetry symmetry and perfect beauty of self-sacrifice.
I feel in thorough sympathy with the aim you have ever kept
in view, to elevate humanity & to bring all men together as brethren.
Nature and Humanity must have a common centre and to raise
the ideals of life to their highest, everything must be seen as sacred.
This you have done & in time an increasing influence will
flow from your
life & example that will bless the world.
Strong in faith and hope that the soul is immortal your words
will be sure helpers & friends to many in the valley of
doubt, and bring consolation to the sorrowing.
You say "Whoso touches my book, touches me," and with reverence I claim
to take you by the hand, and call you brother, yea, though you
are also my Master. In imagination I have looked at you (as in reality
I have often looked at the photos of you in the L of G.)
and seen you smile, and realized the greatness and the goodness that lay within.
I have seen, strength blended with wisdom & a love for Humanity that
broke down all barriers of creed, or colour or condition, and realized
how well I loved you for it all.
And now I see you broken, but unconquered, by the years and
the circumstances of life; suffering from pain of body & the
weakness of the flesh, but in mind & soul calm and serene and
beautiful as a setting sun. I saw brother J.W. Wallace
last night who told me
how ill you were. He is a good soul & as I
listened to his reminiscences I felt anew that the future ages will be
helped and quickened by your life and thought to broader sympathy
and deeper love for justice and Humanity.
I do most fervently trust that the pain of body is somewhat less and I am comforted by knowing that you are surrounded by some friends out of the many who would deem service to you an honour, & that their love is some recompense for the sufferings of a sick bed.
I am My dear Brother Gratefully & lovingly yours Sam Thompson