May Your Life and Health Be Long Spared

A letter to C. H. Spurgeon from the faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, on the great preacher's 50th birthday. They rejoiced in the good ministry of the London preacher and expressed their appreciation for him and doctrinal agreement with him. The letter was written June 27, 1884.

The undersigned professors in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, beg leave to offer respectful and hearty congratulations on your fiftieth birthday. We thank God for all that he made you and by his grace enabled you to become and achieve. We rejoice in your great and wonderful work as preacher and pastor, and through your Orphanage and your Pastor's College; as also your numerous writings, so sparkling with genius, so filled with the spirit of the gospel. Especially we delight to think how nobly you have defended and diffused the doctrines of grace; how in an age so eager for novelty and marked by such loosening of belief you have through long years kept the English-speaking world for your audience while never turning aside from the old-fashioned gospel.

And now, honored brother, we invoke upon you the continued blessings of our God. May your life and health be long spared, if it be his will; may Providence still smile on your varied work, and the Holy Spirit richly bless your spoken and written messages to mankind.

Life and Letters of John Albert Broadus, by Archibald Thomas Robertson, 1901, reprint by Gano Books, pp. 341-42.

Every Returning Birthday

A portion of a letter by Rev. Henry Venn, Church of England minister, to his son John on his 20th birthday. He recounted his son's birth in a depraved state, his upbringing and education, and then his conversion. He was a thankful father, happy to know that his son was a follower of Jesus Christ but also that he had given himself to the work of the ministry. His joy is expressed in this natal letter and wise counsel, peppered with hope, characterizes the last paragraph, a letter written March 9, 1779.

… With every requisite qualification as a scholar, and with a character unsullied by conformity to the world, you may, if life is spared, be admitted amongst the witnesses who testify against the evil doctrine and evil practice everywhere prevailing, and come forth engrossed by one grand purpose, from which nothing shall ever divert you—a purpose, through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, to spend and be spent in His service—to follow, though with very unequal steps, yet still with all your might to follow, the example of the Apostles, in the doctrine you preach, in the self-denied life you will lead, in the longing desire of our heart to see the lost saved, and the slaves of sin and Satan returning to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads, transformed into the Divine image, and, with all gratitude, confessing they heard from your lips what they found the means of their salvation. In this most blessed employment (if it please our adorable Saviour) may you work for many years! And every returning birthday solemnly present yourself before Him, to be endued with more wisdom, knowledge, and grace; till, in the appointed hour, you are called to give account of your ministry, and find the day of your death infinitely better than the day of your birth! This is the wish, the ardent, constant prayer, of your affectionate father…

Letters of Henry Venn, by John Venn, first published in 1835, republished by the Banner of Truth, 1993, pp. 273-74.

May Your Child Be His Child

A selection from a letter by John Newton to John Ryland, Jr. Ryland's wife, Elizabeth, had just given birth to their first and only child. Mrs. Ryland died a few weeks after giving birth. Newton wrote a letter of sympathy then but this letter was full of rejoicing for the little boy that graced their home. The letter was written December 16, 1786. Having a granddaughter born this past week, Nasia Marie Hewlett (pictured here), reminded me of Mr. Newton's prayer for the Rylands.


I will join you in praising the Lord for his goodness. May he crown the mercy by raising up Mrs. Ryland to praise him in his house. And may your child be his. You have now another comfort, another care, and what, if grace prevent not, might be another snare; but to those who feel their own weakness, grace is all-sufficient. My best wishes await you both.

Wise Counsel: John Newton’s Letter to John Ryland, Jr., edited by Grant Gordon, The Banner of Truth Trust, 2009, letter #36, p. 181.

Under God All Depends on the Mother

A selection from a letter by Rev. Benjamin Morgan Palmer to his daughter Anna, who recently had given birth to a son. He wrote to comfort her for she has lost her first child, a daughter, at birth. He also wrote to challenge her to be a dedicated mother. The letter was written January 4, 1869.

This time it is a son! What a solemn responsibilities cluster around that word! This boy-babe is after a while to be a man. Can you tell what a vast intellect may be slumbering within that little head? Who knows but that the fate of an empire may be wrapped in the folds of his career? Those little hands may wield the destiny of this great Republic—and that tiny voice may sway the councils of a nation; who knows! That little heart, it may be a volcano of passions, to be belched forth in smoke and fire upon a devastated earth—or it may be the well-spring of a mighty stream of beneficence to refresh and fertilize the world. Which shall it be? Do not stagger, nor be affrighted, when I answer that under God all depends upon the mother.

A fearful trust is reposed in you, my daughter, in this boy’s birth; for of a truth, in time and in the great hereafter, he will be just what you shall make him. It is too late to shrink back in terror. He is yours; and the great God, who gave him to you, says, ‘Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages’ [Exodus 2:9]. Mark the terms of the contract, for therein lies the trust, and the comfort too. ‘Nurse it for me’—that is the trust; ‘and I will give thee thy wages’—this is the assurance. Both are bound together. If you nurse it for God, you shave have ample recompense…

The Life and Letters of Benjamin Morgan Palmer, by Thomas Cary Johnson, Banner of Truth, p. 383.

Let Us Be Thankful, Trustful, and Hopeful

A selection from a letter by John A. Broadus to his dear friend and co-laborer in teaching, J. P. Boyce. The letter was written from Greenville, South Carolina, on January 24, 1876. It was his 49th birthday.

This is my birthday. We have entered, you and I, on our fiftieth year of life. Each of us could look back with sore lamenting and might be tempted to repining, but let us try to be thankful instead, to be trustful too, and hopeful. For one thing I give thanks at this moment, as often before, that God has given me such a bosom friend as you.

Life and Letters of John Albert Broadus, by Archibald Thomas Robertson, 1901, reprint by Gano Books, p. 299.

Being Fifty Years Old

A selection from a letter by the beloved hymn writer, Elizabeth Prentiss, also author of the helpful book, Stepping Heavenward. Mrs. Prentiss wrote the letter to a friend a week after she celebrated her 50th birthday. Mrs. Prentiss was born October 26, 1818; the letter was written November 2, 1868.

You asked if I look over the past on my birthdays. I suppose I used to do it and feel dreadfully at the pitiful review, but since I have had the children’s to celebrate, I haven’t thought much of mine. But this time, being fifty years old, did set me upon thinking, and I had so many mercies to recount and to thank God for, that I hardly felt pangs of any sort. I suppose He controls our moods in such seasons, and I have done trying to force myself into this or that train of thought. I am sure that a good deal of what used to seem like repentance and sorrow for sin on such occasions, was really nothing but wounded pride that wished it could appear better in its own eyes. God has been so good to me! I wish I could begin to realise how on paper. Life seems teaching some new, or deepening the impression of some old, lesson, all the time.

More Love to Thee: The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss, George Lewis Prentiss, reprinted by Solid Ground Christian Books, p. 252.