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 and perfect beauty of self-sacrifice.
I feel in thorough sympathy with the aim you have ever kept
loc_vm.00366_large.jpg
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,"1 and with reverence I claim
to take you by the hand, and call you brother, yea, though you
loc_vm.00367_large.jpg
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 2
last night who told me
loc_vm.00368_large.jpg
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 ThompsonCorrespondent:
Reverend Samuel Thompson (b.
1835), originally from Canada, was the last resident minister of the Rivington
Unitarian Chapel near Bolton, England; he served as the minister from 1881 to
1909. He hosted and provided entertainment for the Eagle Street College group
(later known as the Bolton College and the Bolton Fellowship)—a literary
society established by James W. Wallace and Dr. John Johnston, and dedicated to
reading and discussing Whitman's work—when they celebrated Whitman's
birthday each May 31st.