1r:1
Ramsgate, 12 May 1876
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter; I also like ‘Tell me the old, old story’
1 very much. I first heard it sung in Paris, in the evening in a small church I used to attend sometimes. No. 12
2 is also beautiful. I regret not having gone to hear
Moody and
Sankey when they were in London.
3 There’s such a yearning for Religion among the people in those big cities. Many a worker in a factory or shop has had a remarkable, pure, pious youth. But city life often takes away ‘the early dew of morning’,
4 yet the yearning for ‘the old, old story’ remains, the bottom of one’s heart remains the bottom of one’s heart. In one of his books,
Eliot describes the
1v:2 life of factory workers &c. who have joined a small community and hold religious services in a chapel in ‘Lantern Yard’, and he says it is ‘God’s Kingdom upon earth’,
5 nothing more nor less.
And there’s something moving about seeing the thousands now flocking to hear those evangelists.
I think your plan to give
Pa and Ma ‘After the departure’ by
Sadée 6 is very good; that’s agreed, then.
Willemien may be already there on 21 May. I see from your letter that you’re also thinking of going. Do it, old boy, if you can manage it. Sometimes such actions receive a special blessing. How it would surprise them.
There was something wistful in
Ma ’s last letter, in which she wrote a word or two about the necessity of our being so far from home.
1v:3 And Ma’s eyes are hurting her again.
Come on, old boy, brighten them up again by being there on that day.
This afternoon
Mr Reid 7 sent me the catalogue of the exhibition in London.
8 In thought a handshake, and congratulations on the birthdays of
Lies and
Cor ,
9 and also on 21 May. Regards to everyone at
the Rooses ’. In haste.
Your loving brother.
Vincent.