Hendon Oct.r 31 / 1862

Dear Uncle

I received your kind letter and was very glad to hear you and your wife [Charity] are quite well, as I am happy to inform you we are all well. I am sorry I did not put my name in the last letter, but you say you expect it was from me and you are quite right. My Dear Uncle, I was taken very ill the day before last Christmas. My wife was all that come to see me. I thought I should die, but I never thought so, I was ___ an ___ one in my breast and one in my side the two discharged about 7 pints of matter. Do you ask me how I felt, to this I reply I often think if the Lord had made us [end of page]

[Page 2] I believe the Lord has made us and placed us here to know him & love him to be happy here & happy hereafter. Do I believe aright and ___ of my thanks for the good advice you gave in your last letter, how a word about the old friends in Hendon to some I read your letter, to others I told the content & I believe they are all striving to get to heaven & all desire to be remembered to you with kind love. Mrs. Bennett is troubled with a large tumor in the inside, but the Lord spares her life. Now about our relations at Fringford. My Uncle John is all that is there, as Uncle Thomas & family have all left & gone to live in Warwickshire [end of page]

[Page 3] but I know nothing of his whereabouts so I cannot say anything of him. The last time I saw my Uncle John he was very well but concluded you was dead. Friend Coats came & ?stopt with me some time since and was quite well his first wife is dead but he is married again, all there and a lot of other Tasker & Thorp, Bennett & Burden Esq to be remembered kindly to you. Old Mrs. Woolley has asked kindly after you many times, we thank you for the information about the price of provision and wages paid for labour if you can transport your farm ___ hear ?Turle take it of you, or 100 sheep just send them at price & I write buy well there is the water & distance I know I am glad to hear my cousin Thomas did well if so then all is well for ever we shall all soon die you say you are getting old [end of page]

[page 4] angels in heaven we had no right to complain. I know he has made us men. We have no right to say why hast thou made me thus & if he sees it good to afflict us we are sure it is all for our good as he is to ___ to err and to good to be unkind. I felt much of my unworthiness, do you ask me where it leads me to, well, I answer not into Doubting Castle nor the torn Cage of Despair, but here, he died for our sins & rose again for our justification before God I cannot do better to express my feelings than quote 2 lines of the parts fixed on this ground will I remain through my heard soul and flesh decay [end of page]