Faraday to Benjamin Vincent   15 June 1861¹

[Royal Institution embossed letterhead] | 16 Pleydell Gardens | Sandgate Road | Folkstone.

Dear friend

We have just had your most welcome & joyful letter, and it has done us great good. Such events as you have had the privilege of being engaged with are sources of great happiness & comfort to the people of Christ, and we are bold enough to think we are comforted & cheered by them. I rejoice that no further delay occurred in God’s service - and that you & Mr. Baxter were there². When it pleases the head of the church to call to work he makes his ministry sufficient; as I think appears in the present case. It is quite a delight to me to think that Mr. Baxter was there - that Dundee was joined to Old Buckenham in this matter - that Old Buckenham has now in Scotland another representative in the flesh who can speak of them from his own knowledge.

We got here very well on Wednesday and directly we arrived I wrote to you at Old Buckenham³; hoping and believing that my letter would reach you there on Thursday; but from the general expressions of your letter I suppose it has failed. - Mr. Baxter, I conclude, will now be on his way home, and we all wish him a quick & prosperous journey; laden with joyful matters like a bee flying home.

We are progressing fairly but not wonderfully;- My wife has suffered from cold & earache; - & the hot weather makes me weak. We shall see. I hope your household are pretty well. The real summer heat which we now have, must, I suppose, have its effect. I hope the breakdown at Shackelwell has not been very serious for Mr. Leighton, either in the matter of inconvenience, fatigue, or health. Our love to him, Mr Whitelaw & yourself from all of us: we shall feel & do feel, dull in regard to tomorrow; but may think of & remember our dear friends at Old Buckenham as well as in London.

Ever My dear friend | Yours Affectionately | M. Faraday

Mr. B. Vincent.