June 6th 1862.
My dear John,
I thank you very much for the photograph,1 which is an excellent likeness. I am so very glad to have it in my Album, amongst those of many other highly valued friends and relatives. It gave me great pleasure to hear from you, and I truly hope your excursion to the Continent2 will renovate your health, and give you increased strength for the pursuits you are so much engaged in. I always feel anxious about you, lest you may be overworked, knowing your constitution is not a very robust one, and fearing you do not spare yourself as much as you might. Thanks for your kind wishes about my health: it has been very much broken for the last 18 months, but I have many undeserved blessings to be thankful for, and must not murmur at the loss of one, even though it be the greatest and richest of all.3
With respect to your last publication,4 I could not fancy you writing any thing contrary to the precepts and commands of Him who has so distinctly desired us to “Ask and we shall have, seek and we shall find, knock and it shall be opened to us”,5 and it would grieve me more than words could express, to think for one moment that you could neglect the one thing needful: We should not live as if this earth were our resting place, for “here we have no abiding city”,6 and we know not the moment we may be called on to give an account of our thoughts, words, and actions. Dear John, let us seek the Lord while He may be found, and He will not forsake us in the hour of trial and sorrow. The deep and anxious interest I feel in your eternal welfare, must plead my apology for these few words, and hoping you will think of them sometimes,
I remain as ever | your most sincere friend | E.D Steuart.
RI MS JT/1/TYP/10/3345
LT Typescript Only
photograph: photograph not identified.
excursion to the Continent: Tyndall planned to tour the Swiss Alps beginning in July 1862; and would return in August.
must not murmur at the loss… the greatest and richest of all: i.e., her health.
your last publication: [J. Tyndall], ‘Physics and Metaphysics’, Saturday Review, 4 (1860), pp. 140–1. This was Tyndall’s first substantial statement of materialism in print, although it appeared anonymously, as was standard practice with the Saturday Review. As Roland Jackson points out, Tyndall had intended to publish it as a part of his Glaciers of the Alps, but his friends discouraged him from doing so (Ascent of John Tyndall, pp. 158–9).
“Ask and we shall have… and it shall be opened to us”: Matthew 7:7–8.
“here we have no abiding city”: Hebrews 13:14.
Please cite as “Tyndall1903,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on