IT was very unexpectedly but most joyously that I received your kind communication respecting the sailing of the _Bristol_, {196} and I lost no time in leaving Thornhill for New York. I am now on my way thither, and hope to find a few leisure intervals during my journey to fill my sheet, reserving merely a small space for a postscript, that I may communicate, should all be well, the tidings of the safe arrival of the endeared party: they have much occupied my thoughts of late, and, sometimes, with too much of anxious solicitude, for which I have as often felt reproved; for such has been God’s mercy to us hitherto, that it is not merely infirmity, but positive sin to be distrustful of his faithfulness and love. I feel much indebted to you and Miss Ford, for your peculiar kindness to my dear Mary. I am never surcharged with feeling, I wish it were my habit; but still great kindness quite affects me, and as requital will be ever out of my power, I must look to the beneficent and faithful retributor above, and would give vent to the utterance of my heart in the language of the holy and grateful apostle, “The Lord grant that you may both find mercy of the Lord,” and especially “in that day.” Your kind present of the newspapers, &c., will be very acceptable, and yet, perhaps you are hardly aware of the extent of either our political or literary information. We have two monthly magazines published in York, and three or four newspapers, and from New York we have two weekly newspapers, designed expressly for English readers—the _Albion_ and the _Emigrant_, full of English news and English literature; so that in a month or six weeks, we have all the cream of the London and country news, as well as the best of the lighter articles from the British periodicals. The _Edinburgh_ and _Quarterly Reviews_ are reprinted at two-thirds of the English price; also the _Christian Observer_, and other standard and monthly and quarterly works. Messrs. Harper, also, in New York, reprint the best of the English works in the _Family Library_, at three and sixpence each, executed like Murray’s, and their series amounts already to fifty-three volumes. Another series is furnished by Lee and Carey, at Philadelphia, and a third of a religious sort at Boston; so that in a few months, when I can spare a few pounds, I hope to be able to furnish my family with an extent of literature far beyond my capabilities in England. Among my own congregation we have also a book society, well supported and well supplied; we are, therefore, not a little chagrined when your boasting Englishers think of us as in a semi-barbaric land of literary destitution: for we not only feel ourselves a part of the great nation, but regard ourselves on nearly an equal footing as to the comforts and luxuries, while in many respects we feel that we have the most decided advantage, so we warn you not to treat us either politically or personally with scorn.