Our present arrangement will, if we are spared, bring us to the middle of February, 1826, which is only a year short of the time when you will be released from your present charge. Now, if we could manage so as to supply till then, would you like to undertake the charge of the parish, provided the incumbent would admit you, which, from what I have lately ascertained, I think could easily be managed? Since I saw you I have engaged with an assistant, but merely _pro tempore_; the expense of which is to be principally borne by the parishioners. The sum allowed to him will be £100 a year; towards which I myself give £30, on condition of being occasionally absent, should my health require it, at the sea or elsewhere. The value of my curacy is full £100 a year besides the house. You will perceive, then, that matters are now made much easier for you, should you think of fixing your lot among the Madeley people, and I am confident that the arrangement would be highly gratifying to them. TO THE REV. JOHN COOPER. Yardley, February 21, 1826. My dear Friend, THOUGH I fully intended to have answered your very kind letter within the time that you specified, yet, as it bears date October 15, I find that I have exceeded the proposed interval _by more than a month_. So much for my _friendship_. Had it been a letter _on business_, I have little hesitation in saying that it would have been duly despatched; and, had there been a dozen of this kind, I think I might venture to assert the same. But my friends, and those also the most intimate and endeared, are too generally neglected; and many are the kind reproofs which my remissness thus draws upon me. You, indeed, my dear friend, have, _in silence_, borne with all; and this ought to have made me more cautious in giving you fresh occasions of pain. But nothing seems of sufficient influence to correct the inveteracy of my habit; and, therefore, I must still, I fear, keep confessing my reiterated faults, and as often keep throwing myself upon the kind forgiveness and forbearance of my friends.