MARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF PROF. KENNETH & MURDOCK Nov. 15, 1934 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by GOULD & LINCOLN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. ELECTROTYPED BY W. F. DRAPER, ANDOVER, MASS. PRINTED BY GEO. C. RAND & AVERY, BOSTON. CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD. TO THE HONORABLE HEMAN LINCOLN: MY DEAR CHRISTIAN BROTHER, As I have a few thoughts upon an important subject which I wish to convey, in a familiar manner, to those Christian disciples by whose distinctive name we are both known, and to whom we sustain endeared relations, I venture respectfully to avail myself of the influence of your name as a valuable aid to their transmission. I can think of no fitter medium. For nearly sixty years you have been attached by profession and by practice to the people called Baptists, and during that period you have never wavered from the great principles on which their churches have ever been "grounded and settled." Having been led to the cross for pardon, and introduced into the "household of faith," by that eminent servant of God, whose memory is so fragrant in our American Zion, the Rev. Dr. Baldwin; and having enjoyed, through many years, not only the benefits of his instructive ministry, but the peculiar advantages of a confidential intimacy which death only could interrupt, you had the best of facilities for acquiring a thorough knowledge of Divine truth, and becoming intelligently established in those doctrines which are the believer's rock of strength. The result has been seen in your history, which, by the grace of God, has been happily protracted. You are understood to be now, at fourscore, what you was previous to your majority-a Baptist. As such, you are widely known, and as widely respected. Though you have out-lived whole generations, and though nearly all who knew you best have gone to their final home, yet the name of no other layman in our ecclesiastical connection is to-day familiar to so many ears, and dear to so many hearts, as the name you bear. But it is not merely or chiefly the estimation in which you are held that prompts me to associate with your name this particular service. Having, for more than thirty years, been favored with your personal friendship, and also, as I believe, with your fraternal confidence, I have had ample opportunity to become acquainted with your opinions and feelings with respect to every question |