The Andrew Wylie Family Letters - Indiana University Bloomington

ambitious aspirations. You probably felt these too strongly. This I infer from the fact that, as
you say, your life has not been a happy one. There were many things in your life, I mean as to
its circumstances calcu lated to render it happy compared with the most. Compared with what
was mine it was highly prosperous & fortunate. Through the whole course of my youth up to
manhood I was acquainted with privation labor & hardship. By teaching at intervals, first in the
primary school, then in one of a higher grade then in an Academy then as tutor in college I gained
the scanty means which enabled me with the most rigid economy to complete my education. You
were brought up in ease and affluence compared with the state in which I was placed. If outward
circumstances were able to give happiness you would have been happy, as happy certainly as the
most favored & fortunate. But they are not. Of this I am quite sure that happiness is in the mind
And of this I am also sure that He who said “Come unto me all ye that are weary & heavy-laden
& I will give you rest,” can confer true happiness to the mind. He by his teaching puts the mind
at ease by satisfying its Essential Wants and placing it above its Enemies. See Mr Fiske. He is
happy in the religion of Christ with nothing almost but this to make him so. And indeed this is
one of the marks of truth which every thinking person must perceive in the religion of Christ that
it is suited to the wants of our moral nature & that it gives to this moral nature a noble aim &
exercise. If, then, my Dear Son, this visitation of your Heavenly Father be sanctified as a means
of detaching your desires so far from worldly objects of pursuit as that they shall no longer be regarded
as necessary to your happiness--no longer adhered to & loved with an idolatrous affection-
-no longer put in the place of God but only sought from Him & in humble submission to His Holy
will--if, I say this present visitation be so blessed to you and improved by you as to have this
effect, you will have reason to thank God forever & ever for sending it & should it please Him in
whose hand our life & breath are to remove you by means of it out of this world your surviving
friends will not have cause to mourn as those who have no hope. Mean time I desire you would
make use of the best means that you can for the restoration of your health. Of medecine I know
but little, & in truth I have little confi dence in its power in such cases as yours. Diet & exercise
in the proper time & degree with your naturally vigorous constitu tion & temperate habits may
effect a cure. While with us at home I observed a tendency to inertia--indolent ways I will not
call them for indolence is in the mind. Your languor had its origin in the body. Still the effort of
mental energy rousing itself may drive off the torpor of the body. But while I hope you will take
regular exercise every day when the weather is favorable I would protest most earnestly against
your exposing yourself to the night air [or] want of your necessary rest. I am in hopes that by
using your strength & not abusing it, you will gain more & more & that the degree of engagement
& interest you will feel in the performance of your professional duties (so far as you may feel
it prudent to engage in them) may be of use as a wholesome stimulus to the mind. But for this
single consideration I should agree with your mother & the rest of the family in the propriety of
your coming home. -- This is sunday morning & I must now cease teazing you & prepare for the
public duties of the day. I have written you no news. That you can learn from Mr Fiske:
Praying continually--not for your recovery--that may not be on the whole best for you--
that will be best which will be most for your eternal salvation--but that God would have you in his
holy keeping & prepare you for his Eternal Kingdom, I am
Your affect father
A Wylie
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Andrew Wylie to Andrew Wylie, Jr., Alexandria, District of Columbia
Bloomington
Sept 2 d 1849
My Dear Bereaved Children:
So, by the black-marked newspaper arrived yesterday, I learn you are. It is easy to talk
for those who feel not. But I feel with you both, & know not how to talk. And yet it may do you
some good to know that the stroke is felt even at this distance. To submit is what we are, in such
cases, forced to. What concerns us most is to derive from the event the instruction it was intended
to impart. In this I may possibly assist you. Where is your child? Can you get an answer from
any other source than “the Gospel of the grace of God,” which can bring comfort to your stricken
hearts? No. Then your duty is to love that Gospel more--& its Divine Author. I was going to add
other lessons; but, on reflection, I find that all I could say is comprised in this one. So, here, let me
stop.
John has, unexpectedly to me, much improved in health since he came home, & now
thinks of spending the winter in Phil a for the purpose of improving his knowledge in surgery. The
means he has not, & I have it not in my power to aid him much without an extraordinary effort.
This I will make. It is only for such purposes that one ought to care for money—more money.
Margaret is staying with us a while, till her husband finds where he may settle himself as
pastor. A poor calling as to this world, is that of a preacher. But that matters not. What grieves
me most is she is an Episcopalian conscientiously so, & he a Presbyterian. But so it was with
her parents—till lately. Your mother remained a paying member to the Pbn church here till the
ungentlemanly conduct of its Pastor, a W. Hughes, fresh from Princeton & formerly a student
in the University here, drove her away. The story is long & not worth telling. Hughes married a
daughter of Dr. Maxwell whose powerful family connexions of course go with him.
Sam has stayed in Cincinnati through all the cholera. We have had some cases of it here—
they say--& a few, fatal. The town is healthy now. Irene, I suppose, has, by this time, paid you a
visit, as she with her husband has been on a tour east.
Mary & her husband & two or three sorts of Church people in the village join in religious
services in our Parlor on Sunday mornings. This is what may be the beginning to something
more, but I am not sanguine in my expectations. Elizabeth is, I believe, the only one of the family
that retains a liking to the Presbyterian church or rather to the Presbyterians, with whom I have,
mentally, made a child’s bargain to let them alone if they let me alone. But my position I must &
will defend. The best way, in general, to do this is to go on silently & quietly in my own way not
heeding their attacks.
As to the University, I can only say that but for the suit hanging over it, which remains
“sub judaie” it would do well enough. As it is, we find a difficulty in supplying the vacant chair.
Your man we of course think no more about.
Perhaps Zach may appoint me to a place in the Board of Examiners to W. Point. I think
of asking it. If that should be I shall take Alexandria in my way. But I indulge no dreams of the
future—the GREAT FUTURE is most in my thoughts. God grant that we all may be in readiness
for that.
For an hour or so, this being Sunday, the family will assemble for Evening Prayer, after
which I intend to say something to them of the way in which God has led me this forty years in
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