Thornton, Marianne Sykes
To Lady Olivia Sparrow, January 16 1815
Tho I have nothing /to say,/ and am not well enough to say it if I had, I cannot forbear writing a line to unite in sympathy with you, on the, I fear hopeless, state of our dear invaluable *, a letter from * and another from the last night, leaves us little or nothing to hope. Oh! what a chasm will his death make in the world! It will not only be irreparable to his broken hearted wife, and poor children*, but to multitudes of the poor and the pious. May God comfort us all, especially his own family, and sanctify to us this heavy loss, by quickening us in our preparation for our own great change! For my own part, my hopes have been long very faint, tho in opposition to the declaration of his eminent Medical Attendants* I shall always think /entre nous/ that corroding grief for preyed on his vitals, and laid his weak constitution open to any disease which might attack it: I dread that every post may bring us the final issue of this long disease!
To Lady Olivia Sparrow, January 16 1815
Adieu my dearest lady – I must end as I began – poor dear
Mrs. Thornton! – When you write
tell me if is at Cambridge
Your Ladyship's
obligd H More
To Lady Olivia Sparrow, 16 March [1815]
I have just got a long letter from dear replete with sorrow, affection and the deepest piety. How stupid, in ’s prejudiced bigoted * to obstruct the very desirable plans of and to write a Memoir of the dear departed! I have written to to try to soften her brother Bartlett’s-Buildings heart.* Poor Mrs. Thornton I hear looks sadly, has a pain in her chest and drinks Asses Milk. I tremble for her life. Her letters rather increase in sadness, but it is a sanctified sadness. – I forgot to say that Mr. H. and I agreed that nothing would so much contribute to give Mr. S. a habit of application as to give him a slight tincture of Fractions, and Algebra; not to make him a Mathematician but to tie down his attention – I know of no person likely to suit ’s friend as a Governess. You ask how I like W. Scott’s new Poem.* I have not seen it, but do not hear it thought equal to its predecessors. A friend has sent me Eustace’s Tour thro Italy.* It is classical & elegant in a high degree – but has too much Republicanism too little of the Manners of the people, and I think a disposition to overrate their Virtues – God be praised for the peace!* – but what Peace so long as the Witchcrafts of Bonaparte are so many. is in very poor health. We all join in kind remembrances to Yr. Ladyship and .
To Lady Olivia Sparrow, 27 April [1815]
You are very good to express so kind a wish to see us at Brampton. Few things would give us more pleasure. But I really think home is the only place for invalids, tho the sick in general seem to act on the direct contrary principle But there is another reason – we have already refused some invitations, to travel with /some/ friends and to go to meet others. Among the latter dear Mrs. H. Thornton* wished us to join her at Malvern in case she should be able to go. It was with reluctance I was obliged to say I feared we should not be able to accomplish it; tho, her sad situation considered, if we did any thing, it ought to be with a view of seeing her. Notwithstanding her Christian exertions, every letter from her seems to wear a deeper shade of woe.
To Lady Olivia Sparrow, 23 August [1815]
Poor Mrs. Thornton and five of her children spent ten days with us. We would gladly have kept her longer as it seemed to do her good. She tries to be cheerful, and exhibits a striking evidence that Christianity is indeed a reality. Nothing short of this divinely powerful principle could thus tranquillize a spirit so deeply wounded.* is a charming girl, frank, lively, sensible, and to her poor Mother tenderly affectionate.
To Lady Olivia Sparrow, [20? October 1815] [incomplete]
I have delayed writing from day to day till it should please our gracious father to determine the fate of our beloved Mrs. Thornton. That afflicting event has now taken place near a week, and yet I have not had the heart to write.* You doubtless have been informed by with myself, of the fatal progress and final termination! God’s will be done! This we must not only say but submissively assent to under dispensations the most trying. And surely the removal of our dear friend is a very trying as well as Mysterious dispensation. To herself the charge is most blessed. To her children the loss is most irreparable. Poor dear Orphans! little did we think a year ago of this double bereavement! but let us bless the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ that he enabled this suffering friend to bear her dying testimony to his faithfulness and truth. Never was a sweeter death than that so feelingly painted by Mr. Wilberforce How strong must have been that faith which not only lifted her so much above all worldly considerations /but/ which enabled /her/ to commit her beloved children, about whom her anxiety had been so excessive, to the father of the fatherless. It has pleased God to raise them, among many friends, and to whose care she consigned, and who have generously accepted the charge. They are peculiarly fitted for the purpose, sensible, pious, amiable, strongly attached to the Thorntons and without children of their own. Thus is the saying illustrated that the Seed of the Righteous shall never be forsaken.* My opinion is that Mrs. T is dead of suppressed grief. She reminds me of part of an Epitaph I have seen, only changing the word day for Year
Hannah More to Marianne Thornton, 9 October 1815
I was prepared for your truly afflicting intelligence by a preparatory letter from , our most kind and considerate friend in both the calamitous events of the present sad year.* It would be difficult to say whether I mourn most deeply over the state of the body, or rejoyce most triumphantly over that of the mind of my ever beloved and faithful friend. I will not add to your sorrows by dwelling on my own, but I will say that no one out of her own family can feel deeper sorrow than myself. I know I ought not to dwell on this distressful side of the question, but keep my eyes more intently fixed on that bright side to which your piety points my attention. May God’s holy name be praised that in this second conflict she is enabled by his grace so to glorify her Redeemer. My prayers for her are fervent and frequent. She is much on my mind in my long nightly vigils. But I feel that I stand more in need of her prayers than she of mine; Her purified spirit is ascending to her God and Saviour She must be lifted by a mighty faith, to manifest such serenity and resignation under circumstances so peculiarly trying to her affectionate maternal heart. Some months ago, before her illness, (from whom I have not since heard) put me in mind of an expression of mine on my first acquaintance with your dear Mother nineteen Years ago – ‘that she would make a good Martyr.’ I did not think I had so much penetra /tion/
Hannah More to Marianne Thornton, 9 October 1815
I do not address you my dearest Marianne as a feeble girl, shrinking from sorrow and from duty, and yielding up yourself to disqualifying lamentation. It has pleased your heavenly father to call you very early to service and repeated trials; your feelings have been, and are, still tried most tenderly, most acutely. In the lap of prosperity, in the height of happiness, in the gay season of youth, and health, and spirits, you have been called to make sacrifices the most costly to a dutiful and affectionate heart. Your conduct under these visitations has done honour to your Christian education. The examples of your excellent parents illustrated their precepts. The world will look to their children for more than ordinary virtue, and I persuade myself that they will not look in vain. Your is probably beholding with delight the effects of God’s blessing on his pious labours, and your excellent Mother is personally feeling those effects in your Christian tenderness and filial piety. Do not neglect your own health
Hannah More to Marianne Thornton, 9 October 1815
Your letter affords so little hope of the continuance of her earthly existence that I think there is more true kindness in writing to you, as are without any expectation as to this world, than to labour to administer false comfort; to do this would not be doing justice to your strength of character and to the lessons of wisdom you have been so long imbibing. Who knows but your obvious submission to the Divine hand which has inflicted these heavy strokes may not help to confirm these principles of Christian piety /with/ which * mind seems penetrated. God grant that the convictions of this estimable Man may end in a sound conversion! What joy would this give, not only to the Angels in heaven but to the two happy Spirits who may soon be united to that blessed Society. I do love this Penington. I cannot say what a gratification it would be to me to be with you. It is for my own sake I wish it, that I might learn how to die. But my own infirm health, and still more that of would make us a burthen instead of a comfort. With such comforts indeed you are far more richly provided. I cordially rejoyce that you are inclosed with such a circle of such friends, and that those amiable and excellent are about to be added. My affectionate love to the patient Sufferer. I am more disposed to ask comfort from her than to offer it to her.
Hannah More to Marianne Thornton, October 16th 1815
My dearest Marianne what an honour, what a privilege, to have had two such parents! What a joy unspeakable in the midst of heart-breaking sorrow to see them bear their dying testimony to the faithfulness and truth of God, and /enabled/ to give such incontestable proofs of the reality of the Christian religion. – She is now reunited to whom she so tenderly loved on earth, she now makes one of the glorious Society in heaven, of the Spirits of the just made perfect.
Hannah More to Henry Thornton, September 12th 1799
But we have difficulties of a far more serious nature than this which I wou’d not trouble you with an account of, but that perhaps you may be able to suggest some useful hints to us. In two or three of our most established parishes where most good seems to be doing, there is arisen a most violent opposition agt. us or rather against. religion. They let P. and I go on quietly while there was no serious Clergymen in the Country, but two or 3 of our Oxford Young Men having been down in the Summer and preached about at our Clubs &c has excited an Animosity that is dreadful. One of the worldly Clergy has declared he will /give himself the trouble to/ set up an Evening Lecture at the Church as the only means he can devise to destroy our evening Reading. I shoud rejoyce at this did I not know what stuff he will preach. If he does however I shall endeavour to make our people go, but as many of them seem really serious I fear they will not. – Our other great trial is at Blagdon, where the (the Magistrate you saw here once) is such a hypocrite that he affected to shed tears when I was ill, and said in a canting tone ‘what wou’d become of the Country’, yet is doing all he can to knock up the School, thro a genuine hatred to Xtianity and a personal hatred to one of our serious young Ministers who has awakend a dying woman and several others. This Blagdon Parson has been reading Socinian books, and now boldly preaches against the Trinity, St Paul &c. and tells the people that they need pay no attention to any part of Scripture but the Sermon on the Mount. He has so disturbed the faith of the whole parish nearly that they are afraid to attend at the school where they say other doctrines are taught, and if the Parson is in the right, the ladies must be in the wrong. I am extremely distressed what to do having no Bishop no Rector who cares for any of these things. I am well tried on all sides and am rather more worked than my nerves will bear tho I am better. Remember me kindly to Mrs. T. and excuse this long scrawl