I Would Like to, but My Health - 1812
Introduction
Robert Hall (1764–1831) was weak as a child and slow to learn to speak. But his nanny taught him to read when he was about three from the inscriptions on tombstones and he became such a scholar that by the time he was ten he had read two difficult works by Jonathan Edwards and Joseph Butler’s Analogy. He was preaching before he reached his teens and became a Baptist pastor at a young age, noted at first merely for his pulpit oratory but later for his humility and spiritual depth. After flirting with doctrines that would diminish Christ, he became earnestly orthodox, growing in power to persuade his hearers to follow Christ. His churches grew.
In the letter below, dated February 29, 1812, he was responding to a request from his friend Joseph Gutteridge to conduct a series of evangelistic meetings in London. He mentions an old complaint that necessitated him taking laudanum (an alcoholic solution laced with opium). Even as a child he had been tormented by debilitating back pain, so severe he often had to be carried or else to lie down in the road to recover a while before continuing to walk. He also experienced kidney stones and had two or three short bouts of mental instability brought on by intense reading. As it turned out, because of his ill health, he was unable to undertake the 1812 London trip.
Quote
Leicester, Feb. 29, 1812.
My dear Sir [Joseph Gutteridge],
I have taken into my most serious consideration the proposition laid before me in your last letter, and have sought the advice of those friends whose opinion I judged most fit to be relied upon. Some of them are decided in favour of my compliance, others leave the matter in suspense. My people at Leicester have given their cheerful consent, on a supposition of its appearing to me to be the path of duty. Upon making it a frequent matter of prayer, I am inclined to think it may be my duty to fall in with the ideas entertained by you and others upon this point, provided my health admit.
The difficulties and discouragements attending the affair appear to me so formidable, that nothing could induce me for a moment to think of encountering them but an apprehension that I might, by yielding to them, be going against the will of God. I am habitually alarmed at the thought of my having already too much hid my little talent in a napkin, and should consequently rather risk the most unpleasant imputations than increase that score of guilt. It ought to be (alas! how weak my heart!) “a small thing with me to be judged by man’s judgment: there is one that judgeth, even the Lord.” The business, however prudently conducted, will expose me to the censure of pride and presumption on the part of many; and my deficiencies will disappoint, I am certain, the expectation of my partial friends. Nevertheless, supposing it possible some good may result, I am inclined to say, “I will go in the strength of the Lord my God.”
An impediment lies in the way, however, at present, which must be removed before I can think of it; that is, the state of my health. My old complaint has grown upon me so much of late, that it is with great difficulty I can go on with my stated work, have been for some time under the necessity of taking fifty, and sometimes a hundred drops of laudanum every night, in order to procure any rest. The pain has been both violent and very nearly constant. It is quite out of the question to think of a journey to London unless I am better. So situated, whatever arrangements are made connected with the proposal you mentioned, must be conditional; and I shall, if you judge it fit to give it any further consideration, inform you previously [i.e., beforehand] whether I can come or not. It seems to me there are some objections to the place of preaching being alternate: will not this interfere with its being well known? The same objection seems to apply to the appointment of different places. These, however, and all other points, I wish to submit to the decision of friends.
Mrs. H. will, I believe, not be able to accompany me. She desires to be most respectfully remembered to you and Mrs. G. Please to present my best respects to Mrs. G. and Miss G., and believe me to be, with great esteem, Dear Sir,
yours affectionately, Robert Hall.