Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1858-01-20
STAUNTON, VIRGINIA. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1853
Letter from John Randolph.

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Letter from John Randolph.
Rev. Ssptimius Tustin has communicated Il
the Washington Union the following hitherto
unpublished letter from the eccentric but high
Ily intellectual orator of Virginia, Hon. Johr
Randolph, of Roanoke. 1t was written to hi
half-brother, Hon. Henry st. George Tucker:
THE LETTER.
May He who has the power, and always the
WILL when earnestly, humbly, and devoutly en-.
treated, support and comfort you, my brother!
will not point you to the treasures that re-
main to you and your surviving children, and
their mother, dearer than all these put to-
gether No; l have felt too deeply how little
power have words that play around the head to
reach the heart when it is sorely wounded. The
common-places of consolation are at the tongues
end of all the self,complacent and satisfied, from
the pedant priest to the washer-woman. (They
who don't feel can talk) abjure them ALL
The father of Lord Russell, when condoled with
according to form by the book said /; 1 would
not give my dead son for any other mans liv-
ing.' May this thought come home to your bo-
som, too; but not on the same occasion. May
the Spirit of God, which is not the chimera Of
heated brains, nor device of artful men to
frighten and cajole the credulous, but is as
much an existence that can be felt and under
stood as the whisperings of your own heart, or
the love you bore him that you have lost-may
the spirit, which is the Comforter; shed his in
huence upon your soul, and incline your heart
and understanding to the only right way, which
is that of life eternal Did you ever read Bish-
op Buffers Analogy2 If lot, will send it to
you. Have YOU read the Book2 What l say
upon this subject, not only believe, but know
to be true-that the Bible, studied with an hum
BILE and contrte heart, never yet failed to do its
work, even with those who from idiosyncrasy
or disordered minds have conceived that they
were cut off from its promise of life to come
ASK, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall
find /; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.'-
This was, my only support and stay during years
of misery and darkness; and just as had al
most began to despair, after more than ten years
of penitence and prayer, it pleased God to ena-
BILE me to see the truth, to which, until then,
my eyes had been sealed To this vouchsafe.
ment have made the most ungrateful returns.
But would not give up my slender portion of
the price paid for our redemption-yes, my
brother, our redemption, the ransom of sinners
of all who do not hug their chains and refuse to
come out of the house of bondage-1 say would
not exchange my little portion in the son of Da-
vid for the power and glory of the Parthian or
Roman empires, as described by Milton in the
temptation of our Lord and Saviour-not for all
with which the enemy tempted the Saviour of
man.
This is the secret of the change of my spirits,
which all who know me must have observed
within few years past. After years spent in
humble and contrite entreaty that the tremen-
dous sac-ifce of Mount Cavalry might not have
been in vain for me, chiefest of sinners, it pleas
ed God to speak his peace unto my heart-that
peace of God which passeth all understanding to
know to them that know it not, and even to
them that do. And although ] have now, as
then, to reproach myself with time misspent,
and faculties unemployed; although my cond.
ton has on more than one occasion resembled
that of him who, having one evil spirit cast out,
was taken possession of by seven other spirits
more wicked than the first, and the first also;
yet trust that they, too, by the power and mer
cy of God, may be, if they are not, vanquished.
But where am ! running on. On this subject
more hereafter. Meanwhile, assure yourselves
of what is of small value compared with that OF
those who are piece Of yourself-of the un-
changed regard and sympathy of your mothers
son. All! my God remembered to have fol-
lowed her to her grave-to have wondered that
the sun continued to rise and set, and the order
of nature to 60 on. Ignorant of true religion,
but not yet an atheist, remember with horror
my expostulatious with God upon this bereave-
ment-'but not yet an atheist The existence
of atheism has been denied; but / was an hon
est one; Hume began and Hobbs finished it;
read Spinoza and all the tribe. Surely fell by
no gnobe hand. And the very man, g.
- who gave me Humes Essay upon Human
Nature to read, administered 'Beattie upon
Truth as the antidote-Venice treacle against
the essential oil of bitter almonds-a bread and
milk poultice for the bite of the corbra capello.
Had / remained successful political leader,
might never have been christian. But it pleas
ed God that my pride should be mortified; that
by death and deserton should lose my friends !;
that except in the veins Of q maniac, and he, too
possessed of q child by deaf and dumb spirit,
there should not run one drop of my fathers
blood in any living creature besides myself
The death of Tudor finished my humiliation.
tried all things but the refuge of Christ, and to
that, with parental stripes, was driven. Often
did cry out with the father of that wretched
the gracious mercy of our Lord to this wavering
faith, staggering under the force of the hard
heart of the unbelief, humbly hoped would in
His good time be extended to me also.-St. Mark,
vii. 1929.
Throw Revelation aside, and can drive any
nan by irresistible induction to atheism. John
Marshall could not resist me. When say man,
mean a man capable of logical and consequent
tial reasoning. Deism is a refuge of those who
startle at atheism, and can't believe Revelation,
and my -, [may God forgive US both,] and
myself used with Diodoret & Co., to laugh at
the deistcal bigots who must have milk, not be-
ing able to digest meat All theism is derived
from Revelation-that of the laws cohfessedly.
Our own is from the same sources-so is the
false revelation of Mahomet; and | can't much
blame the Turks for considering the Franks and
Greeks to be idolaters. Every other idea of the
one God that floats in the world is derived from
the tradition of the SONS of Noah, handed down
to their posterity.
But enough-and more than enough-I can
scarcely guide my pen. l will add, however,
that no lukewarm seeker ever became real
christian for from the days of John the Bap-
tist, until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth
violence, and the violent take it by force'-a
text which read FIVE hundred times before l
had the slightest conception Of its true applica-
ton. Your brother,
J. R., of Roanoke.
From fifty to sixty thousand tons of pea or
ground nuts are yearly shipped from Africa to
this country and to Great Britain and France.
The export of pea nuts and palm oil only to A
merica and Europe represents the annual value
,,,;1l;npo of Co