The Only Permanent Happiness

To

The Members of

The First Congregational Society

In Cincinnati and New Bedford

and to those of

Kings Chapel, Boston

With all of you I have been connected as your regularly chosen and settled minister. We were separated for no reason that I am aware of, ecept that frail health which now separates me from you all. The great interests, and no small part of the dearest friendships of life, are associated with you. I want you to believe that every word I have uttered to you, urging on you the importance of a religious life, has been spoken with the most intense conviction that the only permanent happiness of this life, the only true hope for the life to come, are to be drawn from a religious consecration of one's self to God, and to the performance of the duties whch he, in his love, appoints.

I would impress this on you if it were possible with my last words. Now that I stand on the brink of that river (not always dark), I wish that my farewell words may be those that I have expressed in preceding years when that could be no more an object of faith which is now fast becoming a reality.

May God bless, forgive, and help us all, is the prayer of one who cannot cease to feel an affection for you so long as memory remains and his nature is unchanged.

E. Peabody

November 17, 1856

This beautiful letter of "dedication and rememberance" was written by Rev. Ephraim Peabody to the people of the churches he served. Written only a few days before his death, it serves as the dedication for a book of his sermons.

This morning, during my devotions, I happened to re-read it and noticed it was written on this day in 1856. Blessings