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Lexington Feb. 22d 1848

My dear son

The very dating of my letter mindes me that this day
is the anniversary of Washington's birth. There was no fireing of cannon this
morning to remind me of it. I know not why it has been omited, unless
it is that our state legislature has passed a law to abolish mustering
for the purpos of appropriating the money expended in that way to the
establishing a free school for children. There is such a question in the
house, but I do not know that it has passed.

Your two sheets writen at Cadiz Spain is before me. I wrote [you]
a long letter last month I think on the seventeenth Mary wr[ote]
a day or so after. Be assured Theodore I feel more reconciled to your
absence from home than ever I have believing it is a voyage you long
have desired and hoping you may realize all you have anticipated. God [word obscured]
been kind to you very kind. Here tofore he permited you to walk in [word obscured]
that presented the errors of his rebelious people still he was mercyf[ul]
and spared you. I think from what you have expressed in your letters
you are satiated. Now kind providence is conducting you to the land of
saints I pray this great ruler of your destiny will vouch to take you
under his special protection, point out to you those hallowed spots
that makes the siner paus, and then inspire in your heart true
christian love, dispel all clouds from your mind and give you light
to see all his divine truths, water your soul, which is lost for want
of cultivation, and fertilise it with dew from Heaven inflame and
pierce your frozen heart with his salutory fires, and by those
red flames enlighten and nourish every part of your body and sou[l]
perhaps this theme is tiresome. I do not purpose to tease, so far from
Therefore I hope you will attribuit to the true cause. You must be [?]