Polk Family Papers Box 9 Document 58

POLK Letters : July 25, 1860

1860, July 25

The Rt. Rev. John H. Hopkins, Burlington, Vt., to bishop Polk, re: expression of pleasure that the Bishop wishes to return to Sewanee; explanations giving his reasons for declining; declaring his favorable thoughts about the University; enclosure of the journal of his Convention in which he had made statements concerning the University; sending affectionate regards to the Polk family and the Elliott family. 4 pp. ( 1 mss. original and 1 typed copy ).

Burlington Vt. July 25. I860

My dear Bishop,

Your welcome letter of the I7th Inst. is just received, and it was very gratifying as a proof that you still desired me to return to Sewanee. I had about concluded, however, to avail myself of your consent to close my engagement where it stood. As I frankly stated, in my former letters, I do not think my services were of any serious value to the University, under present circumstances. I was strongly impressed with the importance of your noble enterprise, and, as you know, would have been willing to devote my few remaining years to any kind of instrumentality by which, consistently with my duties here, I could have hoped

to promote its prosperity. But although I believed that I had some sorts of knowledge & experience which might be available, and which do not often unite in the same individual, yet there did not seem to be any way open, or likely to be opened, for their useful application. And I did not feel satisfied to take advantage of an arrangement which could hardly render you a quid{underlined} pro{underlined} quo{underlined}, while it would take me away, for three months more, from other labors, of greater value to the church than any which I couldexpect to render to the University.

Such was the state of my mind, when I received your letter, in which your desire that I should return is more strongly expressed than it was in the preceding one. But knowing, as I do, your high

{in pencil, underlined:}Get in somewhere this moniker expression

sense of honor and delicacy, I am very doubtful that your kindness is dictated rather by your chivalric sentiments of personal consistency, than by any practical estimate of my substantial usefulness. And therefore, I trust that you will permit me to decline, although I beg you will be assured that {remaining lines clumped together in end parenthesis} there is no change whatever in my judgment concerning the magnificent undertaking in itself, nor in my willingness to be an instrument in its success ful accomplishment, if it were in my power. You and your admirable colleague, Bishop Elliott, have a firm hold upon my strongest confidence, and my most cordial sympathies. The Lord has raised you up for the noblest work in your day and generation. And it is my earnest hope and daily prayer that

{following 3 lines enclosed in beginning parenthesis:} you may be guided by His unerring wisdom to the full attainment of your most sanguine anticipations.

I send you, herewith, the Journal of our Convention, in which you will see what I said on the subject of the University, in my address. I hope that you will also read the report of the Trustees near the end of the Appendix, where you will find that I subscribed the whole of my receipts from our Agreement, to{underlined} the{underlined} Vt.{underlined} Episcopal{underlined} Institute{underlined}. If, therefore, the money was not productive of any great advantage to the University, it may help to console you, as it consoled myself, to know that it went towards the establishment of another, though comparatively very humble, Church Institution.

With my most affectionate regards to your dear wife & family, as also to Bishop Elliott, I remain

Yr. attached & faithful brother in Christ

John H. Hopkins

Rt. Rev. Bishop Polk, D.D.