LETTER OF
The GOSPEL TRUTH CHARLES G. FINNEY
1857
To Julia Finney
15 January 1857
[MS in Finney Papers, Supplement # 59]
Boston 15. Jan. 1857.
Dear Julia.
Yours of the 13th is just recd I want
to do the best for you that I can. Your eyes prevent
book study. The cultivation of your musical
talent you seem at present to be shut up to. If
Aunt Sarah approves & your practice will
not annoy her I think the Lord will approve
that use of the $.40. required. You have my
consent. I will D.V. send you some money
in due time. We are very busy & the
religious interest is increasing daily.
James writes that Uncle Hobart is going
west. I am glad of that. I sho[u]ld have liked
it better had we been at home. But if he
cant go when we are at home I hope he
will go when we can. Your mother is just
come in from one of her prayermeetings.
She will write when she has time.
The Lord bless you my Dear Daughter.
Give a world of love to Ange & Fanny &
Uncle & Aunt. I will write James &
[page 2]
inclose with this. I preach twice on sab.
& every evening except saturday -
This is the hardest place to promote a
revival that there is, but the Lord will
prevail over it. Dont let your music lead
you to neglect your soul.
But I am called for.
Good by my love, Dont
fail to write as often as you can.
Your aff. Father
C. G. Finney.
[in Mrs Finney's handwriting]
Dear Julia
I see Father has given his
consent to your taking lessons in singing
you know that this meets my approbation
but I thought as there was a little
space on the sheet I would occupy
it in assuring you of my love
Footnotes:
Probably James Atkinson Ford, Mrs Finney's son.
Julia Finney's step-son's wife, Marie, in a sketch of her husband, spoke about the influence that Julia had over the children of James Monroe when she became their step-mother:
Julia Finney's keen interest in music and nature and good literature became a lifelong bond of sympathy between her and her step-son.
Their new mother undertook to teach them French and to instruct them in music. She was a good linguist and possessed a beautiful soprano voice. She had spent several years with relatives in Brooklyn, New York, and had acquired much of the formality and quiet elegance of manner and habit of life then peculiar to the gentility of New York (Marie J. Monroe, "Sketch of Charles Edwin Monroe" in Charles E. Monroe Papers, Oberlin College Archives, 30/136, pp. 5-6).