The life and letters of Robert Lewis Dabney . for many a month before. A part of it is caused, I reckon, by-anxieties about my wife, although there is no peculiar ground ofanxiety that I know of; and more of it by the apparent fruitlessnessof my ministry. My charge hangs on my hands like a growing burden,heavier and heavier continually. They listen to my preaching veryattentively, and often with fixed interest; but it always feels to me likethe interest of the understanding and imagination only, and not of thespiritual affections. My preaching seems to human eyes to be utterlywithout effect; b
The life and letters of Robert Lewis Dabney . for many a month before. A part of it is caused, I reckon, by-anxieties about my wife, although there is no peculiar ground ofanxiety that I know of; and more of it by the apparent fruitlessnessof my ministry. My charge hangs on my hands like a growing burden,heavier and heavier continually. They listen to my preaching veryattentively, and often with fixed interest; but it always feels to me likethe interest of the understanding and imagination only, and not of thespiritual affections. My preaching seems to human eyes to be utterlywithout effect; bad for me, and bad for them. He evidently wrote in this tone of despondency to his friendand mentor, the Rev. William S. White, of Lexington. In a He had not allowed his people to relax in their support of theevangelical causes while building the new church. During the years1848 and 1849, he secured by subscriptions, most of which he collectedhimself, four hundred and forty-nine dollars and fifty cents for Union Seminary, at The Pastorate of Tinkling Spring. hi letter to Mr. Dabney, dated January 26, 1849. ^^- Whiteexhorts: Remember that it is neither the first blow nor the last that fellsthe oak; therefore, strike away, and the tree will fall and the forestbe cleared. I know no means of building up and extending the bordersof Zion but the truth studied, learned, communicated, and then followedby prayer. Preach as if your preaching was everything, and then prayas if it were nothing. If I could not rest in this view, I should despair. He was hungry for revival. God seems to have let thehunger continue unappeased throughout the year 1849. Earlyin 1850, Mr. Dabney wrote to his brother, Rev. C. R. Vaughan,whom he had comforted, and was to comfort and to counselagain, expressing his longing for the breath of the Spirit of allgrace on his people; and this brilliant young pastor of twenty-three, whose church had recently been blessed with a powerfulwork of grace, repl
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