"The Parsonage"
Weston, Feb. 5, 1873
My dear Osler
Many thanks for the pleasing letter I have just received. I wish I had time to write you fully in answer to it but I have not & fear putting it off lest I forget it or delay too long. I think you were quite right in refusing a chair of Botany. I do not see how it could amount to anything of importance. Your friends of course would have been well pleased to have you in Montreal, well paid, & comparatively free, but it would have never
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been to your permanent benefit. Something better than this will open out for you I feel sure. I would have liked to have been beside you while examining what remains of old Sir Thos Browne. How markedly England does differ in that particular from this Country. Though we could put the whole Island into one of our Lakes yet there is more local interest in any one parish, than there is in the whole of our Dominion. Say what people will about pictures, emblems, relics, & the like, They ever have been & ever will be the most delightful & I think
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reasonable means of raising the thoughts to higher & holier hopes. The more I use them the more I delight in them. Word painting according to some eminent men in England is all that is needed but I think they must mean "needed" for wiser heads than mine. These things do help meditation so much, even if they do not actually create it. For instance, how difficult it is to recall the warmth of feelings we experience when actually within sight relics connected with great names or events. Such I suppose is the legitimate use of the crucifix. It certainy is a lively
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incentive to meditation & a wonderful help to it. We protestants do not know half enough of these things, or how to use them.
Be sure to let me know when you are likely to return perhaps there may be something you could bring: & we must use our friends. With many & my best wishes for your success.
Believe me
Very affectionately yours
W. A. Johnson