Rev A Brandram No.22
Toulouse 27th July 1848
My Dear Friend,
Last night I arrived safely in this place, having been longer in reaching it than I expected. The cause is as follows. In Barcelona I found it was a considerable number of French Protestants, and of Swiss Protestants speaking French, say 80 of the former, and 40 of the latter. I found this out through a letter I brought from London for one of them, from his sister, the same person for whose passage to New Orleans to join her husband several individuals of the Committee kindly contributed. I endeavoured to make myself acquainted personally with these to some extent, which detained me in Barcelona beyond my first intention. These Protestants are without any Pastor, and are of course in rather a low spiritual condition. Nevertheless some of them have life, and are spiritually minded. I tried to influence these people to use the means within their reach to favour the Spaniards of their acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures, and was glad to find some of them well disposed towards us.
The next stop was how to get a supply of Scriptures into their hands to meet this purpose. There are steamboats which ply regularly between Barcelona and Marseille every week. Now though the same prohibitions which have hindered us elsewhere in getting the Scriptures into Spain are also in action there, yet as I have never had any books of my luggage questioned in entering and travelling through Spain, I conceived it might be easy with one passenger and another to get a few copies sent from Marseille from week to week as they might be wanted. This induced me to take Marseille in my route instead of going by Gerona and Perpignan as I had at first intended. In the meantime I found that Mr. Bergnes had on hand some Spanish Bibles and some Catalan Testaments.
Some of these were put forthwith into the hands of the parties I had selected to aid in our work, and a circumstance occurred before I left which encouraged me, and led me to believe that this arrangement would prove serviceable. On calling on one of these friends just before starting, I found a Spaniard in the house, on his feet to go, and with the Bible under his arm. Learning my connexion with the Book he had got, he sat down again, and we talked for half an hour. He is a very intelligent man, and given to reading. He promised to peruse the Bible carefully, and expressed himself very thankful for having obtained it. We talked to him of its gospel contents, and begged him to speak to his countrymen about this Book, which he said he would do. In this way, and in a very gradual manner, copies of the Scriptures may be put into the hands of not a few, and under the most favourable circumstances.
In Marseille I spoke with two Protestant Pastors there, and with some others, in regard to the arrangements above indicated, and gave them the addresses of the parties who were to receive the books. They promised to be on the look out; and as Testaments in Spanish are immediately wanted, I begged that a few of these might be first sent, and some such I was glad to find at hand in Mr. Pressencé Bible depot in that place.
As one good action requires another, and as we are all to help each other as Brethren, I promised to my friends in Barcelona to speak on their behalf, that a Pastor might be sent. This I did in Marseille, and more fully in Nîmes, the centre of French Protestantism, and on the direct road from Marseille to Toulouse. I also there spoke of my plan of sending copies of the Scriptures with passengers for Barcelona, and by way of Cette, as a steam boat has lately been running between these two places. This same arrangement also led me to visit Cette which is not out of the way to Toulouse. There I found a most excellent spiritual man, and entrusted him with our concerns in the way mentioned, and to which, he said, he would gladly attend. From Marseille to Montpellier and Cette, through Nîmes, I found a Railroad opened only a few months ago, and from Cette to Toulouse I came by a canal (du Midi) which is of older construction.
Though late, I could not help calling on the Courtois last night at nine o'clock. I was, as you may suppose, delighted with them. They told me they had a case for me from Paris, and today I am to dine with them when we shall have the means of further conversations.
After sending off my last letter, it occurred to me that I had made a mistake in considering the resolution of the 19th June as applying to my re-application for Mogador, instead of the 25 Bagster's Hebrew Bible, and five Hebrew and English Bibles for Tangier, as requested in my letter of 5th June. You kindly say, "It is a delay not a refusal." I purposed to notice this oversight of mine in my next, namely in this letter, but I am doubly induced to do so by a letter I have found here from Tangier. In writing to our Jew friend on the same day I wrote you (5th June) I indicated to him that these 25 and 5 would be sent him. Will you allow me therefore to say, that I am compromised in this matter, and to beg anew that the Books may be sent at my risk, if not yours, as I shall willingly and cover all losses on them rather than they should not be sent after what I have written concerning them. I must not forget to count better with my host nest time. I should like them sent for haste by the Oriental Steamer which leaves Southampton on the 3rd August if it can be then ready, or by the Gibraltar Steamer which leaves the same place on the 7th.
In the Jew's letter now received he repeats his particular request for these Books, and once and again begs that they may be sent as quickly as possible. His letter is dated the 22nd June, at which time he had not received mine of the 5th June. I hardly wonder at this delay, knowing as I do by bought experience what a nonsuch Post Office we have at Gibraltar. I have been more than once nearly resolved to write to St. Martin's le Grand concerning this inland P.O. The Packet office is quite different. I hope the letter would come to hand very soon afterwards. Our friend was withholding sales, because I had mentioned 2/-as the cost of the volumes, but merely as a mark above which he was not to go, whilst I gave him leave to sell them at any price which would secure an extensive sale with the least loss possible. Not having received my letter, he thought I had not received his previous one, and most of this is a repetition of what he then said by way of a duplicate. But for this hesitation he could, he says, have sold all the Books. My letter of 5th June would clear him of all difficulties.
Address till next to Toulouse.
Yours Truly,
James Thomson.