This Wide Wilderness

In 1753 Jonathan Edwards was in Stockbridge and experiencing all sorts of turmoil as the Indians were leaving in droves due to the bickering of some money-hungry whites associated with Edwards' ministry. On October 18 he wrote a letter to Thomas Gillespie, a Scottish pastor and a man of integrity who had been kicked out of the Church by the General Assembly for unjust reasons. This is the last paragraph of the letter.

As we, dear Sir, have great reason to sympathize, one with another, with peculiar tenderness; our circumstances being in many respects similar; so I hope I shall partake of the benefit of your fervent prayers for me. Let us then endeavour to help one another, though at a great distance, in travelling through this wide wilderness; that we may have the more joyful meeting in the land of rest, when we have finished our weary pilgrimmage.

--Hickman ed., 1:cciii.