Suffering from tuberculosis, the Reverend John Sterling had written to his friend Thomas Carlyle that he had only a few weeks to live:
“I tread the common road into great darkness, without any thought of fear, and with very much hope. Certainly indeed I have none…It is all very strange, but not one hundredth part so sad as it seems to standers-by.”
Carlyle’s response, penned August 27, 1844, reads, in part:
“We are journeying towards the Grand Silence; what lies beyond it earthly man has never known, nor will know: but all brave men have known that it was Godlike, that it was right GOOD—that the name of it was GOD. Wir heissen euch hoffen [We bid you hope]. What is right and best for us will full surely be. Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him. ‘ETERNO AMORE’; that is the ultimate significance of this wild clashing whirlwind which is named Life, where the sons of Adam flicker painfully for an hour.”
