“I shall conclude my sermon (extended, I am afraid, already to an unreasonable length), by reciting to you a very short and beautiful apologue, taken from the Rabbinical writers.  It is, I believe, quoted by Bishop Taylor in his Holy Living and Dying.  I have not now access to that book, but I quote it to you from memory, and should be made truly happy if you would quote it to others from memory also.

“’As Abraham was sitting in the door of his tent, there came unto him a wayfaring man; and Abraham gave him water for his feet, and set bread before him.  And Abraham said unto him, Let us now worship the Lord our God before we eat of this bread.  And the wayfaring man said unto Abraham, I will not worship the Lord thy God, for thy God is not my God; but I will worship my God, even the God of my fathers.  But Abraham was exceeding wroth; and he rose up to put the wayfaring man forth from the door of his tent.  And the voice of the Lord was heard in the tent—­Abraham, Abraham! have I borne with this man for three score and ten years, and can’st thou not bear with him for one hour?’"[95]

This sermon was published by request, and the preacher apologized in the preface for “sending to the press such plain rudiments of common charity and common sense.”

The beginning of 1829 was darkened by what Sydney Smith called “the first great misfortune of his life.”  On the 14th of April, his eldest son Douglas died, after a long illness, in his twenty-fifth year.  His health had always been delicate, but, in spite of repeated illnesses, he had become Captain of the King’s Scholars at Westminster,[96] and a Student of Christ Church.  His epitaph says—­“His life was blameless.  His death was the first sorrow he ever occasioned his parents, but it was deep and lasting.”  On the 29th of April his father wrote—­“Time and the necessary exertions of life will restore me;” but four months later the note is changed.—­

“I never suspected how children weave themselves about the heart.  My son had that quality which is longest remembered by those who remain behind—­a deep and earnest affection and respect for his parents.  God save you from similar distress!”

And again:—­

“I did not know I had cared so much for anybody; but the habit of providing for human beings, and watching over them for so many years, generates a fund of affection, of the magnitude of which I was not aware”

Sixteen years later, when he lay dying and half-conscious, the cry “Douglas, Douglas!” was constantly on his lips.

The prebendal stall at Bristol carried with it the incumbency of Halberton, near Tiverton; and Sydney Smith exchanged the living of Foston for that of Combe Florey in Somerset, which could be held conjointly with Halberton.  On the 14th of July 1829 he wrote from the “Sacred Valley of Flowers,” as he loved to call it:—­

    “I am extremely pleased with Combe Florey, and pronounce it to be a
    very pretty place in a very beautiful country.  The house I shall make
    decently convenient.”