TNGenWeb Project/TNGenNet, Inc., (a Tennessee nonprofit public benefit corporation). "The Howard-Smith Collection" Transcription copyright: 1998, by Mrs. F. A. Augsbury; all rights reserved. The originals are at the McClung Library in Knoxville. This file is in text format. Please use your browser's "back" button to return to the previous page. ******************************************************************************* To: R. Spurrier Howard-Smith From: Eleanor (Rand) Howard-Smith, 4400 Chestnut St. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4400 Chestnut St, March 31. 97 Tomorrow will be your Birthday, my darling Sperry. Thousands of times my thanks have gone up to the Giver of my lovely baby-my sunny-hearted child-my noble son. Out of dangerous illness my God has again given you back to us in answer to agonized prayers. Yet with all your bright gifts your lovely home and your remarkable success in business and the honorable station that you fill, I know your heart is not satisfied. How can it be when even Carlyle says in his trenchant way "The whole creation can never fill the soul of one immortal shoe-black and St Augustine adds the strong endorsement of his own experience, after trying all that the world had to give-and tells us "The soul was made for God and can never rest until it finds rest in Him." and so Monica's years of prayer and tears were spanned by rainbows of joy while she watched her son's grand career as a Christian of rare usefulness, and knew they would together rejoice before God, forever. Such rest, such joy I crave for you, my precious son, and if I had all the treasures of this wide world to pour at your feet in honor of this day, I could not be content without this blessing that transcends them all and shrinks them in comparison into nothing. And yet this blessing is freely offered for your acceptance-bought with a great price by our Prince and Saviour, that to you it might come "without money and without price." Dear, dear Sperry, I want you so to share your father's joy and peace in believing, his freedom from anxious care and his glad sure hope-and I want you for my Saviour that, as His loyal soldier and servant, you may honor Him and "love Him because He first loved us." I long to have this birthday the beginning of the happiest year of your life. With ever deepening love your Mother.