WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1858
117
Lands, a warrant for 160 acres of land to be located in the same manner as that under which the bounty land warrants heretofore issued have been located on any of the public lands of the United States, subject to entry, the applicant being required to make proof in support of his claim in such manner and under such regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior." It was upon this amendment that Houston spoke.
To NANNIE E. HousToN 1
Washington, 23rd May, 1858.
My Dear Daughter, Today I wrote to your Dear Ma, and as I am alone and having read in the Testament, I feel that my time will be agreeably employed, if I can write anything instructive to you. I have sent by today's mail some Tracts which I hope all my Daughters will be pleased with, as will also my son Sam. I will not trouble him with a letter, as I feel assured from his not writing that he would feel but little, if any pleasure in reading my letter. I hope that he will read the Tract which I have marked for him. If the subject of the truth of Jesus Christ's History should not interest him, I have thought that the cl}.aracter of Napoleon would com- mend what he has said to his study, and cause him to memorize Napoleon's opinions, and on some proper occasion to speak them at college. The other Tracts I hope will interest all my children, and the Sunday school tracts and writings of which I sent a sample, and which your Ma desires, I have ordered to be sent to me at home. It is a source of great pleasure to me, distant as I am from my family, to hear that they are fond of reading on religious subjects. It is never too early to begin a Religious life, for it is all that can afford us true happiness on earth. So my Dear Child, if we were to have but an earthly existence, and there was no eternity, our happiness would be greater, if we were to be temperate in all things and exercise kindness and charity to our fellow creatures, than if we were to indulge in excesses and in sinfulness. But we have a Monitor within us, which assures us that this world is not all of life, but that there is a hereafter, and that we should be prepared to meet it, and to enjoy the smiles of our Creator, which purity alone can merit. But, my Dear, there is higher and holier authority than nature gives to us. I mean the word of God, which He has given to us, that we should be without excuse, if we sin, and that its evidence
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