from the couch of an expiring mortal, to the scene of blessedness to which your angel child is removed, and are comforted.

I am anxious to hear how you have borne the return to Fulham. I have no doubt your removal was right; and by the blessing of God, I trust you have all of you gained health and strength by it; but I am likewise persuaded, that it is better, where it is fitting, to remain on the spot, where we have suffered, till we are familiarized with our loss, and can leave it without anticipating the pain of coming back. Now, my ever beloved child, will you permit me to solicit you to turn your mind and activity, with more concentrated exertion, to the blessings which remain to you. I know that the thoughts of your dear departed child will continually find their way way to your heart and to your eyes. I will whisper to you, that I could, were I to give way, abandon myself to similar recollections. No day passes without many a remembrance of my parted Ellen—and I could sit for hours thinking of her, but I am well convinced that this is an indulgence in which I should restrain myself; and I will ask of you, for your own sake, to follow my example. It was (to write with all freedom to you) but a night ago that I woke myself from one of my poor slumbers, in a sort of self-expostulation, and repeating, "I cannot but remember such things were, and were most dear to me." I confess my weakness to you,

de

and I confess it to be weakness. No one knows these things but yourself, and my dearest Willie -there is a name which I never pronounce but to yourselves. But as I thus show you how intensely I sympathise with you, and as I am far, far indeed from blaming you in this matter, I may, perhaps, claim the privilege, to warn you against the encroachments of feelings which, if unrestrained, would alike prevent you and me from doing our duty. I know you will forgive me, and the more surely, that I am well convinced we contemplate the same interesting subject in the same spirit, a spirit of more, thank God, than resignation,—of such complete acquiescence in the wisdom and mercy of our Heavenly Father, that could we recal the objects of our unutterable affection with a word, we would, neither of us, speak that word. But we are, my dearest daughter, such weak creatures, that in the very purity and blamelessness of the sentiment, there lurks the danger. Our recollections are tinged with no undutiful or ungrateful reluctance against the will of God, and therefore we do not fear to allow them to have their way—and yet, is there no fear lest the gratification of dwelling on them, should render us, at times at least, not so attentive as we ought to be, to the innumerable and unmerited blessings which surround us, and in the midst of which is our proper sphere of engagement? I am afraid I have not written very clearly; but no eye but your own or dearest

Charles's must see this, and I do not stop to weigh expressions. But I will shut up all with assuring you of my confidence in your piety and zeal to do your duty-and of my deepest, heartiest prayers to the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, that He will so order your hearts and minds by His grace, that this dispensation may work for good unto you, for Christ's sake. Amen.

Edinburgh, 1823.

MY BELOVED

I had not anticipated the subject which must first occupy my pen. Your melancholy tidings from St C's reached us this morning. We, in spite of experience, so connect the thoughts of life with the cheerfulness of youth, that the sad probability of the event you communicate, perhaps never crossed the mind when we thought of dear MM. But "in

the midst of life we are in death." The nearer I approach that period, the less am I inclined to lament the removal of any who are fit for the awful change. Such, I humbly trust in God's mercy through Christ, was our dear departed friend-and your account of the apparent occupation of her thoughts at the trying close, justifies this confidence. Concerning her, therefore, while we bow in mute submission beneath the "mighty hand of God," we say only, "Blessed

are the dead which die in the Lord." For those whom she has left to mourn her, especially her widowed husband, and her afflicted father, we must feel most acutely. Her poor father! Scarcely had he recovered from the shock when you wrote. I shall be very anxious to hear more about him. God Almighty support him, and his afflicted sisters. No one can have known the Miss

s so long as I have known them without conviction of their strong affections; and in this case these affections were especially interested. Tell them that I have offered up my poor unworthy supplications, that they may again experience the support to which, in many severe trials, they have resorted, and of which they know the inestimable value. I enclose a few lines to the af flicted father, which, if you think proper, you may give to him. What I write to him, I write indeed to all my dear and amiable friends; but I think it may please him to be particularly addressed. I do feel for him most sincerely-It is such a destruction of hope! I have lost more than one valuable friend lately. Mr B is "delivered from the burden of the flesh"-and of such lives as his, and your excellent 's, who can lament the termination as far as they are concerned. "The righteous are taken away from the evil to come, and they enter into rest." Blessed be God, we can as Christians have no doubt of the happiness of our departed friends; and while we sorrow, as we must do, for our own deprivation, let

the memory of their virtues teach us acquiescence in the will of God, and encourage us to pursue their example, that we also may die such deaths.

Mr, in a letter to me some days before Mr's decease, quoted, with much feeling and just application, Young's well-known lines, "The chamber where the good man meets his fate," &c. They are as applicable to the late sick chamber at Oh, my beloved daughter, you know what a comfort under such trials it is, to look back on the past dealings of God, with those who are removed to a better world. The piety of Mrs I reflect upon with reverence and affection; it was habitual, always consistent and regular-the resource in affliction-the guide of her righteous soul in every circumstance of life. I stood lately by the coffin of Lady -there is an awful penetrating conviction of the nothingness of life at such moments, which is most instructive, and may be most precious to the soul. It is all over! The dream of present existence is past-the reality of eternity come! and of what is past, nothing is left but the awful, irreversible moral character! How intense should be the prayer, "Suffer us not at our last hour," nor at any hour, "to fall from Thee !" Adieu— may every blessing and comfort attend you and yours—and ever believe me, your affectionate