Let hope, therefore, dictate what revelation does not confute that the union of souls may still remain; and that we, who are struggling with sin, sorrow, and infirmities, may have our part in the attention and kindness of those who have finished their course, and are now receiving their reward.

These are the great occasions which force the mind to take refuge in religion. When we have no help in ourselves, what can remain but that we look up to a higher power? And to what hope may we not raise our eyes and hearts, when we consider that the greatest power is the best?

Surely there is no man, who, thus afflicted, does not seek succor in the Gospel, which has brought life and immortality to light! The precepts of Epicurus, which teaches us to endure what the laws of the universe make necessary, may silence, but cannot content us. The dictates of Zeno, who commands us to look with indifference on abstract things, may dispose us to conceal our sorrow, but not assuage it. Real alleviation of the loss of friends, and rational tranquillity in the prospect of our own dissolution, can be received only from the promise of Him in whose hands are life and death, and from the assurances of another and better state, in which all tears will be wiped from our eyes, and the whole soul filled with joy. Philosophy may infuse stubbornness, but Religion only can give patience. SAMUEL JOHNSON."

LETTER OF SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH, ON THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE.

The following letter is copied from the Introduction of Sir James Mackintosh's "History of the Revolution in England," a work recently published in London. It was addressed to Dr. Parr in 1797, and is characterized by him as " the finest composition he ever received from mortal."

"I use the first moment of composure to return my thanks to you for having thought of me in my affliction. It was impossible for you to know the bitterness of that affliction; for I, myself, scarce knew the greatness of my calamity till it had fallen upon me; nor did I know the acuteness of my own feelings till they had been subjected to this trial. Alas! it is only now that I feel the value of what I have lost. In this state of deep but quiet melancholy, which has succeeded to the first violent agitations of sorrow, ny greatest pleasure is to look back with gratitude and pious affection on the memory of my beloved wife; and my chief consolation is the soothing remembrance of her virtues.

Allow me, in justice to her memory, to tell you what she was, and what I owed her. I was guided in my choice only by the blind affection of youth, and might have formed a connexion in which a shortlived passion would have been followed by repentance and disgust; but I found an intelligent companion, a tender friend, a prudent monitress; the most faithful of wives, and as dear a mother as ever children had the misfortune to lose.-Had I married a woman

who was easy or giddy enough to have been infected by my imprudence, or who had rudely and harshly attempted to correct it, I should, in either case, have been irretrievably ruined: a fortune in either case would with my habits have been only a shorter cut to destruction. But I met a woman, who, by the tender management of my weaknesses, gradually corrected the most pernicious of them, and rescued me from the dominion of a degrading and ruinous vice. She became prudent from affection; and, though of the most generous nature, she was taught economy and frugality by her love to me. During the most critical period of my life, she preserved order in my affairs, from the care of which she relieved me; she gently reclaimed me from dissipation; she propped my weak and irresolute nature; she urged my indolence to all the exertions that have been useful and creditable to me; and she was perpetually at hand to admonish my heedlessness and imprudence.

To her I owe that I am not a ruined outcast; to her whatever I am; to her whatever I shall be. In her solicitude for my interest, she never for a moment forgot my feelings or my character. Even in her occasional resentment,-for which I but too often gave just cause (would to God that I could recall those moments!) she had no sullenness or acrimony: her feelings were warm and impetuous, but she was placable, tender, and constant: she united the most attentive prudence with the most generous and guileless nature, with a spirit that disclaimed the shadow of meanness, and with the kindest and most honest heart. Such was she whom I have lost; and I have lost her when her excellent natural sense was rapidly improving, after eight years of struggle and distress had bound us fast together, and moulded our tempers to each other; when a knowledge of her worth had refined my youthful love into friendship, before age had deprived it of much of its original ardor. I lost her, alas! (the choice of my youth and the partner of my misfortunes,) at a moment when I had the prospect of her sharing my better days. This, my dear Sir, is a calamity which the prosperity of the world cannot repair. To expect that any thing on this side of the grave can make it up, would be a vain and delusive expectation. If I had lost the giddy and thoughtless companion of prosperity, the world could easily repair the loss; but I have lost the faithful and tender partner of my misfortunes ; and my only consolation is in the Being under whose severe but paternal chastisement I am cut down to the ground.

The philosophy which I have learned, only teaches me that virtue and friendship are the greatest of human blessings, and that their loss is irreparable. It aggravates my calamity instead of consoling me under it. My wounded heart seeks another consolation; governed by these feelings, which have, in every age of the world, actuated the human mind, I seek relief and I find it in the soothing hope and the consolatory opinion, that a Benevolent Wisdom inflicts the chastisements, as well as bestows the enjoyments of human life; that Superintending Goodness will one day enlighten

the darkness which surrounds our nature, and hangs over our prospects; that this dreary and wretched life is not the whole of man; that an animal so sagacious and provident, and capable of such proficiency in science and virtue, is not like the beasts that perish; that there is a dwelling place prepared for the spirits of the just; and that the ways of God will yet be vindicated to man. The sentiments of religion which were implanted in my mind in my early youth, and which were revived by the awful scenes which I have seen passing before my eyes in the world, are, I trust, deeply rooted in my heart by this great calamity. I shall not offend your rational piety by saying that modes and opinions appear to me matter of secondary importance; but I can sincerely declare, that Christianity in its genuine purity and spirit, appears to me the most amiable and venerable of all forms in which the homage of man has ever been offered to the Author of his being. These sentiments have served somewhat to tranquillize me since I have been in this place, (which is at present solitary enough for the state of my spirits,) and will, I trust, soon enable me to resume my exertions in active life, which I owe to the hapless children of my dearest Catharine, and which I am fully sensible will be a truer performance of the sacred duty which I owe to her memory, than vain and barren lamentation. You will not wonder that I sometimes find a pleasing employment of my mind in thinking of those honors which are due to the memory of her whom I have lost. I have given direction for a marble tablet, on which it is my wish to inscribe a humble testimonial of her virtues; but I am undecided in opinion whether the inscription shall be in Latin or in English. Will you, my dear Sir, send me a sketch of a Latin inscription? It is a thing of great moment in the hour of my affliction, and I hope you will not refuse to aid me in this labor of love. If I fix on the English I shall send it to you for correction. The topics are so obvious that I need not suggest them: her faithful and tender discharge of the duties of a wife and a mother, my afflictions, the irreparable loss of her orphans; these are the topics, with a solemn colouring of religion to the whole. I cannot suppress my desire to expatiate on her worth, at greater length than may, perhaps, be consistent with the severe simplicity of a classical inscription; yet my feelings are too sincere to relish any thing rhetorical or ostentatious."

THE FOLLOWING ADMIRABLE LETTER TO A LADY ON THE LOSS OF A RELATIVE, IS FROM THE PEN OF JOHN FOSTER.

"I should not venture a momentary interruption of feelings, which I know must choose the pensive retirement of the heart, if I did not hope to insinuate a sentiment or two, not discordant with the tone of grief. I am willing to believe the interest I have taken in your happiness will authorize me to convey to you, at such a serious hour, the expressions of a friendly and solicitous sympathy. I am willing to believe, that the sincere respect with which I have

that in as

addressed you in serener days, will be a pledge to you, suming such a liberty I cannot forget the delicacy of respect which peculiarly belongs to you, now you are in a scene of suffering; and that this little attention, which I seem to myself to owe you, will not be deemed to violate the sacredness of sorrow.

I should be most happy if it were possible for me to impart any influences that could alleviate the oppression of the heart, or aid your fortitude in its severe probation; but I dare not indulge so pleasing a hope. I know too well that suffering clings to the sufferer's self; and that any other mind, though actuated by the kindest wish, is still a foreign mind, and inhabits a separate sphere, from which it can but faintly breathe consoling sentiments. Yet, doubtless, there are in existence truths of sweet and mighty inspiration, which, perfectly applied, would calm your feelings, and irradiate the gloom around you.-How happy were the art to steal such fire from heaven! How much I wish it yours! Yes, and there are softenings of distress, glimpses of serenity, ideas of tender enthusiasm from principles, sublime aspirings, to mingle with the feelings of the good in every situation. I love to assure myself these are not wanting to you: I hope they will prolong the benignant charm of their visitation, and be at intervals closer to your heart than were the causes of sadness that environ you.

You will not, Miss C., disdain the solicitude of a sincere friend who is interested for your suffering, and loves the sensibility of which he regrets he cannot beguile the pain. I think I would be willing to feel for a season all that you feel, in order to acquire an entire and poignant sympathy. This alone can convey the exquisite significance, the magic of soul, into the suggestions that seek to revive the depressed energy of a tender heart. I would exert the whole efficacy of a mind thus painfully instructed, to soothe or to animate. I would look around for every truth and every hope to which Heaven has imparted sweetness, for the sake of minds in grief. I would invoke whatever friendly spirit has power to shed balm in anxious or desponding cares, and, unobserved, steal a part of the bitterness away.

I would have you also attempt a train of vigorous thinking. Indeed, it is known too well, there are moments when the heart refuses all control, and gives itself without reserve to grief. It feels, and even cherishes emotions, which it cannot yield up to any power less than that of Heaven or of time. Arguments may vainly, sometimes, forbid the tears that flow for the affecting events of remembrance or anticipation. Arguments will not obliterate scenes whose every circumstance pierce the heart.-Arguments cannot recall the victims of death. Dear affections, the sources of felicity, the charm of life; what pangs, too, they can cause! You have loved sensibility, you have cultivated it; and you are destined yet, I hope, to obtain many of its sweetest pleasures; but see how much it may sometimes cost you! Contemn, as it deserves, the pride of stoicism; but still there are the most cogent reasons why sorrow should some where be restrained: it

should acknowledge the limits imposed by judgment and the will of Heaven.

Do not yield your mind to the gloomy extinction of utter despondency. It still retains the most dear and valuable interests which require to be saved from the sacrifice. Before the present circumstances took place, the wish of friendship would have been, that you might be long happily exempted from them; now it is, that you may gain from them as high an improvement and triumph as ever an excellent mind won from trial. From you an example may be expected of the manner in which a virtuous and thoughtful mind has learned to bear the melancholy events of life. Even at such a season it is not a duty to abandon the study of happiness. Do not altogether turn away from sweet hope, with her promises and smiles. Do not refuse to believe that this dark cloud will pass away, and the heavens shine again; that happier days will compensate those hours that move in sadness. Grief will have its share, a powerful share; but grief will not have your all, Caroline. There is a good in existence still rich, various, endless-the pursuit of which will elevate, and the attainment of which will crown you. Even your present emotions are the distresses of tender melancholy how widely different from the anguish of guilt! Yours are such tears as innocence may shed, and intermingle smiles, pensive smiles, indeed, and transient, but expressive of a sentiment that rises toward heaven.

The most pathetic energies of consolation can be imparted by religion alone, the never dying principle of all that is happy in the creation. The firm persuasion that all things that concern us are completely every moment in the hands of our Father alone, as one infinitely wise and merciful; that he disposes all these events in the very best possible manner; and that we shall one day bless him, amid the ardors of infinite gratitude, for even his most distressing visitations;-such a sublime persuasion will make the heart and the character sublime; it will enable you to assemble all your interests together, your wishes, your prospects, your sorrows, and the circumstances of the persons that are dear to you, and present them in devout offering to the best Father, the greatest Friend; and it will assure you of being, in every scene of life, the object of his kind perpetual care.

Permit me, Madam, to add, that one of the most powerful means towards preserving a vigorous tone of mind in unhappy circumstances, is to explore with a resolute eye the serious lessons which they teach. Events like those which you have beheld, open the inmost temple of solemn truth, and throw around the very blazes of revelation. In such a school, such a mind may make incalculable improvements. I consider a scene of death as being to the interested parties who witness it, a kind of sacrament inconceivably solemn, at which they are summoned by the voice of Heaven to pledge themselves in vows of irreversible decision. Here then, Caroline, as at the high altar of eternity, you have been called to pronounce, if I may express it so, the inviolable