I should be most happy, if it were possible for me to impart any influences that could alleviate the oppressions 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 wishes, 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, firm 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 even the causes of sadness that environ you.

You will not, Miss C., disdain the solicitude of a sincere friend, who is interested for you while you are 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 pain

fully 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 on anxious or desponding cares, and, unobserved, steal a part of the bitterness away. I would also attempt a train of vigorous thinking. I would not despair of some advantage from the application of reasoning. 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 pierced 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 you see how much it must sometimes cost you. Contemn, as it deserves, the pride of stoicism; but still there are cogent reasons why sorrow should somewhere 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 a 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 person has learnt 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 these hours that move in sadness. Grief will have its share, a painful share, but grief will not have your all, Caroline: there is 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 towards 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 above, 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 ardours

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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 one 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 blaze 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 oath,-to keep for ever in view the momentous value of life, and to aim at its worthiest use, its sublimest end; to spurn, with a last disdain, those foolish trifles, those frivolous vanities, which so generally within our sight consume life as the locusts did Egypt; and to devote yourself, with the ardour of passion, to attain the most divine improve

ments of the human soul; and in short, to hold yourself in preparation to make that interesting transition to another life, whenever you shall be claimed by the Lord of the world.-Yours very respectfully and affectionately,

Bristol.

JOHN FOSTER.

TO A FRIEND, ON THE DEATH OF HIS

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WIFE.

[REV. ROBERT HALL.]

MY DEAR FRIEND,

CANNOT express the emotions of soul which I

felt on receiving from your valuable son an account of the death of his dear mamma.

I often realize in my mind, and think I see you in various postures, and with indications of heartfelt sorrow and pungent perplexity.

Oh! the piercing pangs of grief attending such a separation! They cannot be expressed, nor pictured, but in idea. I have felt, I daily feel for you and your dear children; your and their loss is great indeed. More-Yet, stop, my friend,-the sluices of sorrow ought not to be kept open, but the torrent of grief abated, lest it swell beyond the bounds of Christian moderation, and overwhelm the soul.

How favourable to mourners is the blessed gospel! Gaze not, therefore, on the dark side of the cloud: