death
How our young friends are marrying away!
I wish you could see
Mr. Stephens excellent letter
on the marriages in his family. So much wit!
–
Mary Gisborne delighted me in hers by an
honest and frank confession of her happiness That Match was made
in heaven.
But in this chequered life all [deletion] are not rejoycing or
marrying.
Our friend George Sandford is coming to
us to day for a few days, as soon as he deposited the
remains of a young creature his adopted daughter aged
Nineteen on whom he doated;
and over whom he has watched with fond Solicitude for a year and a
half in a dropsy – She was an amiable girl and piously inclined,
but he had dragged her so much into the great and gay world, that
it impeded her progress. I hope this privation will have a good
effect on his own mind. He loves religion and religious people,
but then he dearly loves the world and after having laboured hard
to make both loves agree, I trust this blow will shew him the
vanity of that attempt.
Miss Roberts s
[sic] will be good sympathizing company for him, as they are
expecting to night to hear of the death of a Niece past nineteen
also, but are of the most matured Christians I have heard of;
her sweet and extraordinary piety has made a considerable
impression on her own family, and many who knew her.
How can
I write to you or how can I forbear to write? I have however
postponed it, well knowing that you want no such consolations as
I can suggest .
My sincere sympathy and my fervent prayers are all I have to
offer you. My grief is softened by the knowledge of many
merciful circumstances; one is that you are surrounded by so
many enlightened and truly Christian friends; another and the
principal one, is the cheering report they all give of the
deeply submissive and resigned spirit with which you bow to this
most trying dispensation. In the midst of my sorrow
I bless God that he has enabled you to give this evidence of
your faith in him, and of the truth of Christianity itself,
which can afford such supports under such trials .
Still my dear friend, allow me to say I fear for you – I do not
fear that your resignation will diminish, or your fortitude
forsake you – I trust that the same divine grace will continue to
support your soul; but I fear for your body, I
fear that the very elevation of your feelings will be obtained,
at the price of your health sinking under your Efforts . I am afraid you will think me but a worldly counsellor when I
say, I wish you not too much to restrain your
tears, or to labour to suppress emotions which Nature dictates and
which grace does not forbid. Your life is now of increased
importance, your value to your dear children is doubled. The
duties of two parents instead of one are now devolved upon you. I
know these sort of arguments are frequently made use of to
stop the signs and outward expressions of grief, but I
know the make of your mind so well that I employ them with a view
to induce you not to put a /too/ violent restraint on your natural
sensibilities fearing the pent up sorrow may prey more inwardly on
the heart and the health.
Some kind friend near you has sent us a line every day, but
merely of sympathy and kindness, and to say how you were. Of our
dear sainted friend we know no particulars, those they will send
us I doubt not soon . For ourselves we shall long mourn; for him if our
imperfect vision could see things a[tear] they are, we should do
nothing but rejoy[ce] [tear]
He is gone to the resting place of the just. His life has left
us an example of rare purity, of integrity seldom equalled, of
consistent piety, of charity almost boundless. I shall reckon it
among my responsibilities of the day of general Account if I am
not the better for having so long and so intimately known
him.
Tho I have nothing /to say,/ and am not well enough to say it
if I had, I cannot forbear writing a line
to unite in sympathy with you, on the, I fear hopeless, state
of our dear invaluable Henry Thornton *, a letter from
Mr. Wilberforce * and
another from the
Macaulays last night, leaves us little or
nothing to hope. Oh! what a chasm will his death make in the
world! It will not only be irreparable to
his broken hearted wife , and poor
children*, but to multitudes of the poor and the
pious.
May God comfort us all, especially his own family, and
sanctify to us this heavy loss, by quickening us in our
preparation for our own great change!
For my own part, my hopes have been long very faint, tho in
opposition to the declaration of his eminent Medical
Attendants* I shall always think /
entre nous/ that corroding grief for
his unfortunate brother preyed on his
vitals, and laid his weak constitution open to any disease which
might attack it:
I dread that every post may bring us the final issue of this
long disease!
I feel a little ashamed of my own impetuosity and selfishness,
that
in the first burst of sorrow for our lamented friend
H. Thornton* I should /mix/ any regret for my petty
concerns, as they regarded my poor, with the sorrow of heart
which I shared with hundreds.
It has however given occasion to the exercise of your
generous and Christian liberality, and I thank you most
cordially in the name of hundreds for your kind and seasonable
bounty.
Death has again been thinning the ranks of my beloved
friends.
Mrs. Porteus
has followed
her dear Bishop, I trust to the land of everlasting rest. She was to me a
faithful and attached friend for 35 Years, and one of that sure
and steady character that, in that long period, I never
experienced from her a wry word; /or a cold look. I always spent
June with them./
She had been thro life the healthiest Woman I ever knew, and
her fine person and sound health gave you no idea of age.
She taken, and I spared! Such is the dispensation of
infinite wisdom!
Yes my dear friend I must write a few lines, though doubtless
you are oppressed with the kindness of friends whose sympathy
shares in your sorrows without being able to mitigate them .
Truly do I mourn with you over this second very deep
wound. Both are most mysterious – we must adore now & we shall
understand hereafter.
Mr. Stephen &
Lord Teignmouth most feelingly communicated
to me the last sad intelligence. Written a fortnight ago!
Very pleasant were they in their lives, &
in their death they were not divided I had looked to dear
Bowdler as one of the principal stays you had to lean upon, a
counsellor & comfort to yourself & a monitor &
example to your children.
But Gods Ways are not as our Ways. Poor dear
Mary Gisborne * may He comfort her – no one else can
What an effort my dear friend did you make to write me those
few kind lines.
Mr. Melville – Whom I take to
be a son of Lord Leven’s*,
finished the letter in a way that has made him Stand high in my
opinion. It was written in a fine spirit,
&
will you thank him for me
It would give you a sort of sad consolation to see how every
one who writes to me expresses themselves on the Subject of your
beloved
Husband . Sorrow makes even
Lord Gambier
eloquent.
Mr.
Dunn
who has been staying with us is always sublime . From men like these who could judge & feel his Merit one
expected it but I was pleased with an expression of the General
feelings in more ordinary Men living in the turmoil of trade which
is apt to blunt the feelings, but whose Shop is crowded with the
first sort of Men.
I mean my bookseller, Cadell, who writes
thus ‘The death of your distinguished friend has excited a
sensation of grief, more general & distressing than we
remember to have witnessed’
This was said of the feelings of the world at large – my other
letters being from religious men. Said no more than was expected
of them.
I am truly anxious about your health. Grace may enable you to
subdue your mind but I fear Your body will not be so submissive.
Every time you look on your sweet children, this duty will be
pressed homeward to you – in a way you will not be able or willing
to resist. I know not yet whether you have returned to
Clapham. The events of these last three Weeks form the Chief Subject of
our conversation. I think much of you – at a time when I hope you
are not thinking of yourself – in the dead of night – for my
nights are in general bad.
We have paid to our departed friend the tribute of wearing
mourning – it is nothing to the dead, but may testify to the
living who are about us, our reverence for exalted piety &
virtue.
Though our friends have been very kind, they are naturally so full
of their own sorrows that it is some time since I have heard
especially of you.
I have delayed writing from day to day till it should please
our gracious father to determine the fate of our beloved
Mrs. Thornton .
That afflicting event has now taken place near a week, and yet I have not had the heart to write. * You doubtless have been informed by
the same kind hand
with myself, of the fatal progress and final termination! God’s
will be done! This we must not only say but submissively
assent to under dispensations the most trying.
And surely the removal of our dear friend is a very trying as
well as Mysterious dispensation.
To herself the charge is most blessed. To her children the loss is
most irreparable.
Poor dear Orphans! little did we think a year ago of
this double bereavement! but let
us bless the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ that he
enabled this suffering friend to bear her dying testimony to his
faithfulness and truth . Never was a sweeter death than that so feelingly painted by
Mr.
Wilberforce How strong must have been that faith which not only
lifted her so much above all worldly considerations /but/ which
enabled /her/ to commit her beloved children, about whom her
anxiety had been so excessive, to the father of the fatherless. It
has pleased God to raise them, among many friends,
Mr.
and
Mrs. Inglis
to whose care she consigned, and who have generously accepted the
charge. They are peculiarly fitted for the purpose, sensible,
pious, amiable, strongly attached to the Thorntons and without
children of their own. Thus is the saying illustrated that
the Seed of the Righteous shall never be forsaken.*
My opinion is that Mrs.
T is dead of suppressed grief.
She reminds me of part of an Epitaph I have seen, only changing
the word day for Year
My dearest Marianne what an honour, what a privilege, to have had
two such parents!
What a joy unspeakable in the midst of heart-breaking sorrow to
see them bear their dying testimony to the faithfulness and
truth of God, and /enabled/ to give such incontestable proofs of
the reality of the Christian religion. –
She
is now reunited to
him
whom she so tenderly loved on earth, she now makes one of the
glorious Society in heaven, of the Spirits of the just made
perfect.
I did indeed mourn for
Mrs.
Stephen .
Her afflicted husband wrote me a
delightful character of her immediately on her death.
Nor have I sustained a lighter loss in my beloved
Mrs. Hoare
of
Mitchem.* The behaviour of
Mr. Hoare 7 is angelic.
Last night had me the report of the death of my sainted friend
Mr. Whalley . He seemed to be the nearest heaven of any man left on
earth.
It is a dying world. I seem to dwell among the tombs. Last night
black gloves were brought for us for the death of our oldest
friends. we were play fellows in childhood. God has given me many
warnings and a long time for preparation may it not be in vain!
It is high time that I should thank you for your very kind,
interesting, nice, long letter.
One sentence was more peculiarly welcome, the hope you gave of
setting foot on English ground, and of gratifying me with the
sight of you. How pleasant when that is realized.
Your Right Revd.
Anecdotes are most painful. You may depend on my discretion.
Besides committing You, I do not love to repeat evil of dignities;
especially not to biting painful truths to the ungodly. –
I sympathize with you on the death of
Lady Longford,* but rejoyce with you, in that I hear she died the
death of the righteous Her saviour I trust had been sanctified
to her, and drawn her nearer to her God and Saviour.
Oh! how soon will the time arrive when we shall, all (true
Christians I mean) acknowledge that our trials were among our
chief mercies. In the mean time it is consolitary to know that ‘in
all our afflictions He is afflicted’. It is a dying
world.
We have lately had to mourn the loss of several dear friends.
Mrs. Wm. Hoare ,* eldest Grandaughter of my dear
Lord Barham* has left Six Motherless children; producing the
last was the immediate cause [unclear] of her Son.
She was a Saint indeed! I never knew a more exemplary creature.
Her trials had been great
Her husband, on whom she doated, has long been in an alarming state of low
spirits, and seems now perfectly torpid, except when any plan of
benevolence awakens him.
Gerard Noel, went down to preach his Sister’s funeral Sermon; at his return
he found two of his children dead and his wife delirious!*
These things shew that the peculiar Servants of the Lord are not
exempt from the common calamities of life, and that health and
prosperity are no certain marks of God’s favour. [six lines of
deletions]
Time tho it has somewhat tranquilized our spirits, has not
lightened the feeling of our irreparable loss. Whether we
consider the bereaved
Prince, or the Country, the calamity is unspeakably great.*
An exquisitely fond and happy, as well as a virtuous and pious
Prince and
Princess sounded like a Romance, but the woeful catastrophe has brought
us back to /the sadness of/ real history.
Notwithstanding the delightful and truly Christian letter
with which
Mr. Inglis favoured /me/
I cannot help considering the Event as a frowning Providence.
Why do we slide so much, nationally, from our daily and hourly
dependence upon God? Why were no public prayers offered up for
this sweet
Princess? Why was the abundant harvest, a blessing as unexpected as
underserved, never acknowledged at least in our Churches? Why
are our Rulers in the Church so much less vigilant and active
than those of the State? /Yet/ Why are our public recognitions
of divine Mercy, so much less frequent as well as less fervent
than those of the [firstborn?] States? I sometimes lay this
flattering oration to my Soul, that perhaps we feel more than we
say, and they say more than they feel.
If ever I could be disposed to wish myself a Papist
it would be immediately on the death of one in whom one has
taken a warm interest. It seems comfortless, that after one has
watched over them and offered up petitions for them, that in the
moment of the greatest interest, that of their dissolution
prayer must cease, the object of your solicitation is beyond its
reach, and what was duty one moment is become unlawful the
next.
Last Week we had our
Annual Bible Meeting. It was a very good one, good collection, & good speaking We
had 29 Clergymen of the Establishment.
Poor Patty was not able to attend, but
notwithstanding her bad health, we supported the good cause by
inviting about 60 to dinner and 120 to tea.
We had a good many
Clifton
friends.
Lady Lifford
the
Powys’s
Miss Methuen, (who looked woefully) and her brother
Tom
who made a speech. I have had a very pious letter from poor Lord
Edward* who feels his loss deeply, but submits to the
hand which inflects [sic] it [tear]
You will have felt for poor
Made. de Staël .* W[hat] [tear] good might she not have done with
those super eminent talents! May she have found Mercy!
Sir T. and
Lady Acland came to us last week
H[e is] [tear] a fine noble minded creature, and I hope will be an
instrument of much good.
I trust you will pardon my long delay in answering your kind
letter. It has arisen from a variety of causes;
when I received it
I was very ill of a bilious fever ,
my two
Sisters
were confined at the same time, and we had nobody living down
stairs for near three weeks .
I am much better , but still an invalid, chiefly from want of sleep.
Patty has a complaint on her chest, and
constant fever, and is forbidden to talk , and
poor Sally is in a deplorable condition.
The dropsy is fallen on her legs which are much in the same
condition that
carried off my /last/ Sister.
All this is depressing to my Spirits I pray God to support them
and me during the short remainder of our pilgrimage.
To that blessed inheritance, my very dear Lady Olivia is
the Son of your love, of your cares, of your fervent and accepted prayers, now
admitted! He has been graciously spared the corruptions of
sinful examples, the temptations of an evil world, the
multiplied snares of high fortune, and has obtained the prize
without running the hard and laborious race. I know that it is
very easy for those on whom the trial has not fallen, to talk of
the duty of resignation and to offer all the ordinary topics of
comfort to the aching heart. This is not my case, I know too
well the abundant sources of true consolation from which you
have so long been deriving support /&/ which have sustained
you in so wonderful a manner during your long preparation for a
calamity which you saw to be inevitable The blessed reward of
this resigned Spirit, of this prepared state of mind has not
been withheld from you in the depth of your affliction. You had
the unspeakable, and to all but a Christian Mother, the
inexpressible happiness, of seeing the beloved object of your
solicitude become all you could wish, a convinced, sincere,
devoted submissive Christian! I know you so well as to be
assured that when you had a full conviction of the change in his
mind, from that moment the bitterness of death was past. The joy
must have been more compleat from its being gradual. Such a
progressive change is in my opinion generally more deep and
rooted from its being a progressive work. What a blessedness to
know that when your own summons comes – (May that day be
distant!) you will be reunited, for ‘
them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.’
I spare myself entering on the details of
her
four dying days – They were exquisitely painful; but
blessed be God, the trial was not long, and every interval of
reason exhibited. the strength of her faith and the
resignation of her Soul * – She cast herself entirely on the mercies of God,
and the merits of a crucified Saviour. I believe never was an
obscure individual more generally lamented – this is only
gratifying as it bears such a testimony to her worth. The
kindness of the good is very soothing, but real consolation must
come from a higher source.
My health improves a little, but I still chiefly confine
myself to my chamber for a pretence to avoid an influx of
company.
In my room I receive my particular friends.
Yesterday Lady Lilford and her excellent
daughters came.*
Miss Emily spoke with delight of her visit
to Brampton –
Dear Lewis Way made me a long visit. He
was delightfully entertaining with his
Imperial communications ,* his sanguine, not hopes, but certainties, of the
near approach of the last days. While he is talking in his heaven
/ly/ anticipations, sanguine as he is, one cannot help adopting
his views, and hoping as he hopes. He has preached
twenty Sermons and Speeches within a week or two!! At
Bristol
my friends say he was almost superhuman.* He kindly
pressed me to go and spend the Winter at
Stanstead,* as
Mr. Harford
has done to pass it at
Blaise Castle
– but
for old age sickness and sorrow there is nothing like home –
Every paper I open of
my blessed Sister
raises my ideas of her piety.* It is plain that she
had expected her great change, for in her Pocketbook for this
year,* she writes, 'this is the last account book I
shall ever want'! she also says, – 'May every Year’s charities
increase as becomes a Christian woman'! A few hours before her
death when in exqui[site] [tear] pain, she said, on some one
pitying her – [tear] I love my sufferings, they come from the
[tear] and I love every thing that comes from him’. In her
delirium she was always giving away cloaths or Shoes to poor Men
and Women; tho this was in her wanderings, it showed the habit
of her mind. I never knew a more devoted self denying
creature.
I will not touch on the many painful topics which have lately
occurred – I rejoyce to find however that tho his
loss can never be supplied, dear
Owen’s family are left in comfortable circumstances. I had feared
the contrary.
–
Mr. Macaulay has lent me
his valuable Wife for a short time in the
absence of my other friend. She leaves me
to morrow.
I have always some inmate to receive my company below, write my
letters and carry on the family devotions, and read to me
Poor
Owen!* what a chasm has he made! I hear his successor is very promising, but he united so
many talents! What a strange match in his family! I inclose a
little extemporaneous effusion for dear
Lady Mandeville; not that she stands in need of a flapper on that Subject, but
because I would recall myself to her recollection. I had many
little things I wished to say, but must defer them. Adieu! my
dearest Lady Olivia
I truly sympathize with you on the affecting loss you have
Sustained on the death of my old friend your excellent
Mother. Her great /piety/ however and her exemplary life afford a
consolation to her surviving Family of the most soothing kind.
She had indeed from her early life devoted herself to her God
and Saviour I remember /her/ total submission to the divine
/will/ upon the greatest bereavement she could sustain in this
life.
I never can forget your incomparable father, either in his
delightful Society at Oxford,* or on his dying bed
at Bath, which I daily attended, and at the closing Scene took
away his mourning widow to our house.* She edified us by her patience in sorrow
inexpressible. The great age to which her life has been
prolonged* is a very reconciling circumstance to you
in losing her
From the former state of her health you could not have
calculated on keeping her so long . How timid and delicate she once was!
As for me it has pleased infinite Wisdom to take from me all
the companions of my early and middle life, and to leeve [sic]
me to finish my journey alone. It is remarkable that I, the
youngest but one, and the most unhealthy of my whole family
sh[o]uld survive them all.
My sufferings have been great, but my mercies have been far
greater. It is two years and a half since I have been down
stairs, and four Years since I have been in any other house; but
tho I still continue liable to frequent attacks of fever, I am
on on the whole far more recovered than it was thought I ever
could be.
I see my friends in the morning and enjoy their Society . At my time of life and with my battered constitution I cannot
last long; but I am in the best hands, and I have long prayed to
have no will of my own
How shall I sufficiently thank you for your very great kindness
in sending me such a bountiful supply. I had not reckoned on so
large a Sum, and it will set me at ease as to some excesses into
which I have been almost irresistibly drawn.
I must /have/ contracted some of my concerns if I were younger;
but
never reckoning upon another year I do not think it right to
distrust Providence by abridging my little Schemes
– Little indeed compared to the ample extent of Yours. Only think
of the graciousness of God to give you the heart as well
as the means to educate, and thus rescue from ignorance,
and as far as human exertion can go, from Sin, every child in your
Parish! under your own immediate /Eye/ too!
Oh
The Magnitude of the good cannot be estimated. But oh to
anticipate those cheering words
Well done good and faithful Servant, enter Thou into the joy of
the Lord!*
If I were not on the very verge of Eternity, I should
earnestly request (what I dare not now give you the trouble)
for a copy of your plans, as I know all yours are will
digested; but
I shall never again visit my schools
(which are unfortunately at a distance) * Yet my young /Friend/ does
what she can, and visits them when the weather permits, and I
should be gratified to furnish her with any instructions of
yours.
Her heart is much in the business. She has a cultivated &
pious Mind
The inclosed trifle is not worth sending, but as
they are the last rhymes I shall ever scribble
I send them. They were made for the Album of an idle young lady. *
I am in your /debt/ for two letters, on topics most essentially
different, but each deeply excellent and interesting in its way.
That which contained the Saints Journal* /of/ the first week in May /was/ not only
delightful to myself
but was a treat conferred on as many of my numberless
visitors as I thought worthy of such a banquet . The last, Alas! what shall I say to the last? Dear tormented
Charmile!*
I have cordially joined in the heartach of the mourning family.
She was not only the favorite but the idol of so many who were
able to appreciate her talents, her principles and her various
powers of pleasing. The wounds of her doating brothers*
and
husband*
will not soon be healed, I am glad I saw the latter when he came
to fetch his incomparable Wife. It is a painful pleasure that
she so lately spent a fortnight with me after a separation of so
many years. Poor dear little
Emily*. I assure /you/ I was not the only one who shed
tears at her remarks. Poor dear Child! she was always writing
Sermons or Verses at me when she was here. I do not stand in
need of the Memento on the Table before me, but I am glad I
admired her work basket which she gave me, and when I want /it/
I always say fetch me my Charmile!
I rejoyce that my excellent friend the
Bishop of Lichfield
is just arrived at his
Deanery at Wells, and that for a short time is once more my neighbour.
Lichfield
is such a sad distance! I wish we had twenty four such Prelates
I am sure you mourned for the
Bp of Calcutta.
Lest
our excellent Bishop
should have left
Sidmouth
(which I hope he has found a salutary rest from his labours) I
write strait to you. My reason for writing so soon is that you
would naturally conclude
Mr. Wilberforce
would have been here and consequently you would expect to know
somewhat of the result. But mark this fresh instance of the
uncertainty of all human things!
He had fixed the day of his coming to which we were looking
forward with that pleasure which his presence never fails to
give.
But the day before yesterday when we were looking out for him from
Bath, arrives instead of himself a letter dated
Sunning Hill,*
to which place he had been travelling nearly all night in order
to take the last farewell of his beloved Sister
Mrs. Stephen !* She had been long declining but there was no
reason to expect she was so near her end. Her most tender and
affectionate
husband
implored Mr.
W– to come to her, but it was too late, she expired while he was
on the road.
Worn out as she was with suffering and disease nothing could
surpass the affection of Mr. Stephen, his grief is
proportionally great.
For my own part it is a new rent made in my friendships. For
thirty years there has
been
subsisted between us the most entire and cordial
friendship.
/Tho/ Always sickly and very nervous, she had a great flow of wit
and humour with strong reasoning powers. Her delight was to hold a
religious debate with
Dean Milner.* But tho fond of arguing, she was one of the
humblest Christians I ever knew. Humility and self distrust were
indeed distinguishing features in her character. She had for many
years conquered entirely her love of the world, and spent a large
portion of her time in religious exercises. She was often
tormented with doubts of her own state when I should have been
glad to have stood in her Shoes.
I have been in much care for a most amiable friend.
Mr. Dunne , of whom you must have heard
Knox
speak as one of the brightest ornaments of the Irish Church. He is
indeed a Gem of the first water –
His lungs being weak He was sent away from his pulpit for a
year.
His most excellent wife
was in good health, but near her time.9 She passed her confinement
very happily at
Clifton
long after which she was seized with a fever of the most
afflicting kind –
She who came over well is dead,
/he/ who was ill is recovered!
– His loss is inexpressible, so is his piety –
Mr. Le Touche
wrote instantly to me to get him here, I was thankful I had had
the thought, and /had/ written to him to come instantly – He came
but his relations being arrived he could not stay – I never saw so
heroic a Sufferer – He does indeed glorify God by his behaviour.
She was a woman of uncommon Merit, and [a] [tear] woman of
fashion. He says her whole life was employd in leading him to
heaven – Remember us all kindly to your friends
Mrs. Waldegrave
by the desire of my dear
Lady W.
just before her death announced to me her departure.
Her dying behaviour was most exemplary. She lived to see her
offending, would I might say her penitent
son. She is thro much, very much turbulation endured unto the
kingdom of heaven. I never witnessed such a life of trials. They
have been sanctified to her. I feel much for her death tho I
cannot regret it. It closes for ever my connexion with
Strawberry hill.* There is no family in so many branches of which I
have found such zealous friends.
Lady W
herself, her Sister
Lady Easton , her Mother
the Duchess of Gloucester , her Uncle
Lord Orford, all were singularly attached to me /and my constant
correspondents/ I have seen them all go down to the grave – for
one
Alas! the
brightest of the band* I have
not ceased to mourn, not on account of his death but his unhappy
prejudices against religion, tho they never appeared either in
his conversation or letters to
me.
I am happy to be enabled (thro’ Divine Mercy) to say that this
dear venerable Friend enjoys a greater share of health than was
perhaps at any former period of her life allotted to her, &
altho’ her memory visibly & almost daily declines, yet her
sweet & kind affections, her placidity, her desire to make
all around her happy, & her readiness, nay eagerness to
distribute for every pious & benevolent purpose, remains in
fuller vigour than ever, & render the mild lustre of her
setting Sun most lovely & attractive: &
your Ladyship will be happy to hear, that at times when she
has thought herself about to be called to her Heavenly Rest,
she has expressed her entire willingness to depart, &
her fine & sure hope of Salvation thro’ the alone merits
of her Redeemer
–
