saint."[A]

[Footnote A: Kennedy's Life of William Wirt--letter to Judge Carr.]

About the same time, he writes to his wife,--

"I want only my blessed Saviour's assurance of pardon and acceptance to
be at peace. I wish to find no rest short of rest in him,--Let us both
look up to that heaven--where our Saviour dwells, and from which he is
showing us the attractive face of our blessed and happy child, and
bidding us prepare to come to her, since she can no more visibly come to
us. I have no taste now for worldly business. I go to it reluctantly. I
would keep company only with my Saviour and his holy book. I dread the
world, the strife, and contention, and emulation of the bar; yet I will
do my duty--this is part of my religion."

In December, 1833, another daughter died; but he writes,--

"I look upon life as a drama, bearing the same sort, though not the
same degree, of relation to eternity, as an hour spent at the theatre,
and the fictions there exhibited ... do to the whole of real life. Nor
is there any thing in this passing pageant worth the sorrow that we
lavish on it. Now, when my children or friends leave me, or when I shall
be called to leave them, I consider it as merely parting for the present
visit, to meet under happier circumstances, when we shall part no
more."[B]

[Footnote B: Kennedy's Life of William Wirt--letter to Judge Cabell.]

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