subject than the recollection of departed friends, who, if pious, are
not lost, but only gone a little while before, taken from our earthly
and added to our heavenly treasure.

"Believe me, my dear father, to a mind abstracted from the world
and devoted to God, death, though solemn, has nothing dreadful in it;
on the contrary, to a mind rightly disposed it is rather a desirable
object. Just conceptions of God, and converse with him, will very soon
change the aspect of the king of terrors to a welcome messenger, who
comes to set open the gates of immortality, and to usher us into the
kingdom of our heavenly Father. And now may our most gracious God
grant you, through your few remaining days, his direction and
consolation; may he bestow upon you that peace which the world can
neither give nor take away; and when the appointed time of your change
shall come, may the comforts of his Holy Spirit so cheer and refresh
your soul, that you may be able, without a doubt or a fear, to resign
it into the hands of your Redeemer.

"Give my love to Hugh. The sentiments expressed in his letters
bespeak him a worthy brother, and deserving of my highest esteem. I
would have written to him, but I have still some directions to commit
to writing concerning my little family, and my hour is at hand; but
tell him I will remember him in my last prayers. I charge him not to
banish the idea of his worthy and now glorified mother, lest with that
he also forget her precepts; but prepare to meet us who are gone
before; and O, that our meeting may be with joy on both sides. It is
hard for youth, in the present age, to follow our Christian pattern.
Every real Christian, every Bible Christian, must lay his account with
being branded with the name of enthusiast; but tell him to remember
that the opinion of the world cannot alter the nature of holiness, nor