Letter IV. To a Lady

Consolation on the death of her husband. He speaks of her children.

Madam, — You cannot think how sensibly I feel your affliction. I honoured with a very particular affection this dear departed gentleman, for many reasons, but chiefly for his virtue and piety. How grievous that, at a time when there is so great a dearth of such souls among men of his rank, we should see and suffer these losses, so injurious to the commonwealth.

Still, my dear lady, considering all things, we must accommodate our hearts to the condition of life in which we are: it is a perishing and mortal life, and death which rules over this life keeps no regular course — it seizes sometimes here, sometimes there, k % without choice or any method, the good among the bad, and the young among the old.

O, how happy are they who, being always on their guard against death, find themselves always ready to die, so that they may live again eternally in the life where there is no more death! Our beloved dead was of this number, I well know. That alone, Madam, is enough to console us; for at last, after a few days, soon or late, in a few years, we shall follow him in this passage, and the friendships and fellowships begun in this world will be taken up again never to be broken off. Meanwhile, let us have patience and wait with courage till the hour of our departure strikes to go where these friends already are; and as we have loved them cordially let us continue to love them, doing for their love what they used to wish us to do, and what they now wish for on our behalf.

Doubtless, my dear lady, the greatest desire your deceased had at his departure was, that you should not long remain in the grief which his absence would cause you, but try to moderate, for love of him, the passion which love of him excited in you. And now, in the happiness which he enjoys, or certainly expects, he wishes you a holy consolation, and wishes you to save your eyes for a better purpose than tears, and your mind for a more desirable occupation than sorrow.

He has left you precious pledges of your marriage; keep your eyes to look after their bringing up, keep your mind to raise up theirs. Do this, Madam, for the love of this dear husband, and imagine that he asked you for this at his departure, and still requires this service from you; for truly he would have done it if he could, and he now desires it. The rest of your griefs may be according to your heart which is in this world, but not according to his, which is in the other.

And since true friendship delights to satisfy the just desires of the friend, so now in order to please your husband be consoled; calm your mind, and raise your heart. And if this counsel which I give you with entire sincerity is agreeable to you, put it in practice. Prostrate yourself before your Saviour, acquiesce in his ordinance; consider the soul of this dear departed, which wishes from yours a true and Christian resolution, and abandon yourself altogether to the heavenly providence of the Saviour of your soul, your protector, who will help and succour you, and will, in the end, unite you with your dead, not as wife with husband, but as heiress of heaven with co-heir, and as faithful lover with her beloved.

I write this, Madam, without leisure, and almost without breath, offering you that very loving service of mine which has long been yours, and also that which the merits and the goodness of your husband towards me require from my soul.

God be in the midst of your heart. Amen.