had a minister statedly resident in his house, who discharged both the office of a tutor to his children, and of a chaplain, and who was always treated with a becoming kindness and respect.  But, in his absence, the colonel himself led the devotions of the family; and they were happy who had an opportunity of knowing with how much solemnity, fervour, and propriety he did it.  He was constant in attendance upon public worship, in which an exemplary care was taken that the children and servants might accompany the heads of the family.  And how he would have resented the non-attendance of any member of it may easily be conjectured from a free but lively passage in a letter to one of his intimate friends, on an occasion which it is not material to mention.  “Oh, sir, had a child of yours under my roof but once neglected the public worship of God when he was able to attend it, I should have been ready to conclude he had been distracted, and should have thought of shaving his head, and confining him in a dark room.”

He always treated his lady with a manly tenderness, giving her the most natural evidences of a cordial, habitual esteem, and expressing a most affectionate sympathy with her under the infirmities of a very delicate constitution, much broken, at least towards the latter years of their marriage.  He had at all times a most faithful care of all her interests, and especially those relating to the state of religion in her mind.  His conversation and his letters concurred to cherish those sublime ideas which Christianity suggests, to promote our submission to the will of God, to teach us to centre our happiness in the great Author of our being, and to live by faith in the invisible world.  These, no doubt, were frequently the subjects of mutual discourse; and many letters, which her ladyship has had the goodness to communicate to me, are most convincing evidences of the degree in which this noble and most friendly care filled his mind in the days of their separation—­days which so entire a mutual affection must have rendered exceedingly painful, had they not been supported by such exalted sentiments of piety, and sweetened by daily communion with an ever-present and ever-gracious God.

The necessity of being so many months together distant from his family hindered him from many of those condescending labours in cultivating the minds of his children in early life, which, to a soul so benevolent, so wise, and so zealous, would undoubtedly have afforded a very exquisite pleasure.  The care of his worthy consort, who well knew that it is one of the brightest parts of a mother’s character, and one of the most important views in which the sex can be considered, made him the easier under such a circumstance; but when he was with them, he failed not to instruct and admonish them; and the constant deep sense with which he spoke of divine things, and the real unaffected indifference which he always showed for what this vain world is most ready to admire, were excellent