“Fain would I say, Forgive my foul offence,
      Fain promise never more to disobey;
    But should my Author health again dispense,
      Again I might forsake fair virtue’s way,
      Again in folly’s path might go astray,
    Again exalt the brute and sink the man. 
      Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray,
    Who act so counter heavenly mercy’s plan,
  Who sin so oft have mourned, yet to temptation ran?

   “O thou great Governor of all below,
      If I might dare a lifted eye to thee,
    Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow,
      And still the tumult of the raging sea;
      With that controlling power assist even me
    Those headstrong furious passions to confine,
      For all unfit I feel my powers to be
    To rule their torrent in the allowed line;
  O, aid me with thy help, OMNIPOTENCE DIVINE.”

It is more affecting than we care to say to read her mother’s and Isabella Keith’s letters written immediately after her death.  Old and withered, tattered and pale, they are now:  but when you read them, how quick, how throbbing with life and love! how rich in that language of affection which only women and Shakespeare and Luther can use,—­that power of detaining the soul over the beloved object and its loss!

     “K.  PHILIP (to CONSTANCE).

    You are as fond of grief as of your child.

      CONSTANCE.

    Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
    Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;
    Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
    Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
    Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form. 
    Then I have reason to be fond of grief.”

What variations cannot love play on this one string!

In her first letter to Miss Keith, Mrs. Fleming says of her dead Maidie:  “Never did I behold so beautiful an object.  It resembled the finest waxwork.  There was in the countenance an expression of sweetness and serenity which seemed to indicate that the pure spirit had anticipated the joys of heaven ere it quitted the mortal frame.  To tell you what your Maidie said of you would fill volumes; for you was the constant theme of her discourse, the subject of her thoughts, and ruler of her actions.  The last time she mentioned you was a few hours before all sense save that of suffering was suspended, when she said to Dr. Johnstone, ’If you let me out at the New Year, I will be quite contented.’  I asked her what made her so anxious to get out then.  ’I want to purchase a New Year’s gift for Isa Keith with the sixpence you gave me for being patient in the measles; and I would like to choose it myself.’  I do not remember her speaking afterwards, except to complain of her head, till just before she expired, when she articulated, ’O mother! mother!’”

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