“It has pleased the Lord to take from us our dear sweet Rebecca; young as she was, through much tribulation she entered in:  I have scarcely seen severer suffering, nor a harder dismission.  It is well; the Lord will answer his own ends by it for the good of all concerned, as well as for his own glory.  Our dear G——­ was ill at the same time, and all hope was lost as to him also; for a whole week we looked upon him as dying, A bold measure was taken with him, which succeeded; the Lord had commanded life; it was not thought of for her.  God had appointed to her entrance into life eternal.  It is all well.  Blessed, blessed be his name; for her he has taken and him he has restored, both equally.  I.G.  S——­ was confined at the same time with a broken arm; N. B——­ with the fever and pleurisy.  Deep have been the wounds in this aged heart, not yet weaned from earth, but tremblingly alive to every thing that concerns my children.  Yet I do give up.  I have asked but one thing with importunity, and by that I abide.  I did not ask for temporal life, but the life which Christ died to purchase, and lives to bestow; let him answer my petition by means of his own appointing:  by health or by sickness, by riches or by poverty, by long life or early deaths—­only let all mine by the ties of nature, be his by regeneration of his Spirit.”

Having felt the trials and the responsibilities of widowhood, she wrote to her brother’s widow, Mrs. Marshall, in 1805: 

“You are now, my dear sister, the only head of your family.  Will you take Joshua’s determination?  ’As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’  Take hold of God’s covenant for your orphan children as for yourself, and consider them as his, to be brought up for him.  Be a priestess in your own house, and keep up the worship of God daily in your family, and confess your Lord and Master before angels, men, and devils.  Those who thus honor God, he will honor.

“You are indeed, my dear, arrived at an important stage of your journey through this great wilderness.  You are now the head of the family, and are to God immediately answerable.  No earthly consideration must make you give up the government of it, nor the prerogative which he hath given you, to counsel, and even beseech your household to serve the Lord.  You cannot give grace; you cannot give life; and where there is no life there can be no spiritual exercise:  but you may use means, although there is much prudence to be observed to avoid disgust.

“Be faithful, then, my dear sister, to your important trust.  See that your household remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy; your children, of course, will accompany you to the house of God, but let not your servants absent themselves from his ordinances, and endeavor, on your return home, to explain and bring home the word that may have been spoken to their consciences.  Above all, let it be your constant aim to set before them a godly, consistent example, and be much engaged in prayer for them—­I