“Now, my dear friend, I have done with what I had to say on this head.  I have had great fears of wounding, lest you should reckon me among Job’s friends; but you call me mother, and it is required of a mother to be faithful.  I now leave it with the Lord.  We are delighted to find you girding up the loins of your mind and setting about active duty.  Let us meet at a throne of grace, and look to the course the Lord marks out for us.”

To Mrs. G——­ Y——.

“MY DEAR MADAM—­I have just parted with my dear afflicted friend Mrs. C——­; she left it in charge to me, that I should write to you in the time of your affliction.  Surely I would do any thing whatever that I thought might alleviate either her or your distress.  But there are cases to which God alone can speak; afflictions which he alone can console.  Such are those under which the sufferer is commanded to be ‘still and know that he is God.’  He never leaves his people in any case, but sometimes shuts them up from human aid.  Their grief is too great to be consoled by human tongue or pen.

“Such I have experienced.  I lost my only son; I neither know when nor where; and for any thing I know, in a state of rebellion against God.  Here at my heart it lies still; who can speak to me of it? neither can I reason upon it.  Aaron held his peace.  Old Eli said, ’It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.’  Samuel in his turn had his heart wrung by his ungodly son.  David lamented over his beloved Absalom; but it availed him nothing.  Job’s sons and daughters were all cut off in one day; he himself lay in deep, sore bodily affliction; his friends sat seven days and seven nights without opening their mouths, because they saw his affliction was very great; and if they spoke, it was to aggregate it; and when God himself spoke, he gave him no reason for his dealings, but charged him with folly and madness.  ’Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him?  He that reproveth God, let him answer it.’  Then he laid his hand on his mouth, confessed himself vile, and became dumb before God; abhorring himself, and repenting in dust and ashes, instead of the splendid catalogue of virtues enumerated in chapter 29, and complaints in chapter 10, which I make not the least doubt were true, as far as human virtue can reach; but if God charge even his angels with folly, shall man, corrupt, self-destroyed man, plead merit before God?

“But, my dear friend, I do not find in all God’s Bible any thing requiring us to acquiesce in the final destruction of any, for whom we have prayed, pleaded, and committed to him; least of all, our offspring whom he has commanded us to train up for him.  Children are God’s heritage.  I do not say he has given us any promise for the obstinately wicked; but when cut off, he only requires us to be still, to hold our peace.  I do not think he takes hope from us.  God has set limits to our faith for others; our faith must not rest in opposition