“Remember to give my love to all my dear children.  I reckon all that sprung from my dear doctor mine; and though I did not suffer a mother’s pangs for them, Heaven knows how equally I love them with those who cost me dearer.  Tell them I leave them a mother’s blessing; and my last prayers, if it please God to continue my senses, shall be for their best interests.

“And now, my dear father, suffer one parting word, though from one no way entitled to advise:  this is the third loud call for you to be also ready; according to the course of nature, you must very shortly follow; you can have very little more to do in this world, and therefore the smallest share of your attention is due to it.  The young, the gay, the giddy, and thoughtless hold it a wise maxim to forget their departed friends as soon as possible; this may be worldly, but it cannot be heavenly wisdom.  To be fully and entirely resigned to the will of God in all things, is certainly the characteristic of a Christian; but this is perfectly consistent with the most tender remembrance.  That resignation—­but indeed it deserves not the name—­which consists in forgetfulness, in banishing thought and drowning reflection in worldly cares and amusements, can be no grateful offering to Him who has commanded us to have our loins girt and our lamps trimmed, and to be always ready, for in such an hour as we think not ‘the Son of man cometh.’  How often are we commanded to watch, to set our affections on things above, to be dead to the world, to lay up treasure for ourselves in heaven.  These injunctions are inconsistent with forgetfulness; and if it be our duty to meditate on death and eternity, nothing more naturally leads our minds to that subject than the recollection of departed friends, who, if pious, are not lost, but only gone a little while before, taken from our earthly and added to our heavenly treasure.

“Believe me, my dear father, to a mind abstracted from the world and devoted to God, death, though solemn, has nothing dreadful in it; on the contrary, to a mind rightly disposed it is rather a desirable object.  Just conceptions of God, and converse with him, will very soon change the aspect of the king of terrors to a welcome messenger, who comes to set open the gates of immortality, and to usher us into the kingdom of our heavenly Father.  And now may our most gracious God grant you, through your few remaining days, his direction and consolation; may he bestow upon you that peace which the world can neither give nor take away; and when the appointed time of your change shall come, may the comforts of his Holy Spirit so cheer and refresh your soul, that you may be able, without a doubt or a fear, to resign it into the hands of your Redeemer.