death?’ he can still say, ‘The Lord lives, blessed be my Rock;’ see the 42d and 43d Psalms.  The Christian can still say, my Lord and my God; he is sure the conflict will end, and that his God will bring good out of it; he enjoys hope; he feels his state as safe as in the most enlarged frame of mind, when he can pray, praise, love, rejoice.  This is a riddle which only Christians can understand, and even they require many lessons to comprehend it, many more to practise.

“Have you Newton’s letters?  See his second letter in Cardiphonia.  O try to fix your anchor of hope on that sure foundation which God has laid in Zion, Christ himself.  Trust him to save you from every evil without you and within you.  When your own weakness sinks you, try to be strong in his strength; when guilt disturbs, wash in the open Fountain.  But hold fast the beginning of your confidence unto the end.

“Be comforted, fight on, aim at trusting, and you shall, in the Lord’s time, also, cease from your own works, and rest, with more advanced Christians, on the faithfulness of your own God in Christ.  See Hebrews 4:9, also chap. 12 throughout.  I finish with chap. 13:20, 21, my earnest prayer and sure hope for you, my precious friend.

     Yours, etc.”

Writing to her brother Dr. Marshall, she alludes to the prevalent neglect of the voice of God in his judgments, and notices the death of Washington.

“NEW YORK, March 3, 1800.

“Here comes a letter of woe from my dear brother, on a subject almost already forgotten in New York, the yellow-fever.  Strange as it may seem, the disease, and all that it carried off, seem entirely out of mind.  No mention made of the past, no apprehensions for the future.  Country retreats are multiplying around, and people appear as if they had made a covenant with death.  Potter’s Field is filled with our principal citizens; the prison and prison limits with many of the survivors.  The rest are feasting, dancing, and revelling, or weeping over feigned woe in the theatre—­a few excepted, who have fled for refuge to the hope set before them, whose eyes have been opened to discern the danger and accept the offered Saviour:  among which number, I dare, through grace, reckon your sister and her children.  ’Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.’

“The city, indeed the United States, have been swallowed up in the loss of Washington.  The utmost stretch of human eloquence has been called forth in panegyric.  His eulogium has been sounded in every possible mode—­not excepting our pulpits.  The 22d of February, his birthday, was set apart to his memory.  Two of our ministers were appointed to pronounce an eulogium on his character:  one of whom was Dr. Mason, the other Dr. Linn.  The last I admired; it had its due influence over me; but of my own minister I could form no judgment:  the church, the pulpit, the man, the words, seemed so connected with the ‘Lord Jesus Christ,’ his favorite theme, I could not realize the mere orator.