Her next letter details “with all the pathos of a mother’s sorrow,” a new trial to which they were called by Him, who though “clouds and darkness are about him” yet “doeth all things well.”

“May 7th, 1816.—­My dear Parents,—­Little did I think when I wrote you last, that my next letter would be filled with the melancholy subject upon which I must now write.  Death, regardless of our lonely situation has entered our dwelling, and made one of the happiest of families wretched.  Our little Roger Williams, our only little darling boy, was three days ago laid in the silent grave.  Eight months we enjoyed the precious little gift, in which time he had so completely entwined himself around his parents’ hearts that his existence seemed necessary to their own.  But God has taught us by affliction, what we would not learn by mercies—­that our hearts are his exclusive property, and whatever rival intrudes, he will tear it away.”

“He was a remarkably pleasant child—­never cried except when in pain, and what we often observed to each other was the most singular, he never during his little existence manifested the least anger or resentment at anything.  This was not owing to the want of intellect, for his tender feelings of sensibility were very conspicuous.  Whenever I or his father, passed his cradle without taking him, he would follow us with his eyes to the door, when they would fill with tears, his countenance so expressive of grief, though perfectly silent, that it would force us back to him, which would cause his little heart to be as joyful as it had before been sorrowful.  He would lie hours on a mat by his papa’s study-table, or by the side of his chair on the floor, if he could only see his face.  When we had finished study or the business of the day, it was our exercise and amusement to carry him round the house or garden, and though we were alone, we felt not our solitude when he was with us.” ...

Her account of his last sickness and death follows, and she adds:  “Thus died our little Roger: 

    ’Short pain, short grief, dear babe, was thine—­
    Now joys eternal and divine.’

We buried him in the afternoon of the same day, in a little enclosure, the other side of the garden.  Forty or fifty Burmans and Portuguese followed with his afflicted parents the last remains to the silent grave.  All the Burmans who were acquainted with us, tried to sympathize with us and console us under our loss.” ...  “We do not feel a disposition to murmur, or inquire of our Sovereign why he has done this.  We wish rather to sit down submissively under the rod and bear the smart, till the end for which the affliction was sent shall be accomplished.  Our hearts were bound up in this child; we felt he was our earthly all, our only source of innocent recreation in this heathen land.  But God saw it was necessary to remind us of our error and strip us of our little all.  Oh may it not be in vain that he has done