’Always your loving and grateful Nephew,

‘J.  C. Patteson.’

The next letter was called forth by my sorrowful communication of the shattered state of both my dear friends; of whom, one, at the very time that my Cousin wrote, was already gone to his rest, having been mercifully spared the loneliness and grief we had feared for him.

’St. Andrew’s:  April 24, 1866.

’My dear Cousin,—­I write a line at once in reply to a letter of January 29, for I see that a great sorrow is hanging over you, is perhaps already fallen on you, and I would fain say my word of sympathy, possibly of comfort.

’One, perhaps, of the great blessings that a person in my position enjoys is that he must perforce see through the present gloom occasioned by loss of present companionship on to the joy beyond.  I hear of the death of dear Uncle, and friends, and even of that loving and holy Father of mine, and somehow it seems all peace, and calmness, and joy.  It would not be so were I in England, to actually experience the sense of loss, to see the vacant seat, and miss the well-known voice; but it is (as I see) a great and most blessed alleviation to the loss of their society here below.  You feel that when those loving hearts at Hursley can no longer be a stay and comfort to you here, you will have a sense almost of desolation pressing on you.  You must, we all have, many trials and some sorrows, and I suppose Hursley has always been to you a city of refuge and house of rest.

’But I think the anticipation is harder than the reality.  For him, but how can I speak of such as he is?  Why should we feel anxiety?  Surely he is just the man upon whom we should expect some special suffering, which is but some special mark of love and (may we not say in such a case?) of approbation.  Some special aid to a very close conformity to the mind and character of Christ, to be sent in special love and mercy.

’I always seem to think that in the case of good men the suffering is the sure earnest of special nearness to God.  It surely—­if one may dare so to speak, and the case of Job warrants it, and the great passage “Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you” (all)—­is true that God is glorified in the endurance of sufferings which He lays upon the saints.  And if dear Mr. Keble must suffer this last blow, as all through his life he has felt the care of the Churches pressing sorely on him, and has even had to comfort the weary, and guide the wayward, and to endure disappointment, and to restrain the over zealotish, and reprove the thoughtless, and bear in his bosom the infirmities of many people—­why must we be unhappy about him, and why mourn for ourselves?  God forbid!  It is only one mark of the cross stamped upon him, only one more draught of the cup of the lacking measures of the afflictions of Christ.  But you must, more than I, know and feel all this; and it is only in attempting to put before your eyes your own thoughts,