INTRODUCTION
More than a year has now passed since Mrs. Margaret Breckinridge, the beloved subject of the following brief notices, was taken from us into the saints' everlasting rest. By that event, the little family of which she was the joy and crown, was dissolved. The surviving parent felt that God had committed to him the interesting but mournful duty of preserving the memory of so inestimable a friend. But it is long after such an event, before the mind is sufficiently tranquil to utter our thoughts and feelings without excess. The peaceable fruits of so dreadful a chastisement succeed, alas! but slowly in our intractable hearts, to the distraction of grief, and the desolation of the grave.
It was in the midst of the deepest of his sorrow, also, that the writer was hastened (by a very kind Providence, as he now sees it to have been) into the active duties of an office which left no rest for body or mind during almost an entire year. So that if his feelings had allowed the attempt at preparing a Memoir, his duty to the Church of God forbade it.
In these trying and peculiar circumstances, he was permitted to call in the aid of those honoured and venerable Friends, from whose hands, in a happier day, he had received the lovely wife of his youth. They of all others knew her best, especially from her birth to her marriage. They had done most, under God, to fit her for life's duties, and its close; and to make her "worthy to be had in everlasting remembrance." And none were judged to be so well qualified to do justice to her memory. To the one we are indebted for the following interesting Sketch, making the first chapter. To the other for the valuable Letters to her surviving children, forming the second part of this memorial.
While all must admire the delicacy and candour with which this sketch is drawn, it is evident to those who knew the deceased, that much remains to be said which ought not to be omitted—especially in regard to that portion of her life, embracing more than fifteen years, which passed between the time of leaving the parental roof, and her lamented death. In attempting to supply this omission, the writer felt the inconvenience—even awkwardness of returning upon a narrative which seemed to have been brought to an appropriate close. But this was thought preferable to leaving the memoir incomplete; or to breaking the thread of the narrative given in the first chapter.
And moreover it was felt that the design of the work which called for the additional chapters, dispensed with form in the manner of furnishing them. It is intended to preserve the memory of the beloved dead for her bereaved children, and her numerous kindred and friends, rather than to unveil her retiring character to the public eye. The work being designed, not so much for general circulation as for family use, is rather printed, than published; and all its imperfections will readily be overlooked by those who will come to these pages, as Mary went to the tomb of Lazarus—"to weep there."