... But how foolish these weak, faint flashes of ambition and cupidity in my mind. After what I have seen, I am surprised such thoughts can ever rise in a mind so constantly aware of the fragility of every earthly good. Certainly I do not limit the power Heaven has over our hearts; but I think when I forget the angel whose loss first made me sensible of this plain and evident truth, or cease to lament him, it will prove, not that I am consoled, but that some decay has taken place in my feelings and faculties. Till then—
‘Each lovely scene must him restore,
For him the tears he duly shed,
Beloved, till life can charm no more,
And mourned, till Pity’s self be dead.’
You know I have no weak, vain pride in being inconsolable; on the contrary, no sooner did anything divert my thoughts, than I adopted and cherished it. Neither do I profess at all moments to feel the wound, although I always feel its general effects on my mind. I need not apologize for the last page, you well know I cannot love you as I do without speaking to you of what lies nearest my heart, my master passion.
What you say of Lady Hutchinson not feeling that confidence which is so often remarked in those far her inferiors in piety and virtue, does not surprise me. We do not expect that any one temporal reward should be uniformly extended to the good, and certainly that of a happy exit appears to be the greatest of all. But I am sure, ‘he that goeth on his way weeping, and beareth forth good seed, shall doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him.’ We know that the Author and Finisher of our faith was not exempt from mortal pains, as appears by His pathetic exclamation; and, therefore, I am astonished that so many divines dwell on the certainty that the righteous will be distinguished by the serenity of their closing scene.