The circumstances under which Sir Jahleel received the intelligence of his son’s death were peculiarly touching. He had been induced to undertake a journey into the interior, for the double purpose of exploring the resources which those parts of the country offered for the naval arsenal, and for ascertaining the possibility of establishing a coasting trade along the eastern line of coast; and had reached the town of George, on his return from the mouth of the Knyzna, the proposed limit of his tour; when he and his companions saw from the house where they were resting, the postman from Cape Town entering the village by a bridge. Struck with the coincidence of the scene, Sir Jahleel was on the point of repeating to his friends the well known lines in which Cowper contemplates the varied contents of the postman’s bag when arriving in Olney; when he was compelled to feel the reality of the description by the letters which he had to open. They contained the intelligence of his son’s death; whom letters received but a week before had represented as being in the full enjoyment of health; and the deep and affecting regret with which the head master announced the loss of his promising and cherished pupil, must have added to the sadness with which the father learnt the fact that this treasured tie, to which he had turned with so much fondness in the first bitterness of his loss, was thus suddenly taken from him.
The journal from which so much has been drawn on previous occasions, contains frequent references to this severe and complicated trial. I merely select a few passages as sufficient to indicate the general character of his remarks, and as being most contiguous in point of time.
“July 29th, 1818. This, my darling children, is the first anniversary which has come round of our irreparable loss. It has indeed been a year of affliction to us, for much as we were prepared for the inevitable blow as regarded your dear mother, still the awful reality was severely felt. This was soon followed by another as severe, and unexpected. Your dear brother was called in a few days after the departure of his angelic mother to follow her to the grave; but that is not the view in which we should contemplate our dear departed saints. They were mercifully called to meet each other in heaven. How benignly does the Almighty temper our afflictions, that we may be enabled to support our trials. Had there been an apprehension of such a calamity befalling us, as the loss we experienced in the course of one short month, we should have doubted our power to sustain it; but when the last afflicting tidings came, they found us already prostrate before the throne of mercy, humbly endeavouring to resign ourselves to the Divine Will, and in such a frame more able to support the pressure of adversity, than if it had visited us during some of those periods of indescribable happiness, which our bountiful and merciful Creator has so frequently been pleased to bestow upon us. When the loss of your dear brother was announced to me, bitter as the affliction was, it came accompanied with a source of consolation of which the effect was instantaneous. The idea that his mother had been spared the misery of such a loss, that they had met in heaven, that their sufferings were at an end; that they had been mutually spared the wretchedness of mourning for each other; these comforting reflections instantly crowded into my mind, and saved me from much of the anguish which I must have endured at any other period.
“A whole year has now elapsed, and the retrospect, affecting as it is, nevertheless abounds in comfort. We have that feeling that the world is not our all. If it had been, what would have been our situation now? From my own experience I deeply feel the chastening, but merciful hand of God in these awful dispensations. They have awakened me to a true sense of my situation, and have shewn me, that whilst happy here, my eternal felicity was at stake; for I was guilty of gross idolatry, by allowing every thought to centre in the blessings bestowed upon me, with little more than a nominal reference to the all-merciful Providence from whom I received them. This is the first year of my life in which I can conscientiously claim to have made any progress in religious attainments; for greatly defective as I must still allow myself to be, I feel that I have a deeper sense of the divine presence constantly upon my mind; that I have less of that dreadful repugnance to the service of my Maker, and more energy in the performance of it; and I can feel that in all my pursuits, whether professional or otherwise, I am constantly influenced by a sense of their being religious duties. The memory of what I have lost has scarcely ever been absent from my mind, indeed every thing recalls it, but my tranquillity and even cheerfulness has been greater than at almost any period of my life, for I have lost all cause of anxiety. Formerly I was wretched on account of my own health, about my circumstances and worldly successes, unmindful of the Divine protection who had never deserted me. Now I learn to resign myself to His Divine will; to entrust you, my darling children, to his care; and I have also acquired the conviction that there is no situation in life, however successful we may be in all our pursuits, capable of conferring real and permanent happiness; for had I been placed on the pinnacle of human glory—the admiration, the idol, and the envy of all around me—this blow would have humbled me to the dust, for I can with sincerity say that all my successes in life have derived their chief value from your mother having participated in them.
‘How I dreamt,
Of things impossible! Could sleep do more?
Of joys perpetual, in perpetual change,
Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave,
Perpetual sunshine in the storms of life;
How richly were my noontide trances hung