tion that a parcel had been sent or was immediately to be sent from here. The thing to be packed was Brucker's Historia Philosophie, in six quartos, a work of established reputation and immense learning. A number of years since I had it from Longman's-a fool was I, at my age, and with fast failing sight, to think of such a thing-but it was a famous book-a sort of dictionary of all ancient and much modern wisdom (and folly too), and so, seeing it in the catalogue, I must send for it, and that in haste too, less some other aspirant to wisdom, as old and with such feeble eyes and slender acquirements, should lay hands on it before me. But for John, voracious of knowledge, and with I hope at least fifty years before him, it may prove an useful repository to consult occasionally. When I had it, not a sheet had ever been cut open; it is perfectly clean, and I took the long trouble of giving every volume a firmer covering by pasting millboards to the sides within the blue papers. Its disappearance here will a little abate the vexation with which, as I said before, I sometimes look on these piles of books which I can

never use.

There is nothing to tell you here. I hardly ever go into the town, and very seldom see any one that inhabits it. I think that, literally, I have spent but few hours there for several months past. There has grown upon me a kind of indisposition to see anybody, or to be seen,. . . . I shall be out of date with the few friends I have-or had-in the place. I just stay with the girls, who are good and affectionate, but cannot compensate for the companion that I have lost-but would not recall, if such a thing were permitted in the divine economy. The pensive sense of that loss is, at some moments, almost changed into gladness by the thought of what she has gained-and what she has escaped; and by a hope that the dispensation will be salutary to myself, in regard to the most important interest. I think it has been so hitherto in some degree. It certainly has been made the cause of very many pious emotions, and wishes, and penitential regrets, and prayers, beyond my previous habitude of mind. I go often into the past, as you predicted; but often the present and the future almost predominate the thought of her as now, and the anticipation

of seeing her again, varied through innumerable suggestions, imaginings, and inquiries. No doubt such musings have often employed your mind also. We must remain in this darkness, and this disseverment yet a while, perhaps but a little while. But oh! what joy to hope, that through sovereign mercy we shall regain, never more to lose, the society of our beloved departed companions, and with the ultimate addition, I hope, of all those younger ones that still remain with us. May the great Father of Spirits take benignant charge of us all, and grant us all to meet at length where those who are gone before us will feel ecstatic joy to receive us, all redeemed through the merit of the great Sacrifice. Both you three and we three have now some affecting relations, points of interest and attraction, with the invisible world, more than we had a few years since. I have suggested this consideration to the two children here. The deep interest of the subject has led me to think more, and to read a little more, concerning that mysterious hades. How strange that revelation itself has kept it so completely veiled. Many things in that economy probably could not be made intelligible to us in this our grossly material condition; but there are many questions which could be distinctly and intelligibly answered. How striking to consider that those who were so lately with us, asking those questions in vain, have now the perfect experimental knowledge. I can image the very look with which my departed Maria would sometimes talk or muse on this subject. The mystery, the frustration of our inquisitiveness, was equal to us both. What a stupendous difference now! And in her present grand advantage she knows with what augmented interest of solemn and affectionate inquisitiveness my thoughts will be still directed, and in vain, to the subject. But she knows why it is proper that I should for a while continue still in the dark,-should share no part of her new and marvellous revelation. . . . .

CLXXII. TO MRS. ANDERSON.

[On the death of Mr. Anderson.]

Stapleton, 1833. MY DEAR MADAM, I was glad to hear you had changed the scene so far as to pass some days at Overn. The recollection of recent mournful events very often came on me amidst the beautiful and sublime scenes that I have been passing through. It appeared to me so strange to think that I should not have to tell of anything I had seen to the estimable friend with whom I had so often and so lately communicated. That he was actually no longer on earth seemed again and again what I could hardly realize as a certain fact. It was a pensive thought that there was one important person the less for me to return to. And the loss came with double force, as being in addition to the irretrievable absence, the final disappearance, of one other person, to whom, during a former tour over the same interesting tracts, I expected to return with narratives and observations which now she hears no more.

For you there is a long train of pensive remembrances, reflections, and monitions; but, I trust, the benign influences of religion will both soften the painful sentiments, and render them salutary in respect to the highest interests. For myself, I have felt that some afflictive dispensation was necessary for the purpose of solemn admonition. How unapt we are to send forward our thoughts into the invisible future world, toward which we are continually approaching nearer! we have now a strong circumstance of attraction of our thoughts thitherward—a new relation formed with that world, by the removal thither, and the dwelling there, of those who were so lately our habitual and beloved companions here. . . . .

CLXXIII. TO THE REV. JOSEPH HUGHES.

Sept. 18, 1833.

The thought of my dear and ever faithful friend, as now standing at the very verge of life, has repeatedly car

ried me back in memory to the period of our youth, when more than forty years since we were brought into habitual society, and the cordial esteem and attachment which have survived, undiminished, through so long a lapse of time and so much separation. Then we sometimes conjectured, but in vain, what might be the course appointed us to run, and how long, and which might first come to the termination. Now the far greater part of that unknown appointment has been unfolded and accomplished. To me a little stage further remains under the darkness; you, my dear friend, have a clear sight almost to the concluding point. And while I feel the deepest pensiveness in beholding where you stand, with but a step between you and death, I cannot but emphatically congratulate you. I have often felt great complacency in your behalf, in thinking of the course through which Providence has led you,-complacency in regard to the great purpose of life, its improvement, its usefulness, and its discipline and preparation for a better world. You are, I am sure, grateful to the sovereign Disposer in the review of it. You have had the happiness of faithfully and zealously performing a great and good service, and can rejoice to think that your work is accomplished, with a "Well done, humble confidence that the Master will good and faithful servant," while you will gratefully exult in ascribing all to his own sovereign mercy in Jesus Christ. But oh my dear friend, whither is it that you are going? Where is it that you will be a few short weeks or days hence? I have affecting cause to think and to wonder concerning that unseen world; to desire, were it permitted to mortals, one glimpse of that mysterious economy, to ask innumerable questions to which there is no answer—what is the manner of existence,—of employment,-of society,— of remembrance,-of anticipation of all the surrounding revelations to our departed friends? How striking to think, that she, so long and so recently with me here, so beloved, but now so totally withdrawn and absent, that she experimentally knows all that I am in vain inquiring!

say,

And a little while hence you, my friend, will be an object of the same solemn meditations and wandering inquiries. It is most striking to consider-to realize the idea that you, to whom I am writing these lines, who continue yet

among mortals, who are on this side of the awful and mysterious veil,-that you will be in the midst of these grand realities, beholding the marvellous manifestation, amazed and transported at your new and happy condition of existence, while your friends are feeling the pensiveness of your absolute and final absence, and thinking how, but just now, as it were, you were with them.

But we must ourselves follow you to see what it is that the emancipated spirits who have obtained their triumph over death and all evil through the blood of the Lamb, find awaiting them in that nobler and happier realm of the great Master's empire; and I hope that your removal will be to your other friends and to me a strong additional excitement, under the influence of the divine Spirit, to apply ourselves with more earnest zeal to the grand business of our high calling.

It is a delightful thing to be assured, on the authority of revelation, of the perfect consciousness, the intensely awakened faculties, and all the capacities and causes of felicity of the faithful in that mysterious, separate state; and on the same evidence, together with every other rational probability, to be confident of the reunion of those who have loved one another and their Lord on earth. How gloomy beyond all expression were a contrary anticipation! My friend feels in this concluding day of his sojourn on earth the infinite value of that blessed faith which confides alone in the great Sacrifice for sin-the sole medium of pardon and reconcilement, and the ground of immortal hope; this has always been to you the very vitality of the Christian religion; and it is so-it is emphatically so-to me also.

I trust you will be mercifully supported, the heart serene, and, if it may be, the bodily pain mitigated during the remaining hours, and the still sinking weakness of the mortal frame; and I would wish for you also, and in compassion to the feelings of your attendant relatives, that you may be favoured so far as to have a gentle dismission; but as to this, you will humbly say, "Thy will be done."

I know that I shall partake of your kindest wishes and remembrance in your prayers,-the few more prayers you have yet to offer before you go. When I may follow you,