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a sad and sudden bereavement, and fitted of all others to overwhelm the sinking spirit, were it not that we are in the hands of a God who is as merciful as He is mysterious; and of whom we may feel assured that, though clouds and darkness are round about Him, there is wisdom in all His ways, and tenderness in all His visitations.

May this, my dear madam, be your own ample experience on this most trying of all occasions. May your refuge and resting-place be in God; may you be led to confide in Him as your reconciled Father through Jesus Christ our Lord, who, touched with the fellow-feeling of your infirmities and your sorrows, knows how to succor the afflicted, and is truly as willing as He is able to help you. May He open a way to your now desolated heart; and, making it alive to the charm and the efficacy of His own peace-speaking blood, may He carry forward your hopes and your affections to that enduring world where sin, and sorrow, and separation are unknown. May I beg that you will offer my kind and condoling regards to Mrs. Marshall; and I entreat you to believe me, my dear madam, yours with deepest feelings of sympathy and regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.

P.S.I can not close this letter without the expression of a fervent and heartfelt benediction on your dear boy. May he arise to manhood and call you blessed; may his progress through the world be unstained by the infection of this world's spirit; may he be spared to bear you up under the weight of declining years at once duteous to his surviving parent, and duteous to his God.

No. CCCLXXVII. To DR. BEGBIE.

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T. C.

9th December, 1838.

MY DEAR SIR-We all here deeply sympathize with the severe family affliction under which you labor. And our feeling is not the less sincere that we can not speak experimentally to the depth or the pungency of that grief which is awak

ened by the loss of children. I can well conceive it to be one of the sorest agonies where with our Father in heaven is pleased to try and to exercise the hearts of His people here below; and it is my earnest prayer that, bitter and well-nigh overwhelming as the visitation is under which you and Mrs. Begbie now labor, it may be sanctified to you both, and yield in abundance the peaceable fruits of righteousness.

It is quite wonderful that, living as we do in the midst of a most precarious world, and experiencing almost every day some new instance of the unsparing and universal law of mortality, there should still adhere to our nature such a cleaving and constant tendency to forget eternal things, and live here as if here we were to live forever. May the Giver of all grace superadd the demonstrations of His Spirit to the warnings of His providence, and effectually teach one and all of us to consider our latter end.

I grieve to hear of your own confinement; and with my fervent wishes and supplications for the comfort and wellbeing of you all, particularly of the bereaved and suffering mother, I entreat you to believe me, my dear sir, yours very truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCLXXVIII.-To MRS. M'CLELLAND.

BURNTISLAND, 14th June, 1840. MY DEAR HELEN-You may well believe that I have been in a sad state of helplessness, both from external causes and from my own personal state of utter languor and disability, else I should have been at Kelton last week, and, failing this, should have written you before now on the subject of your sore and melancholy bereavement.

The sad intelligence was received by us all with great emotion. For myself, I always had a strong liking and respect for Mr. M'Clelland, and that founded on his own personal qualities-a kind, friendly, generous heart, and withal an exceedingly sound and well-informed understanding, with an amount of erudition not very common among the minis

ters of our Church. I really do not wonder at the regrets of his neighborhood, and the well-merited testimony which I read the other day from one of our public journals regarding him; but all this enhances the magnitude of your loss, and of our sympathies with all the grief and desolateness of feeling which you must suffer because of it.

It were well if these frequent and most affecting instances of the mutability of all that is below, would at length send our thoughts in the habitual direction of upward and heavenward, if we at length learned the wisdom of considering our latter end, and laying hold on Him who came to destroy death; if we learned to cast all our confidence on His sacrifice, and give ourselves wholly up to His keeping and His guidance during the remainder of our days. Mrs. Chalmers and I are both most anxious to know what your wishes and purposes are in regard to the future. And depend upon my help and co-operation, if spared, in all that can be of use to you. I know you will not ask me to undertake the journey to Kelton, unless some material service requires it; but if it should, I beg you will feel no delicacy in letting me know; for I shall feel it both my duty and inclination to forward your views. You of course will spend some time with us prior to any permanent arrangement that may, after proper counsel and deliberation, be fixed upon as the best. I am, my dear Helen, ever yours most affectionately,

THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCLXXIX.-To MRS. BRYCE, ABERDOUR.

BURNTISLAND, 23d September, 1841.

MY DEAR MRS. BRYCE-I hesitate to intrude on the sacredness of your deep sorrow, yet can not refrain from the expression of my sympathy both with yourself and all the members of your bereaved family on this day of solemn visitation.

May He who is at once the Husband of the widow and the Father of the fatherless, be the refuge and sure portion of He afflicts not willingly any of His children; and U

you all.

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it is my earnest prayer that this mysterious and unlooked-for visitation may yield to you and yours the peaceable fruits of righteousness.

That meek and gentle Savior who wept at the tomb of Lazarus, gave thereby a sanction and sacredness to the sorrow of nature. May He further sanctify this emotion by the Spirit of all grace, and withdraw our affections from a world, the nearest and dearest objects of which can be so speedily withdrawn from us. It is well that we have His righteousness to plead for our entrance into that better world, where sin, and sorrow, and separation are unknown. May you, my dear madam, and all of your household, obtain that precious faith which gives a part and an interest in all the blessings of His mediatorship, and unites you forever with that spiritual family of which He is the Head, who alone hath the gift, and who alone hath the words of life everlasting.

With best regards for one and all of your afflicted circle, in which Mrs. Chalmers most sincerely joins, and begging you will accept of our united condolence on this touching occasion, I ever am, my very dear madam, yours with great esteem, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCLXXX.-To MISS BURNS.

EDINBURGH, 8th January, 1843.

MY DEAR MISS BURNS-We are much interested by your letter respecting Miss Edie. At present I write you rather than her, that she might be saved the trouble and fatigue of reading more than she is quite able for. You will judge how far the reading of this and such like passages as I shall recommend might be prosecuted, so as not to draw too much She is in the hands of one who knows upon her attention. her frame; and I should like that her own gentle spirit reposed upon Him as all her desire and salvation. May He who has so invested her with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, perfect the work which He has begun, and ripen her more and more for the full enjoyment of that heaven where holiness and charity shall ever reign.

The twenty-third Psalm I should think well suited for her. The green pastures, the still waters, the goodness, and the mercy, are all images of bliss and goodness fitted to solace and give refreshment to her soul.

The last half of the book of Isaiah is replete with encouragement; and the forty-fifth chapter, particularly in its closing verses, is inestimably precious. And in the 8th verse there is an immense comfort in the expression of “the heavens pouring down righteousness." How delightful to think of righteousness as a ready-made investiture given to them who believe, and so to be exempted from all the fears of legality, and all its fruitless and fatiguing labors. It is only of such righteousness that the prophet speaks in Isaiah, xxxii., 17. May the patient sufferer take up with this righteousness, so as to work peace in her heart, and with the blessed effect of quietness and assurance forever. The next verse, too (verse 18), is very soothing. The fifty-third chapter, one of the most illustrious in Scripture, is well fitted to call out in our hearts the love of the Savior.

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The whole of our Savior's conversation with His disciples, John, xiv.-xvii., particularly xiv., 1-3, she will find to be an elixir to her soul. But she must not be overtasked. Do give her my tenderest regards. My heart bleeds for poor Mrs. Edie. Say all that is affectionate and kind both to her and to your much-loved patient, both from myself and from all our family. And with our united regards to you, I ever am, &c., THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCLXXXI.-To MRS. ELLIOT.

EDINBURGH, 11th February, 1844. MY DEAR MRS. ELLIOT-The intimation of dear Mrs. Usher's death has awakened in my breast no common sensibilities; my acquaintance with her-on my part a constant and cherished friendship-being now of forty-three years' standing. In 1801, I was a frequent visitant at Courthill, and ever treated with the utmost kindness by both of your much-loved par

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