A

TRIBUTE

OF

PARENTAL AFFECTION.

SEVERAL motives induce me to draw up a short memoir of my deceased daughter. The first is, an unwillingness that her much loved image, now fresh and vivid on my mind, should fade away. We are told, as a solace of our grief, that time will remove the sorrowful impressions which her death has occasioned; and that other events and things will take place of those, which now almost exclusively occupy our heart and affections. This, I dare say, will be the case and it is right that it should; otherwise the business of life would stand still; and the strength and spirits, which should

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be employed in discharging the duties of our station, would be exhausted in mournful recollections and unavailing regrets. But there is an evil on the other hand. The affliction is calculated and intended to do good; and the benefit of it may be lost by a premature forgetfulness. Bereavements like these soften the heart, and fit us for sympathy they unmask a vain world, and stamp an infinite value on religion: they set us on the pursuit of substantial good, and quicken our zeal: they detach us from the creature, endear the Saviour, sweeten the promises, and animate our graces; and by placing us on the verge of both worlds, exhibit the transcendent importance of that which is to come, and stimulate us to a daily preparation for its society and enjoyments. Some of our best lessons therefore are taught us in this school; and it is wise rather to seek proficiency in it, than to be in haste to get out of it. Now, in this case, it fortunately hap- pens, that our wishes coincide with our interest. We have no desire to dry up our

but a

tears. The tendency is to the opposite extreme. The mind lingers on the beloved object which occasions the sorrow, and refuses to be torn from it. There seems to be a sort of cruelty in the very thought of forgetting it, and the whole tide of feeling propels us in one direction. There is danger, it is true, lest the mind should be so absorbed in the bereavement as to see nothing but unkindness in the hand which occasioned it, and to refuse the instruction which it is intended to impart Christian will be on his guard against this. He will resolve what he cannot understand into the inscrutable counsels of Him, who is as benignant in his purposes, as he is wise in the means by which he effects them; and he will never rest till he is persuaded that, though "clouds and darkness are round about him, yet righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne." And I desire here to record my full and entire acquiescence in this afflictive dispensation of Divine Providence. The trial was indeed as unexpected as it is great. It

has wounded us in the most vital part; and at a stroke has cut the principal cord which bound us down to earth. Neither my dear wife nor myself, at present, see how the loss is to be repaired, nor the sad vacancy to be supplied: and in the bitterness of our grief we are sometimes inclined to say, " We will We will go down to the grave to our daughter mourning," as the afflicted Patriarch said on the supposed death of his beloved Joseph: but this is only in the agony of our minds, and the paroxysm of sorrow our general feeling is, I trust, of a different nature. We dare not complain; nor have we been suffered to "charge God foolishly." All, we feel persuaded, is well, though we do not at present see the event in its full and important bearings; and we say, I hope from the heart, "The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord."

Another of the causes which have induced me to offer this "Tribute of Affection to the memory of a beloved and only

Daughter" is, the natural desire we all have to perpetuate the memory of those who are dear to us. It is to this feeling that we must chiefly ascribe what antiquity has handed down to us that is excellent in poetry, in statuary, and in painting. Hence have arisen the marble tablets and sumptuous monuments of modern times: and so strong and universal is this impulse, that even the poor will abridge themselves of the necessaries of life to raise a frail memorial, and to inscribe it with the name, and to adorn it with the eulogy of those who were dear to them: each, in his own way, and according to the best of his ability, is desirous of raising a monument to rescue from oblivion the memory of those whom he loved and esteemed. Let me not then be thought singular if I devote a portion of the talent which God has given me, in recording the excellent qualities of an only daughter. If I possess at all the ability to write her memorial, it would seem a want of feeling to refuse the slender boon; and though, had the intimation of such an in