s, therefore, I contrived to avoid the ceremony, and
obtained the nuptial benediction without it.

The Lord, who never leaves himself without the witness of his numerous
mercies to us, even when we are offending him in so many ways, was
pleased to bless our marriage. Your birth, my dear children, crowned
our joy, and left us nothing to wish but to see you grow and prosper,
and to devote ourselves to your happiness. Alas! little did we
suspect, whilst thus delightfully engaged, that this joy was to be so
soon disturbed, and that death would deprive us of her who had given
you birth. But our great God, whose ways and whose designs, though
often inscrutable, are always full of wisdom, saw good to separate
us; you from a tender and excellent mother, and me from a beloved
companion and inestimable friend. She died February 11, 1821, after a
few days' illness, leaving me in a state of affliction which it would
be in vain to attempt to describe.

Nevertheless, terrible as was the stroke, and heart-rending as was the
separation, I can now acknowledge, my children, that it was a salutary
chastisement, sent by sovereign love; and one of the links of that
chain of Providence by which the Lord saw good to deliver me from the
miserable state in which I was then living; and to lead me to the
fountain of grace and true peace.

In fact, the death of your poor mother gave rise to a train of
circumstances, which, by drawing my attention to subjects that I had
hitherto totally disregarded, and by exciting in my mind a degree of
energy of which I could not have supposed myself capable, ended by
engaging me most unexpectedly in the serious study of religion. The
particulars I am about to give you respecting these things, will
convince you that God can overrule the wickedness of men for good, and
will show you that a Romish priest was the means of directing me to
_the way_, (I mean the perusal and free examination of the word of
God,) which led me, eventually, to the Protestant church.

Your mother's funeral was conducted with Catholic ceremonies, and,
according to my means, I spared nothing to honour her remains. I
likewise consented, either from conformity to custom, or from a wish
to please my relatives, who were influenced by the fear of purgatory,
or perhaps from participating myself in the false notion that bought
prayers can mitigate the sufferings of the dead--from one or all of
these causes, aggravated by the sorrow which filled