an to woman, wife to
mother, in hopes of a future appearance in glory....

'Pray write as often as you have leisure, to your

'ROCHESTER.'

To his son, he writes: 'You are now grown big enough to be a man, if
you can be wise enough; and the way to be truly wise is to serve God,
learn your book, and observe the instructions of your parents first, and
next your tutor, to whom I have entirely resigned you for this seven
years; and according as you employ that time, you are to be happy or
unhappy for ever. I have so good an opinion of you, that I am glad to
think you will never deceive me. Dear child, learn your book and be
obedient, and you will see what a father I shall be to you. You shall
want no pleasure while you are good, and that you may be good are my
constant prayers.'

Lord Rochester had not attained the age of thirty, when he was
mercifully awakened to a sense of his guilt here, his peril hereafter.
It seemed to many that his very nature was so warped that penitence in
its true sense could never come to him; but the mercy of God is
unfathomable; He judges not as man judges; He forgives, as man knows not
how to forgive.

'God, our kind Master, merciful as just,
Knowing our frame, remembers man is dust:
He marks the dawn of every virtuous aim,
And fans the smoking flax into a flame;
He hears the language of a silent tear,
And sighs are incense from a heart sincere.'

And the reformation of Rochester is a confirmation of the doctrine of a
special Providence, as well as of that of a retribution, even in this
life.

The retribution came in the form of an early but certain decay; of a
suffering so stern, so composed of mental and bodily anguish, that never
was man called to repentance by a voice so distinct as Rochester. The
reformation was sent through the instrumentality of one who had been a
sinner like himself, who had sinned _with_ him; an unfortunate lady,
who, in her last hours, had been visited, reclaimed, consoled by Bishop
Burnet. Of this, Lord Rochester had heard. He was then, to all
appearance, recovering from his last sickness. He sent for Burnet, who
devoted to him one evening every week of that solemn winter when the
soul of the penitent sought reconciliation and peace.

The conversion was not instantaneous; it was gradual, penetrating,
effective, sincere. Those who wish to gratify curiosity concerning the
death-bed of one who had so notoriously sinned, will