ays
they would have been united in the bonds of Christian love and
sympathy, as this interchange of friendship evinces.

The following is Mr. Bidwell's letter to Hon. W. B. Robinson, dated 24th
February, 1863:--

I thank you for your kind and friendly letter, and for the
particular account of the closing scenes of the life of your
honoured and lamented brother. The wound inflicted by his death can
never be altogether healed. The grief which it produces is natural
and rational, and is not inconsistent with any of the precepts, or
with the spirit of the Gospel. It is a duty, however, to keep it
within bounds, and not to allow murmurs in our heart against Divine
Providence. The language of our hearts should be that of the
Patriarch, "The Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the
name of the Lord." Gratitude for the gift should be mingled with
our deep sorrow for the loss of it. In my own case, a consideration
of the unspeakable goodness of God in having bestowed upon me such
an inestimable blessing has been continually present to my mind,
and trust such feelings will abound in the bosom of Lady Robinson,
her family, and yourself. He, whose removal from earthly scenes
your hearts deplore, was all that you could have desired, in his
public and private character, and in the homage of universal
veneration and esteem. Where will you find one like him? Was there
not great and peculiar goodness in God's bestowing him upon you?
Was he not the joy and pride of your hearts continually? Did not
his presence irradiate his home, and make it like an earthly
Paradise? Every pang which you may suffer attests the value of the
blessing which you have so long had. Your gratitude to God, the
author of every good and perfect gift, ought to be in proportion to
your grief. It is to be remembered, also, that he was not cut down
prematurely in the midst of his days, but had passed the period
which Moses, the man of God, in his sublime and pathetic prayer
(Psalm xc.) considers as the ordinary boundary of human life, and
retained all his powers and faculties to the last; and that during
this long life he had not been absent from his family, at least not
from Lady Robinson (if I am not mistaken) except during the
transient separation when he was on the circuit. It is natur