that he should visit you soon after
my death. I durst not command it--for this incomparable youth, who
has sacrificed so much to his father, will find he has a mother
worthy of still greater sacrifices. As soon as he can prevail on
himself to leave her, you will see him. May he and your Lucilla
behold each other with the eyes with which each of us views his own
child! If they see each other with indifference, never let them
know our wishes. It would perplex and hamper those to whom we wish
perfect freedom of thought and action. If they conceive a mutual
attachment, reveal our project. In such minds, it will strengthen
that attachment. The approbation of a living and the desire of a
deceased parent will sanctify their union. I must break off
through weakness."

[Footnote 6: Horace, in speaking of the brevity and uncertainty of life,
seldom fails to produce it as an incentive to sensual indulgence. See
particularly the fourth and eleventh Odes of the first book.]

* * * * *

"Monday, 23d.

"I resume my pen, which I thought I had held for the last time. May
God bless and direct our children! Infinite wisdom permits me not
to see their union. Indeed my interest in all earthly things
weakens. Even my solicitude for this event is somewhat diminished.
The most important circumstance, if it have not God for its object,
now seems comparatively little. The longest life with all its
concerns, shrinks to a point in the sight of a dying man whose eye
is filled by eternity. Eternity! Oh my friend, Eternity is a depth
which no geometry can measure, no arithmetic calculate, no
imagination conceive, no rhetoric describe. The eye of a dying
Christian seems gifted to penetrate depths hid from the wisdom of
philosophy. It looks athwart the dark valley without dismay,
cheered by the bright scene beyond it. It looks with a kind of
chastised impatience to that land where happiness will be only
holiness perfected. There all the promises of the gospel will be
accomplished. There afflicted virtue will rejoice at its past
trials, and acknowledge their subservience to its present bliss.
The secret self-denials of the righteous shall be recognized and
rewarded. And all the hopes of the Christian shall have their
complete consummation."

*