“More than two years since, a lovely and beloved wife was taken from me, by lingering disease, after a very short union. She possessed unvarying gentleness and fortitude, and a piety so retiring as rarely to disclose itself in words, but so influential as to produce uniform benevolence of conduct. In the last hour of life, after a farewell look on a lately born and only infant, for whom she had evinced inexpressible affection, her last whispers were, ‘God’s happiness! God’s happiness!’ Since the second anniversary of her decease, I have read some papers which no one had seen during her life, and which contain her most secret thoughts. I am induced to communicate to your lordship a passage from these papers, which, there is no doubt, refers to yourself; as I have more than once heard the writer mention your agility on the rocks at Hastings.
“’Oh, my God, I take encouragement from the assurance
of thy word, to pray to Thee in behalf of one for whom I have lately been much
interested. May the person to whom I allude (and who is now, we fear, as much
distinguished for his neglect of Thee as for the transcendent talents thou hast bestowed
on him), be awakened to a sense of his own danger, and led to seek that peace of mind in
a proper sense of religion, which he has found this world’s enjoyments unable to
procure! Do Thou grant that his future example may be productive of far more extensive
benefit than his past conduct and writings have been of evil; and may the sun of
righteousness, which, we trust, will, at some future period, arise on him, be bright in
proportion to the darkness of those clouds which guilt has raised around him, and the
balm which it bestows, healing and soothing in proportion to the keenness of that agony
which the punishment of his vices has inflicted on him! May the hope that the sincerity
of my own efforts for the attainment of holiness, and the approval of my own love to the
great Author of religion, will render this prayer, and every other for the welfare of
mankind, more efficacious.
| A. D. 1821. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 561 |
“There is nothing, my lord, in this extract which, in a literary sense, can at all interest you; but it may, perhaps, appear to you worthy of reflection how deep and expansive a concern for the happiness of others the Christian faith can awaken in the midst of youth and prosperity. Here is nothing poetical and splendid, as in the expostulatory homage of M. Delamartine; but here is the sublime, my lord; for this intercession was offered, on your account, to the supreme source of happiness. It sprang from a faith more confirmed than that of the French poet; and from a charity which, in combination with faith, showed its power unimpaired amidst the languors and pains of approaching dissolution. I will hope that a prayer, which, I am sure, was deeply sincere, may not be always unavailing.
“It would add nothing, my lord, to the fame with which your genius has surrounded you, for an unknown and obscure individual to express his admiration of it. I had rather be numbered with those who wish and pray, that ‘wisdom from above,’ and ‘peace,’ and ‘joy,’ may enter such a mind.
