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 22 The Letter-Writer,

To a Young Gentleman on the Death of his Father

Dear Sir, I KNOW no part of life more impertinent tha the office of adminiſtering conſolation : i w not enter upon it, for I cannot but applaud you grief. The virtuous principles you had for the excellent man whom you have lost, have wrong in you as they ought, to make a youth of three ar twenty incapable of comfort, upon coming in the poſſeſſion of a great fortune. I doubt not li you will honour bis memory by a modeſt enjoyme of his eſtate; and ſcorn to triumph over his gras by employing in riot, excels, and debauchen what he purchaſed with ſo much induſtry, pr dence, and wiſdom. This is the true way to ſh the ſenſe you have of your loſs, and to take aw the diſtreſs of others upon the occaſion. You ci not recal your father by grief, but you may rev him to your friends by your conduct. I am, &c

From a Gentleman, whoſe Wife was lately dead, Clergyman in the Neighbourhood.

Reverend Sir, YOU have often, both in public and private, larged on thoſe comforts and conſolations whi. Christianity affords to the afflicted, and if ever thi were neceſſary to one under thoſe circumſtane they muſt be to myſelf About ſeven, laſt nig my wife died in child-bed, and I am left the conſolate parent of five young children Had feen she excruciating tortures under which the pire!, it would have reminded you of the emplu of that curſe pronounced upon our firſt parents their rebelion againſt God. When the faw king of terrors approach, the was all reſignation the divine will, and left this lower world in