This year he wrote to the same gentleman upon a mournful occasion.
'To MR. JAMES ELPHINSTON.
September 25, 1750.
'DEAR SIR, You have, as I find by every kind of evidence, lost an
excellent mother; and I hope you will not think me incapable of
partaking of your grief. I have a mother, now eighty-two years of age,
whom, therefore, I must soon lose, unless it please GOD that she
rather should mourn for me. I read the letters in which you relate your
mother's death to Mrs. Strahan, and think I do myself honour, when I
tell you that I read them with tears; but tears are neither to YOU nor
to ME of any further use, when once the tribute of nature has been paid.
The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to
the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation.
The greatest benefit which one friend can confer upon another, is to
guard, and excite, and elevate his virtues. This your mother will still
perform, if you diligently preserve the memory of her life, and of her
death: a life, so far as I can learn, useful, wise, and innocent; and
a death resigned, peaceful, and holy.
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