in patching up the tabernacle a little. If it be
raised to usefulness, I am content; if not to usefulness, I do not
desire it. I feel no concern about the issue of this; the will of the
Lord be done.'

"I say, Amen; but Oh, I feel alone. I should need large
communications from his Master to fill up this blank. I cannot write
for weeping; now my face is so swelled I cannot go to church. I called
at his house this morning, found the doctors in the parlor, and
learned from them the worst. The bell was ringing for church. I
stifled as much as possible my grief; would fain have come home to
give it vent, but durst not be absent from the house of God. I heard a
stranger in Dr. Rodgers' church; our doors are closed; his text was,
'Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends;' he ran the parallel
between human friendship and that subsisting between Christ and his
disciples. I ought to be comforted, nay, I am comforted.

"The Bible lies open before me; it is full of consolation; but
all is in prospect. I look at God, what he is in himself, what he is
to his people _now_ and what he will be to _eternity_: the
consolations of hope are mine; but for the present, I feel like the
sparrow on the house-top, or like a pelican in the wilderness; and
when I think on my years and the robustness of my constitution, and
that I may have a long journey before me, I am not able to look at it.
At the same time, when I consider my children, who, having lost their
pastor, who bore them on his heart to the throne of grace, have double
need of a mother, I dare not indulge a wish, far less put up a
petition for release. O, that I could get under the influence of that
spirit which I have witnessed in my dear pastor--that entire
confidence in God--that perfect resignation to his will--that
complacency in all he has done, is doing, or will do--that rest in
God, of which he seems to be put in possession even now, while his
breast is laboring and heaving like a broken bellows, and he cannot
fetch one full breath. O, what cannot God effect.

"SUNDAY EVENING. I have again seen my dear pastor, and discern
the clay dissolving fast. The words of dying saints are precious, and
his are few. He thus accosted me: 'I am just waiting the will of God;
for the present I seem a useless blank in his hand; I can say very
little; be not too anxious for my life, but transfer your care to the
church; my life or death is but a trifle; if the Lord have a