r which succeed the calamities that are brought
upon us by ourselves.

"Vainly, in your misfortunes, do you say to yourself, 'I have not
deserved them.' Is it then the calamity of Virginia--her death and her
present condition that you deplore? She has undergone the fate allotted
to all,--to high birth, to beauty, and even to empires themselves. The
life of man, with all his projects, may be compared to a tower, at whose
summit is death. When your Virginia was born, she was condemned to die;
happily for herself, she is released from life before losing her mother,
or yours, or you; saved, thus from undergoing pangs worse than those of
death itself.

"Learn then, my son, that death is a benefit to all men: it is the night
of that restless day we call by the name of life. The diseases, the
griefs, the vexations, and the fears, which perpetually embitter our
life as long as we possess it, molest us no more in the sleep of death.
If you inquire into the history of those men who appear to have been the
happiest, you will find that they have bought their apparent felicity
very dear; public consideration, perhaps, by domestic evils; fortune,
by the loss of health; the rare happiness of being loved, by continual
sacrifices; and often, at the expiration of a life devoted to the good
of others, they see themselves surrounded only by false friends, and
ungrateful relations. But Virginia was happy to her very last moment.
When with us, she was happy in partaking of the gifts of nature; when
far from us, she found enjoyment in the practice of virtue; and even at
the terrible moment in which we saw her perish, she still had cause
for self-gratulation. For, whether she cast her eyes on the assembled
colony, made miserable by her expected loss, or on you, my son, who,
with so much intrepidity, were endeavouring to save her, she must have
seen how dear she was to all. Her mind was fortified against the future
by the remembrance of her innocent life; and at that moment she received
the reward which Heaven reserves for virtue,--a courage superior to
danger. She met death with a serene countenance.

"My son! God gives all the trials of life to virtue, in order to show
that virtue alone can support them, and even find in them happiness and
glory. When he designs for it an illustrious reputation, he exhibits it
on a wide theatre, and contending with death. Then does the courage of
virtue shine forth as an example, and the misfortunes to whic