A Memorial of Mrs. Margaret BreckinridgeBreckinridge, John
Philosophy
A Memorial of Mrs. Margaret Breckinridge
Breckinridge, John
Breckinridge, Margaret (Miller), Mrs., 1802-1838
MORE than a year has now passed since Mrs. MARGARET BRECKINRIDGE, the
beloved subject of the following brief notices, was taken from us into
the saints' everlasting rest. By that event, the little family of which
she was the joy and crown, was dissolved. The surviving parent felt that
God had committed to him the interesting but mournful duty of preserving
the memory of so inestimable a friend. But it is long after such an
event, before the mind is sufficiently tranquil to utter our thoughts
and feelings without excess. The peaceable fruits of so dreadful a
chastisement succeed, alas! but slowly in our intractable hearts, to the
distraction of grief, and the desolation of the grave.
It was in the midst of the deepest of his sorrow, also, that the writer
was hastened (by a very kind Providence, as he now sees it to have been)
into the active duties of an office which left no rest for body or mind
during almost an entire year. So that if his feelings had allowed the
attempt at preparing a Memoir, his duty to the Church of God forbade it.
In these trying and peculiar circumstances, he was permitted to call in
the aid of those honoured and venerable Friends, from whose hands, in a
happier day, he had received the lovely wife of his youth. They of all
others knew her best, especially from her birth to her marriage. They
had done most, under God, to fit her for life's duties, and its close;
and to make her "worthy to be had in everlasting remembrance." And none
were judged to be so well qualified to do justice to her memory. To the
one we are indebted for the following interesting Sketch, making the
first chapter. To the other for the valuable Letters to her surviving
children, forming the second part of this memorial.
While all must admire the delicacy and candour with which this sketch is
drawn, it is evident to those who knew the deceased, that much remains
to be said which ought not to be omitted--especially in regard to that
portion of her life, embracing more than fifteen years, which passed
between the time of leaving the parental roof, and her lamented death.
In attempting to supply this omission, the writer felt the
inconvenience--even awkwardness of returning upon a narrative which
seemed to have been brought to an appropriate close. But this was
thought preferable to leaving the memoir incomplete; or to breaking the
thread of the narrative given in the first chapter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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