It is always a cause of lively gratitude, when God is pleased to sustain his dear children in passing through "the valley of the shadow of death." It affords to mourning friends the sweetest consolation which could be received under such sore bereavements. This consolation of our benignant Father has not been withheld in the present instance. Mourning friends are permitted to rejoice in the midst of their overflowing sorrow, in the confident hope, that the departed spirit of our dear sister, free from all sin and pain, rests sweetly in the love and beatified vision of her divine Redeemer. "BLESSED ARE THE DEAD THAT DIE IN THE LORD, FROM HENCEFORTH; YEA, SAITH THE SPIRIT, THAT THEY MAY REST FROM THEIR LABOURS; AND THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM." LETTERS OF A GRANDFATHER, TO THE SURVIVING CHILDREN OF MRS. MARGARET BRECKINRIDGE. BY THE REV. SAMUEL MILLER, D. D. PART II. LETTERS OF A GRANDFATHER. LETTER I. INTRODUCTORY. MY DEAR GRANDCHILDREN:--The decease of your beloved and lamented Mother, has placed both you and me in circumstances of great solemnity and responsibility. To be deprived of a mother's care and counsel at the tender age at which she left you, is indeed a loss which no human arithmetic can estimate; especially to be deprived of _such_ a mother, one so well qualified by strength of intellect, by sincere piety, and by peculiar loveliness of character, to be a blessing to you, for time and eternity, is a bereavement of which, even now, I know not how to speak without emotions too strong for utterance. While this precious Parent lived, she seemed to interpose between your beloved grandmother and myself, and any immediate responsibility in regard to your education; but now that she is removed, we seem to be brought, in the mysterious and mournful Providence of God, to stand in some measure in her place, and to perform some of the most important duties which she owed to her children. And, although your surviving Parent is eminently fitted, both by nature and grace, to be a guide to your youth; yet, as he is engaged, and is likely for some time to be engaged, in active, arduous, and extended labours for the Church of God, which will probably separate him from you often and much for a considerable time;--an additional responsibility on our part seems to grow out of every circumstance.