"Nor shall I thinke this labour lost, though I doe liue: for I will make it my owne looking glasse wherein to see when I am too seuere, when too remisse, and in my childes fault through this glasse to discerne mine owne errors. And I hope God will so giue me his grace, that I shall more skilfully act than apprehend a mothers duty. "My deare, thou knowest me so well, I shall not need to tell thee I haue written honest thoughts in a disordered fashion, not obseruing method. For thou knowest how short I am of learning and naturall indowments to take such a course in writing. Or if that strong affection of thine haue hid my weaknesse from thy sight, I now professe seriously my owne ignorance: and though I did not, this following Treatise would bewray it: But I send it onely to the eies of a most louing Husband, and of a childe exceedingly beloued, to whom I hope it wil not be altogether vnprofitable. "Thus humbly desiring God to giue thee all comfort in this life, and happinesse in the life to come, I leue thee and thine to his most gracious protection. "_Thine inuiolable_, "Eliza Iocelin." Is there a mother, is there a woman living, who can read this heart-subduing passage without lively emotion and sympathy? What must have been the feelings of the lovely writer,--who, in the homely language of worthy Dr Goad, "when she first felt herselfe quicke with childe, (as then trauelling with death it selfe) secretly tooke order for the buying a new winding sheet, ... and vndauntedly looking death in the face, priuatly in her Closet betweene God and her, wrote these pious meditations!" Of her husband, Mr Tourell Joceline, to whom she was married in her twentieth year, little more seems to be known, than that he was a gentleman, probably a relation of the learned John Joceline, chaplain of Archbishop Parker; and it is indeed, as Principal Lee informs us, "Most satisfactory to know that he possessed the unbounded confidence and affection of his amiable wife, whose letter, addressed to him in the immediate prospect of death, is so tender and touching, and so replete with practical wisdom and hallowed principles, that no human being who is not past feeling can read it without deep emotion. Of the maternal counsels bequeathed to the unborn child, it is unnecessary to anticipate the judgment of the reader. We are told by Dr Goad, that 'this small treatise was found in her desk unfinished;' and it is affecting to know that the serenity of her mind, in looking forward to the eternal world, was not unclouded by occasional visitations of sadness. But these seasons of affliction were happily instrumental in weaning her from the deceitful allurements of things temporal, and establishing her soul in the perfect work of patience, and in the blessed hope of an eternal weight of glory."[O] [O] Introduction, p. 11.