The friends who endeavoured to console me, employed, among other topics, that of the danger of the world to youth. The argument proves too much. A father is not reconciled, by the apprehension of a danger, uncertain, and (in this case it may not be presumption to say) improbable, to the loss of a son whom he has reared with careful and anxious thought, to whose future life he looks forward with pleasing hope. The Greek proverb indeed says, "He, whom God loves, dies young;" but we trust that many who do not die young are beloved by God. More effectually did the priest at Avignon console me: he knew, as confessor, the interior and the conscience of Kenelm: "Je vous reponds de son salut; c'étoit un fruit mûr pour le ciel: Dieu l'a cueilli, et l'a mis dans son grenier."[81] The Almighty Father of all, whose wise providence sends afflictions, who knows when those whom he is pleased to call to himself have well finished their course,--he can give assured comfort, and this assured comfort he was graciously pleased to impart to the parents of Henry Kenelm. Mean time let me hope that this example of faith and piety, of filial submission and fraternal love, of application to study, of patience, mortification, chastity, will not be lost; that some will be reclaimed, and many edified. To my children especially, I recommend this memorial, written with tears of mingled joy and grief: they have lost a brother, but they possess the remembrance of his virtues, the knowledge of his felicity, the benefit of his intercession. May they ever bear in mind that "every good, every perfect gift cometh from above;" that to "Him alone is glory," who "in crowning our merits crowneth his own work." [Greek: Dôron toi kai ego, teknon phile, touto didômi.] I will now relate an occurrence, on which I request the reader to exercise his judgment temperately. He will readily believe that I have not invented it: this is not an age in which credit is given to visions or honor to visionaries.