Need I, sons and daughters, need I record at any length how Maria mourned for her father? If you now have parents worthy of your love, if you now have hearts to love them, I may safely leave that theme to your affections: "now" is for all things "the accepted time," now is the day for reconciliations: our life is a perpetual now. However unfilial you may have been, however stern or negligent they, if there is now the will to bless, and now the heart to love, all is well--well at the last, well now for evermore--thank Heaven for so glad a consummation. Oh, that my pen had power to make many fathers kind, many children trustful! Oh, that by some burning word I could thaw the cold, shame sarcasms, and arouse the apathetic! Oh that, invoking upon every hearth, whereto this book may come, the full free blaze of home affections, my labour of love be any thing but vain, when God shall have blessed what I am writing! Yes, children, dear Maria did mourn for her father, but she mourned as those who hope; his life had been forgiven, and his death was as a saints's: as for her, rich rewarded daughter at the last, one word of warm acknowledgement, one look of true affection, one tear of deep contrition, would have been superabundant to clear away all the many clouds, the many storms of her past home-life: and as for our Maker, with his pure and spotless justice, faith in the sacrifice had passed all sin to him, and love of the Redeemer had proved that faith the true one. How should a daughter mourn for such a soul? With tears of joy; with sighs--of kindred hopefulness; with happiest resolve to live as he had died; with instant prayer that her last end be like his. There is a plain tablet in St. Benet's church, just within the altar-rail, bearing--no inscription about Lord Mayoralty, Knighthood, or the Worshipful Company of Stationers--but full of facts more glorious than every honour under heaven; for the words run thus: SORROWFUL, YET REJOICING, A DAUGHTER'S LOVE HAS PLACED THIS TABLET TO THE MEMORY OF T H O M A S D I L L A W A Y; A MAN WHO DIED IN THE FAITH OF CHRIST, IN THE LOVE OF GOD, AND IN THE HOPE OF HEAVEN. Noble epitaph! Let us so live, that the like of this may be truth on our tomb-stones. Seek it, rather than wealth, before honour, instead of pleasure; for, indeed, those words involve within their vast significancy riches unsearchable, glory indestructible, and pleasure for evermore! Hide them, as a string of precious pearls, within the casket of your hearts.