"Soon after my return from the aforesaid journey, I had to experience a very severe trial and affliction in the removal of my dearly beloved wife. She was taken down with a cold, and although, for a number of days, we had no anticipation of danger from her complaint, yet about five days after she was taken, the disorder appeared to settle on her lungs, and it brought on an inflammation which terminated in a dissolution of her precious life, on the ninth day from the time she was taken ill. She had but little bodily pain, yet as she became weaker, she suffered from shortness of breathing; but before her close, she became perfectly tranquil and easy, and passed away like a lamb, as though entering into a sweet sleep, without sigh or groan, or the least bodily pain, on the 17th of Third month, 1829: And her precious spirit, I trust and believe, has landed safely on the angelic shore, 'where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.' To myself, to whom she was a truly affectionate wife, and to our children, whom she endeavored, by precept and example, to train up in the paths of virtue, and to guard and keep out of harm's way, her removal is a great and irreparable loss: and nothing is left to us in that behalf, but a confident belief and an unshaken hope, that our great loss is her still greater gain; and although the loss and trial, as to all my external blessings, are the greatest I have ever met with, or ever expect to have to endure, yet I have a hope, that, though separated, I may be preserved from mourning or complaining; and that I may continually keep in view the unmerited favour dispensed to us, by being preserved together fifty-eight years in one unbroken bond of endeared affection, which seemed if possible to increase with time to the last moment of her life; and which neither time nor distance can lessen or dissolve; but in the spiritual relation I trust it will endure for ever, where all the Lord's redeemed children are one in him, who is God over all, in all, and through all, blessed forever. She was buried on the 19th, and on this solemn occasion, the Lord, who is strength in weakness, enabled me to bear a public and, I trust, a profitable testimony to the virtues and excellences of her long and consistent life."[191] [191] "Journal," p 425.