On the present mournful occasion he addressed the congregation, in a very impressive manner, on the heavy loss they had sustained in the death of their valued President; and exhorted them to remember and to imitate his piety, his charity, and his exemplary patience and self- denial, under the trying circumstances that had marked the period of his brief government. These circumstances had become less painful, it is true, since their friendly intercourse with the Wampanoges, and the genial change in the weather; but still the trials of the Pilgrims were by no means over, and their need of faith in the good providence of God, and of persevering resolution in the path which they had chosen for themselves, remained as great as ever. Deeply was the less of their first President felt by the colony, for every individual mourned him as a private friend, as well as a wise end benevolent ruler. But the blow fell with more crushing power on her who had shared his checkered life of joy and sorrow for many years in Europe, and had accompanied him into exile, with the devoted feeling that his presence would make the wilderness a home. His sudden removal, and the cheerless blank that succeeded, were more than the strength of his afflicted widow could endure; and in six weeks she followed him the grave. From that time, it appeared as if the severity of the scourge that had ravaged the infant settlement was exhausted, for scarcely any more deaths occurred during that year; and many who had hitherto suffered from the effects of disease, regained their usual strength, and lived to a remarkably advanced age.