To Mrs. C----, Boston. "GREENWICH, N.Y., Sept. 26, 1805. "MY DEAR FRIEND--I arrived here on Monday. I found my children in health, but much affected with the death of the amiable youth M----, and the melancholy situation of his bereaved parents. "The epidemic spreads over the city in every direction among the few remaining in it. All the public offices are here; crowds of the citizens, and houses and stores spring up in a day; all is bustle and confusion, and all seem mad on business. "Parting with my dear friend was most painful, so painful that nothing could alleviate it but the presence of my own children, who, could there have been room from deeper sorrows, would have shared it with me. O that I could put my God in my place in your heart. What are earthly friends? How few are steady against all change of circumstances; of these, fewer still have it in their power to supply every link of friendship's chain; a thousand unforeseen incidents disappoint their wishes and frustrate their hopes, rendering abortive their greatest exertions. But there is a Friend, everywhere present, thoroughly acquainted with every circumstance of the heart and of the life; all-powerful to relieve; whose love is invariable, and ever the most tender when every other friend stands aloof; a friend in adversity, 'a friend who sticketh closer than a brother,' whose love surpasseth the love of women. This Friend receiveth sinners--casts out none who come to him. He was never known to disappoint the hopes of any poor sinner. He receives them into his heart; he takes all their burdens and cares on himself, pays all their debts, answers all demands against them, and is every way surety for them; they become his own, no one has any thing to say to them but himself. He knows them--how apt to err, to wander, yea, to forget him, and prove ungrateful; all this he knows, but he has made provision for all. He has a rod, and he will subdue their iniquities. He will heal their backslidings, he will bring back and restore his wanderers. He will in due time perfect what concerns them, and present them to his Father purified, without spot or wrinkle.