"NEW YORK, April, 1792, Sabbath noon. "MY DEAR MADAM--It is not my custom to take my pen on this day even to write to a Christian friend, having occasion for the whole time with my family or in secret with my God; but I cannot go to dinner, I cannot eat, I cannot talk to my girls; my heart must bleed afresh on the same altar upon which it has often been pierced. O, madam, my dear Dr. Mason goes, and leaves me here alone: in all probability his course is nearly finished, and his crown awaits him. Five physicians now attend him closely. I have seen him often, and he says, 'All is well, all will be well,' Of the physicians he said, 'Yes, yes, it is very well; they are useful men in God's hand; they may be instrumental in patching up the tabernacle a little. If it be raised to usefulness, I am content; if not to usefulness, I do not desire it. I feel no concern about the issue of this; the will of the Lord be done.' "I say, Amen; but Oh, I feel alone. I should need large communications from his Master to fill up this blank. I cannot write for weeping; now my face is so swelled I cannot go to church. I called at his house this morning, found the doctors in the parlor, and learned from them the worst. The bell was ringing for church. I stifled as much as possible my grief; would fain have come home to give it vent, but durst not be absent from the house of God. I heard a stranger in Dr. Rodgers' church; our doors are closed; his text was, 'Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends;' he ran the parallel between human friendship and that subsisting between Christ and his disciples. I ought to be comforted, nay, I am comforted. "The Bible lies open before me; it is full of consolation; but all is in prospect. I look at God, what he is in himself, what he is to his people _now_ and what he will be to _eternity_: the consolations of hope are mine; but for the present, I feel like the sparrow on the house-top, or like a pelican in the wilderness; and when I think on my years and the robustness of my constitution, and that I may have a long journey before me, I am not able to look at it. At the same time, when I consider my children, who, having lost their pastor, who bore them on his heart to the throne of grace, have double need of a mother, I dare not indulge a wish, far less put up a petition for release. O, that I could get under the influence of that spirit which I have witnessed in my dear pastor--that entire confidence in God--that perfect resignation to his will--that complacency in all he has done, is doing, or will do--that rest in God, of which he seems to be put in possession even now, while his breast is laboring and heaving like a broken bellows, and he cannot fetch one full breath. O, what cannot God effect.