p202 [Mr Ulrich] MY DEAR BROTHER, - kindly let me know of the loss of your dear boy, and I write a line only to assure you and Mrs. - of my unfeigned sympathy.

The Lord has seen good to lay His hand, dear brother, heavily upon you, but it is all in love. He would bring you close to Himself, and make this world more of a passage, and a wilderness; and such it is, for a saint who has a place in the Father's house. "This is not your rest," says a prophet, "because it is polluted." What an honour! God has sanctified us to Himself, and cannot have us rest where He cannot; but the promise is left us of entering into His: but we need to be weaned from this world, to have our hearts there. He is working this with you. I have always felt that the first break in the family is more than all others. Our children are a kind of continued life to us, we live on in them. But when death first strikes a family, we find death has come in and has power where life was. It tells the tale that all here is smitten. But Christ has come in where death was, and given a life beyond it all. He calls us in gracious and tender love to live in that. He knows how to comfort - knows what death is far better than we do, because He is the resurrection and the life - has wept over it and suffered it; He will comfort you and Mrs. - with a comfort which, if it feels for death, death cannot touch. Assure also - and all how much I feel the stroke that has fallen upon you. I trust it may be for deep blessing to them. Peace be with you.

January, 1873.

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