DEAR SIR,—I received a letter from Mr. Caw, acquainting me with the death of your daughter, Miss Jenny. How it affects me I cannot so well describe as Mr. Caw described the mournful scene of distress in which your whole family is plunged on this melancholy occasion. But, he writes me, that Mrs. Wallace has been wonderfully supported under this severe trial of her faith and patience. This is the doing of the Lord, who commonly stays His rough wind in the day of His east wind. What an alleviating circumstance in your trial is it, that you have no reason to “mourn as those who have no hope?” How many live to see their children and relations cut off in the prime of life by diseases that are the just effects of vice and intemperance? How many darts and throes must pierce their hearts; what additional gall and wormwood is mixed in their cup, which the relations and parents of pious children are strangers to! Patience under God’s afflicting hand, and a resignation to His Divine will, are not only the chief supporters of our faith, but the only means within our reach, in the day of affliction, whereby we can glorify God. Could you hear your dear departed child adopting the language of her Redeemer, and saying, “If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I am gone to the Father.” Oh, how backward are our hearts to this duty of rejoicing! Our passions often get the better of our understandings, as well as of our faith, and our memories are ever faithful here, and earnestly treasure up all the amiable qualities of our departed friends in a long succession, and tear open our wounds to bleed afresh. Nay, our imaginations are set to work, and stuff up their empty garments in their former shape and size, when we miss them at bed or board. It is surprising, that when our understandings and judgment are fully convinced of the equality of God’s ways, and that His whole paths are not only truth, but mercy also, to such as fear him, and when our faith is unable to read invisible designs of that love and mercy in our trials, that it has so little influence in silencing the inward murmurs of our souls. But surely it must be an object pleasing to God himself, who knows our frame, and remembers we are dust to look on us surrounded with all the weakness of the flesh, and those frailties that are inseparable from human nature in its perfect state, lying low in dust, and weeping with a feeling smart of our pain and loss, and at the same time acquiescing in His whole disposal of us and ours, striving to imitate Christ’s prayer, “Not my will, but thine be done.” But if, instead of a constant poring upon our wounds and refusing to be comforted, we had the blessed art of letting our faith trace out our friends in the regions of bliss and immortality, where (to use the words of Milton) “they walk with God, high in salvation and the climes of bliss,” we would rejoice in their felicity. It is true, that the partition which divides us from the eternal world is impenetrable, except what is revealed. But revelation informs us, that the state of the righteous is a state of happiness beyond what eye hath seen, or ear heard, or it hath entered into the heart of man to conceive. Yet as to what it really consists in, or the manner of their various employments, we are left much in the dark, as perhaps not fit to be revealed in this state. But surely it is pardonable to be casting some guesses or conjectures over this wall that divides us for a while from our friends, as it is impossible to confine our active souls under the canopy of the sun, moon, and stars; and, except where relation here and there gives a hint of the heavenly state, analogy is our next best guide into those scenes which eye hath not seen.
I remember long ago, to have read a book of Dr. Watt’s called Death and Heaven, where he has happily indulged his fancy in assigning various employments for the blessed. He thinks there may be some solemn stated periods of worship in heaven beyond what is their common service either to commemorate some of the past transactions of the Godhead, or to celebrate some new discovery of God. And truly, considering the infinite nature of God, and His glorious works of creation and redemption, and the finite nature of the highest order of created beings; there must be new discoveries of God made to the blessed through all eternity, as they can only receive such discoveries in succession, and it is highly probable that some of the past acts of Jehovah shall be commemorated at stated periods to endless ages; and perhaps some such manifestation or discovery has been lately made—unknown till now in heaven itself—and perhaps there has been a new song composed on this occasion, either by Michael, Gabriel, Moses, or David, or by some other masterly hand, to celebrate this discovery, and that the concert was incomplete till a messenger was sent for your dear child to assist in singing the chorus, as her sweet melodious voice was so well tuned before to the songs of Zion.
Our Lord once entered into Jerusalem with a grand retinue, and He had a demand for an ass to ride upon, that He might fulfil an ancient prophecy concerning Himself. A messenger was despatched for the ass, and if the owner quarrelled he had positive orders to tell him that “the Lord had need of him.” If your heart grudge or quarrel that your child was so soon loosed from you, saying “Why was my dear child so suddenly snatched from me in the bloom of youth, when I expected she would have been the comfort of my old age, and soothed my pains in distress?” Why, the same answer stands in record for you, “the Lord hath need of her.” He had need of more virgins in the train, and your dear child was pitched upon; therefore rejoice in her honour and happiness. Our Lord has gone to heaven to prepare mansions for His people, and He sends His Spirit to prepare His people for their mansions; and after they have served an apprenticeship to their employments that they may be fit to act agreeably to the great end of their calling, and fill their thrones to the honour and glory of that God who hath called them to honour and glory, He then crowns them with endless happiness. Some have a longer time of probation than others. If I were to reason from analogy, I might ask Mrs. Wallace: When she was with child of her departed daughter, if she desired to keep her in that close union with herself any longer than her full time was come, that is, when the child was perfectly formed for this world, and fit to exercise her senses upon the various objects which this world affords? Nay, did she not wish for the happy moment of separation, though she knew the pangs and throes of child-bearing? And why should Mrs. Wallace or you, who rejoiced so much at her first birth, mourn at her being admitted into the number of the spirits of the just made perfect, when it is certain that many who rejoiced with you at her first birth, hailed her arrival on the coasts of bliss. Among those who rejoiced with you at her first birth, and saluted her on the heavenly shore, we may safely mention Mr. and Mrs. Hogg, and others of your pious relations and neighbours who have got crowns on their heads and palms in their hands since her first birth; but this subject would lead me beyond the bound of a letter. I have only to add, that from my very soul I sympathise with you and your whole family in your loss, which is her gain and glory. May the Lord bless your remaining children, and preserve them to be the comfort of your age, and form them to be vessels fit for the Master’s use, and fill your own soul with those consolations that flow neither from wife, child, nor friend, nor anything this world can give or take away, is the sincere prayer of—Yours, &c. DUGALD BUCHANAN.