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you do not obstruct her. There is a time and period for all things here. Nature will first prevail, but as soon as we can we must think what is our duty, and pursue it as well as we are able. I beseech God to teach you to submit to this unlookedfor, and to appearance sadly severe providence, and endue you with a quiet spirit, to wait for the day of consolation, when joy will be our portion to all eternity: in that day we shall meet again all our pious friends, all that have died in their innocence, and with them live a life of innocence, and purity, and gladness for ever. Fit your thoughts with these undoubted truths, my dear sister, as much and as often as is possible. I know no other cure for such diseases; nor shall we miss one, if we endeavour, with God's grace assisting, which he certainly gives to such as ask. God give you refreshments. I am your, &c.

LETTER XX.

FROM THE SAME TO

18th October, 1691.

THE misfortunes of such as one extremely esteems grow our own; so that if my constant sad heart were not so soon touched as it is with deplorable accidents, I should yet feel a great deal of your just mourning; if sharing a calamity could ease you, that burden would be little for as depraved an age as we live in, there is such a force in virtue and goodness that all the world laments with you;

and yet sure, madam, when we part from what we love most that is excellent, it is our best support that nature, who will be heard first, does suffer reason to take place.

What can relieve so much, as that our friend died after a well-spent life? Some losses are so surprising and so great, one must not break in too soon, and therefore my sense of your calamity confined me to only a solicitous inquiry; and I doubt it is still a mistaken respect to dwell long upon such a subject. I will do no more than sign this truth, that I am your, &c.

LETTER XXI.

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON TO LADY RUSSELL.

MADAM,

Lambeth-house, August 26th, 1693. THOUGH nobody rejoices more than myself in the happiness of your ladyship and your children, yet in the hurry in which you must needs have been, I could not think it fit for to give you the disturbance so much as of a letter, which otherwise had, both in friendship and good manners, been due upon this great occasion. But now that busy time is in a good measure over, I cannot forbear after so many as, I am sure, have been before me, to congratulate with your ladyship this happy match of your daughter; for so I heartily pray it may prove, and have great reason to believe it will, because I cannot but look upon it as part of the

comfort and reward of your patience and submission to the will of God, under that sorest and most heavy affliction that could have befallen you, and when God sends and intends a blessing, it shall have no sorrow or evil with it.

I intreat my lord Ross aud his lady to accept of my humble service, and my hearty wishes of great and lasting happiness.

My poor wife is at present very ill, which goes very near me: and having said this, I know we shall have your prayers. I entreat you to give my humble service to my lord of Bedford, and my lord of Cavendish and his lady. I could upon several accounts be melancholy, but I will not upon so joyful an occasion. I pray God to preserve and bless your ladyship, and all the good family at Woborne, and to make us all concerned to prepare ourselves with the greatest care for a better life. I am, with all true respect and esteem, madam, your ladyship's most faithful and most humble servant.

LETTER XXII.

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

Lambeth-house, October 13th, 1693.

I HAVE forborn, madam, hitherto even to acknowledge the receipt of your ladyship's letter, and your kind concernment for mine and my wife's health, because I saw how unmerciful you were to your eyes in your last letter to me: so that I

should certainly have repented the provocation I gave you to it by mine, had not so great and good an occasion made it necessary.

I had intended this morning to have sent Mr. Vernon to Woborne, to have inquired of your ladyship's health, having but newly heard, that since your return from Belvoir, a dangerous fever had

seized upon you. But yesterday morning, at council, I happily met with Mr. Russell, who, to my great joy, told me that he hoped that danger was over; for which I thank God with all my heart, because I did not know how fatal the event might be, after the care and hurry you had been in, and in so sickly a season.

The king's return is now only hindered by contrary winds. I pray God to send him safe to us, and to direct him what to do when he is come. I was never so much at my wit's end concerning the public. God only can bring us out of the labyrinth we are in, and I trust he will.

My wife gives her most humble service and thanks to you for your concernment for her, and does rejoice equally with me for the good news of your recovery.

Never since I knew the world had I so much reason to value my friends. In the condition I now am I can have no new ones, or, if I could, [ can have no assurance that they are so. I could not at a distance believe that the upper end of the world was so hollow as I find it. I except a very few, of whom I can believe no ill till I plainly see it.

I have ever earnestly coveted your letters; but now I do as earnestly beg of you to spare them

With my very

for my sake, as well as your own. humble service to my good lord of Bedford, and to all yours, and my hearty prayers to God for you all, I remain, madam, your ladyship's most obliged and obedient servant*.

SIR,

LETTER XXIII.

LADY RUSSELL TO KING WILLIAM.

I RATHER choose to trouble your majesty with a letter, than be wanting in my duty, in the most submissive manner imaginable, to acknowledge the honour and favour I am told your majesty designs for lord Rutland and his family, in which I am so much interested.

It is an act of great goodness, sir, in you; and the generous manner you have been pleased to

per

The archbishop's correspondence with lady Russel! had been interrupted on her part for many months, by the disorder in her eyes increasing to such a degree, that she was obliged, on the 27th of June, 1694, to submit to the operation of couching. Upon this occasion his grace drew up a prayer two days after, in which he touched upon the death of her husband, "whom the holy and righteous Providence," says he, mitted [under a colour of law and justice] to be [unjustly] cut off from the land of the living." But over the words between the brackets, after the first writing, he drew a line, as intending to erase them, probably from a reflection that they might be too strong, or less suitable to a prayer. June 28th he wrote to the bishop of Salisbury, "I cannot forbear to tell you, that my lady Russell's eye was couched yesterday morning with very good success; God be praised for it."

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