It is great indeed. Others
may lose of their abundance, but I, of my want, have lost even the half
of all I had. My evening prospects now hang on the slender thread of
a single life. Perhaps I maybe destined to see even this last cord of
parental affection broken! The hope with which I had looked forward
to the moment, when, resigning public cares to younger hands, I was to
retire to that domestic comfort from which the last great step is to be
taken, is fearfully blighted. When you and I look back on the country
over which we have passed, what a field of slaughter does it exhibit!
Where are all the friends who entered it with us, under all the
inspiring energies of health and hope? As if pursued by the havoc of
war, they are strewed by the way, some earlier, some later, and scarce
a few stragglers remain to count the numbers fallen, and to mark yet,
by their own fall, the last footsteps of their party. Is it a desirable
thing to bear up through the heat of the action to witness the death of
all our companions, and merely be the last victim? I doubt it. We have,
however, the traveller's consolation. Every step shortens the distance
we have to go; the end of our journey is in sight, the bed wherein we
are to rest, and to rise in the midst of the friends we have lost. 'We
sorrow not, then, as others who have no hope'; but look forward to the
day which 'joins us to the great majority.
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