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DISÇ.SI.i
THE
WATCHFUL CHRISTIAN DYING
IN
PEACI.
35
herself
all the
polite
diversions
of
youth agreeable
to
her
rank
;
nor
did reason,
or religion, or
her
superior rela-
tives forbid her
;
yet
she was still
awake
to
secure
all
that
belongs to
honour and virtue, nor
did-she use
to
venture
to
the utmost
bounds of
what sobriety and religion might
allow.
Danger
of
guilt stands near
the extreme limits
of
innocence.
Shall
I
let
this
paper
inform the
world, with
what
friendly
decency
she
treated ber
young companions and
acquaintance
how
far from indulging the modish
liber-
ties
of
scandal on the
absent
how
much
she
hated those
scornful
and,
derisive
airs, .which persons, on
higher.
ground, too
often assume toward those,
who
are seated
in the inferior ranks
of
life?
Is it proper,
I
should
say,
bow much her
behaviour
won
upon
the esteem
of
all
that
knew
her, though
Leonid appeal
to the general sorrow
at
her death,
to
confirm the
truth of it? But
who
can
for-
bear,
on this occasion, to
take
notice,
how
far
she
ac-
quired that
lovely
character;
iri
her
narrow and
priv
to
sphere,
which seems
almost to
have
been derived
to
hr,
by
inheritance, from her
honoured father
deceased, who
had
the tears
of
his
country long dropping upon
his
tomb
and
whose
memory yet
lives
in
a thousand
hearts?
Such
a conversation,
and such a
character,
made
up
of
piety
and
virtue, were
prepared
for the
attacks
of
a.
fever, with
rnalignant'and
mortal
symptoms. Slow
and
'unsuspected
were
the advances
of
the disease, till the
powers
of
reason began
to faulter
and retire,
till the
heralds
of
death had made their
appearance, and spread
on
her
bosom
their purple
'ensigns.
When
these
disor-
ders
began,
her
lucid
intervals
were
longer, and, while
she thought no person
was
near; she could
address
herself
to God, and
say, how
often
she had given
herself
to
hirn
;
she
hoped
shehad
done it sincerely,
and
found
accept-
ance
with
him,
and
trusted
that
she was
not
deceived.
"The
gleams
of
reason,
that
broke
in
between the
clouds,
gave her
light enough tó
discern
her
own
evidences
of
piety, and
refresh her hope.
'Then
she
repeated
some
of
the last
verses
of the
cxxxix.?sÍlzit
in
metre,
vi.
;.
:"'Lord;
search my
soul,
try
every
thought:
Though
mÿ own
heart
accuse
me not,
Of
walking
in
a
false
disguise,
I
beg
the
trial
of
thy
eyes.