University of Virginia Library

TO MRS. SHAW.

Your imagination was so glowingly alive in your
last descriptive letter that mine lags after it in vain.
From the vivid warmth of the coloring I should fancy
that the cold north wind had not blown rudely upon
you this season.

For the numberless blessings which have crowned
the past year my heart glows with gratitude and my

mind expands in grateful acknowledgment to that
bountiful Being who hath made me to differ from
many others.

In the year past, several of my friends and acquaintance
have ceased from their labors. Their
works remain with us. In the death of Mrs. Warren[1]
and Vice President Gerry I recognise that of no ordinary
characters. Mrs. Warren was like a shock of corn
fully ripe for the harvest. The celestial spirit which
animated the clay was not altogether extinct. It
ascended to catch new life and vigor in the pure
regions of bliss and to share in the joys of our heavenly
inheritance.

With Mr. Gerry died one of the first and oldest
patriots of the revolution—a firm steady and unshaken
friend of more than fifty years ripening. "Such
friends grow not thick on every bough." His age
promised a longer life and his usefulness was not
impaired by it. "Back-wounding calumny the
whitest virtue strikes." He shared largely in the
abuse of party factions and may have been kindly
recalled before the next election lacerated his reputation
and bespattered his fair and honorable fame. I
rejoice that Mr. Gore's motion in the Senate prevailed,
and think it an honorable trait in that gentleman's
character to whom Mr. Gerry had been a successful
political competitor and rival, to show himself superior
to political division, and become the friend of the

family by exerting himself to assist it. This is the
temper and spirit of a Christian.