unite with us) to offer you and your family our sincere condolence and sympathy for your late bereavement?

Your "poor boy" has indeed left you forever, so far as this world is concerned; and we do not forget that it is not long since we saw you deploring with calmness, but in bitterness of sorrow, the loss of an amiable and favorite daughter. If I knew how to address you on such a sad occasion, without on the one hand appearing obtrusive, or, on the other, omitting what might be proper and acceptable, I should be most happy to do so. Whatever may be our situation in life, death is a very solemn thing when it comes home to our firesides, and to those we know and esteem. It will excite serious reflection, and why not?-When the young die, certainly those who are advanced in life, or of mature age, should reflect that eternity-boundless and limitless eternity-is just before them, separated only by a moment of time. Such have been my own reflections when endeavoring to place myself in your situation, and to participate with you in the grief which you must experience in this renewed domestic affliction. If I cannot feel your loss as a parent, I can do so as a man, and a friend. Few persons live to sixty, or to fifty years, without knowing what it is to lose those who are near and dear to them. My own heart is not a stranger to this terrible ordeal.

I knew and esteemed your son. I noticed him often in early childhood, and he used to seem pleased with my attentions. As he grew into manhood, I always fancied that I could perceive many fine traits of character, that only required mature age, and the experience of the world, which that necessarily brings, to have made a solid and useful man. But like most of the millions who have lived on this earth, he was destined to die young. There is a consolation in the conviction that there is another and better state of existence; and most of all others is that person to be envied, in my judgment, who can assure himself that he will enjoy it, the moment he ceases to exist here. To you, who know me, these sentiments may seem strange. They are, however, such as I have long entertained. Once more, tendering you, from my heart, the sincerest condolence and sympathy,

I remain, as ever, respectfully, your friend,

STEPHEN STRONG.

MR. DOUGLAS TO MR. DICKINSON.

CHICAGO, ILL., October 21, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR-Your kind favor of the 3d inst. has reached me at this place, having been forwarded from Washington. I was able to leave there a few days after the adjournment, and took the Erie route, but was unable to stop over a day, as I was in a hurry to get home. I had the pleasure of seeing your friend, Birdsall, a moment at the depot in your place, and to learn from him that you were well. It was the first time I had travelled that route. I was delighted with it, and think it far preferable to the one by Albany. Your town is a charming place. I have seen nothing like it in all my travels, taking the town and surrounding country into view together. I shall gladly avail myself of the first convenient opportunity to make you a visit.

I have the honor to remain

Very truly your friend,

S. A. DOUGLAS.

MR. CLINTON TO MR. DICKINSON.

BUFFALO, October 21, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR-I am deeply grieved at the melancholy intelligence contained in this morning's Argus. I know what it is to suffer from such blows, and how sadly ineffective even the voice of sympathy is to assuage the grief occasioned by them. But it is the privilege of friends to express their sympathy, and I would be pained at being deprived of it in this instance. Your many acts of kindness have won my affectionate regards, as your public course commands my respect and approval; and I assure you that very few, if any, out of your immediate family connections can deplore this calamity more truly, or be more anxious to testify their sense of it, than am I. God bless you, is my fervent prayer.

Most respectfully and sincerely

Your friend and servant,

G. W. CLINTON.

MR. PRUYN TO MR. DICKINSON.

ALBANY, October 23, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR-Permit me to express to you the sympathy I feel for yourself and Mrs. Dickinson, in the loss you have sustained in the death of your son. I am aware that friends can say but little to console you. The trials of life must long since have led you to seek those aids and supports in trouble, which a firm reliance in the truths of revelation alone can give. That they may sustain you at this trying time I have no doubt. Mrs. Pruyn begs to be particularly remembered to Mrs. Dickinson, and to assure her that she has her warmest sympathies.

We shall be very glad if, when you leave for Washington, you will come this way, and spend a few days at our house. We promise that you shall be perfectly quiet and retired. You will, of course, bring your daughter with you. The change of air and scene will be of benefit to all of you, and we shall make you at home if you will only come to us. With great regard, most truly yours,

JOHN V. L. PRUYN.

MR. DIX TO MR. DICKINSON.

NEW YORK, October 25, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR-My wife and I were very much pained to observe that the apprehension you expressed in respect to your son, when I saw you at the Irving House, was so soon realized; and I beg you to believe that we both sincerely sympathize with you and Mrs. Dickinson in your affliction. It has pleased heaven to spare us such a trial as yours. On you and your excellent wife the hand of affliction has indeed been heavily laid. If we could say one word which could afford you consolation, you know how freely it would be spoken. But in such affliction the heart is its own best comforter. Yet the sympathy of friends is always grateful; and it is to assure you and Mrs. Dickinson how much we lament your loss that I write you this brief note. My wife will never cease to

cherish for her a sincere regard, and, with my kind remembrances to her, I beg you to believe me

Truly yours,

JOHN A. DIX.

BISHOP DELANCEY TO MR. DICKINSON.

GENEVA, November 23, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR-I passed through Binghamton a short time. since, and regret that I was not able to stop a day and call on yourself and Mrs. Dickinson, and express to you in person my sympathy with you in the recent affliction with which you have been visited, and to assure you of my prayers that God would sustain and comfort you by His grace. Let me intrude upon you to say this by letter. You have had heretofore such trials as, I have no doubt, have led you both to the only sure fountain of relief, "the very present help in every time of trouble." I need not, therefore, direct you to that throne of Grace, which you have already sought, nor seek to convince you of what you already admit, that affliction springeth not from the dust, but is overruled and applied by a power and wisdom above us. Let this new trial be met with the patient submission and humble improvement which the dealings of an Heavenly Father, as merciful as he is wise, calls for from us, his erring children. Commending you and yours to the divine support and blessing in the mercies and grace of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I remain sincerely

Your friend and Bishop,

W. II. DELANCEY.

MR. RANDALL TO MR. DICKINSON.

CORTLAND VILLAGE, December, 1850.

I

MY DEAR SIR-Your note reached me this evening. should have written you long since to express to you the sorrow I feel for you in the sad bereavement you informed me of in your last letter from Binghamton. But the subject is so painful that I have shrunk from approaching it. I knew not

your son, but I have only heard him favorably spoken of. And I learn he was your only son. I have been called to sustain a similar, but not an equal, bereavement, for I had, and still have two other sons. But I feel that I can appreciate your sorrow. Years have passed by since I buried my child, and time has poured balm on the painful wound; but there are times-lulls in the feverish tumult of life-when the remembrance of the sad parting, of the sudden transformation of warm life into cold, insensible, mouldering clay, unmans me. And I now constantly and painfully feel by how frail a tenure I hold all that is near and dear to me. The moral, my friend, of such afflictions is, "Be ye also ready." And yet how few of us learn it! What phenomenon is there in all wide nature equal to that displayed by all of us-we, especially, who have loved and lostin pursuing so steadily and zealously the hollow phantasms of this world? Standing on the verge of the devouring grave and the dark and dim hereafter, we show the wisdom of him who, caught in the rapids of the cataract, should spend his time in grasping at the bubbles and the foam of the current which was hurrying him on to his death.

But dark and dim as is the hereafter, we know something of it. We know that we shall survive the devouring grave. We believe we shall meet the loved and lost in the far distant Aden; we hope to be happy with them there forever! This should console us. In view of the shoreless future, of what moment is the subtraction of a few weary years from the sum of life? When a few more years have run their course, of what moment will it be whether we have closed the eyes of our children and borne them to the grave, or they perform the same sad office for us? Happiest are they who fall earliest by the way-side, and throw off their life-burden.

Your friend,

HENRY S. RANDALL.

MR. WEBSTER TO MR. DICKINSON.

SATURDAY MORNING, December 28.

MY DEAR SIR-The House passed, last night, a very important resolution, providing for the filling up the gap in the pub