GEORGE TOWN, Dec. 31,[2] 1811.
[Footnote 2: Five days after the Richmond Theatre was burnt.]
_My Dear Madam_,—Under that most severe visitation of Divine
Providence, which it is your fate to suffer, I well know how worse
than useless—how almost cruel and insulting may appear any mention of
comfort, or consolation on the part of a friend. I have none such to
offer: yet I cannot resist the feeling which impels me, at this awful
moment, to speak to you: to remind you that our Heavenly Father
chasteneth whom he loveth; that_ his_ eye is upon us, who died for our
sins; who, having partaken of our nature, looks with pity upon its
errors and its sufferings, and offers to our acceptance a sure and
eternal refuge from the calamities of this life and of the next. It is
he who calls upon us to endure, {569} not with stoical apathy, but
with meek and Christian fortitude, the miseries inseparable from our
mortal condition—to endure them, _for his sake!_ Can we resist this
appeal to our gratitude, made by him, who writhed upon the cross, that
we might escape the eternal wrath of God? In him alone is our
trust:—and when the troubled dream of life is past, let us humbly
hope, that we shall awake to everlasting joy through his all atoning
merits; that we shall be re-united (never more to part) to those who
have preceded us in the voyage of eternity. They are released from
those duties, which we are yet called upon to perform—upon the
faithful discharge of which must depend our becoming acceptable in the
sight of him who made us: our duty towards God; and our duty towards
our neighbor;—our fellow sufferers in humanity. The wide-spread
desolation that hath overwhelmed your house, hath yet left connexions
the most sacred and most dear, who call for the exercise of all the
charities of life. Fix your eye alone upon the survivors, and put your
trust in God! It is my present sense of duty to Him, that alone hath
emboldened me to hold this language to you. I almost shudder at my own
rashness—may he whose grace “surpasseth all human understanding”
support, comfort and bless you! All other hope is vain. It is from
him, and him only, that we can receive strength in this life, or mercy
in the life to come. Human learning and human devices avail nought.
But where am I rambling? My dear madam, I would, but cannot express my
sensations. I turn away my eyes from this world, and endeavor to fix
them upon the next, as the only remedy against that stupefaction of
grief, that at times overcomes me; and yet addressing myself to you,
shall I dare to talk of my grief? May God, in his mercy, restore and
comfort you! So prays, dear madam,
Your fervent friend,
JOHN RANDOLPH, of Roanoke.