Letter 1. To Mr. James Elphinston
_ LETTER I. To MR. JAMES ELPHINSTON
Sept. 25th, 1750.
DEAR SIR,--You have, as I find by every kind of evidence, lost an excellent mother； and I hope you will not think me incapable of partaking of your grief. I have a mother, now eighty-two years of age, whom, therefore, I must soon lose, unless it please God that she rather should mourn for me. I read the letters in which you relate your mother‘s death to Mrs. Strahan, and think I do myself honour, when I tell you that I read them with tears； but tears are neither to you, nor to me, of any farther use, when once the tribute of nature has been paid. The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues, of which we are lamenting our deprivation.
The greatest benefit which one friend can confer upon another, is to guard and excite and elevate his virtues. This your mother will still perform, if you diligently preserve the memory of her life, a

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