37- Z//A' AXD CORRESPONDENCE OF THE [l793 



But the pestilence was walking in darkness, and in a moment 

 was at the side of Dr. Smith himself. He was spared, but one 

 dearer to him than himself was stricken down in the destruction 

 of the noonday. The following letter to Dr. Rush gives us some 

 interesting particulars of the sad event. It would seem that Dr. 

 Rush, the family physician of Dr. Smith, had himself been taken 

 ill suddenly with the fever, and was therefore unable to attend 

 Mrs. Smith, though prior to her being taken ill he had been con- 

 stantly visiting Dr. Smith's house and prescribing for his family: 



Dr. Smith to Dr. Rush. 



PHIL.A.DELPHIA, October 23CI, 1793. 



My Dear Friend: Indeed my only friend, whose own distress has 

 permitted him to mingle his cordials of consolation in my bitter cup 

 of affliction. How shall I thank you for your many sympathies — worthy 

 of a physician, and (what is above all) worthy of a Christian? 



The severest dispensation of Providence is now past with me, and 

 blessed be God who has enabled me to sustain it. That dispensation 

 which shall lay me by the side of my dear departed inestimable treasure 

 in this life, will be but little felt, as I trust through the mercies of my 

 God and Saviour, it will call me to share with her, her treasure in an- 

 other and better life, where, as you so well express it, according to the 

 sacred oracles, Death and the grave, and hell itself shall be "swallowed 

 up in victory;" the genuine friendships of this life shall be revived, 

 and love and life and light and truth reign forever and ever. 



But, oh ! busy recollections and memory asleep and awake, and the 

 many tender charities and offices due to my bereaved family and chil- 

 dren, who nearly adored the heavenly woman I have lost; the sight of 

 the numerous remembrances of her in the lonesome house; the letters 

 and written charges which she has left me, with the delivery of her keys 

 to me by the faithful little black girl after her funeral, judge, my dear 

 sir, nay feel — for your feelings are tenderly alive — how these circum- 

 stances thrill my nerves, which were never strong, and how they keep 

 my heart and limbs and whole body in such a palpitation and trembling 



long time in Paris, and was finally liberated by the intercession of the (]ueen. lie 

 afterwards went to Germany, in which country he spent about eighteen years, preach- 

 ing extensively, devoting himself in the meanwhile to scientific studies. In the thirty- 

 eighth year of his age he emigrated to America, and was taken from the ship by Christo- 

 ])her .Saner. On recovering from his illness, De Benneville established himself in Oley, 

 Bucks county, as a physician, and also temporarfly as a teacher. He also preached 

 and travelled much as a medical botanist among the Indian tribes in northern Penn- 

 sylvania. He intermarried with the Bartolet family, of Oley, and about 1757 removed 

 tu Mileslown, where he died in 1793, aged ninety years. 



