68 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



during the night, when there is no light to enter. You 

 were before sitting in the shade, not, however, in so 

 deep a recess but that at times a ray reached you from 

 without ; but I now feel that your sad bereavement must 

 have converted your day into night; that you are 

 sitting in darkness, and that an atmosphere of darkness 

 surrounds you. 



'I am not unacquainted with grief. There are 

 friends separated from me by the wide, dark, impassable 

 gulf whom I cannot think of even yet without feeling 

 my heart swell. Shall I not describe to you that pro- 

 cess of suffering of which my own mind has been the 

 subject ? There may be some comfort to you in the re- 

 flection that what you experience is, to use the language 

 of Scripture, " according to the nature of man." The 

 similarity in the structure of our bodies, which shows us 

 to belong to the same race, obtains also in our minds ; 

 and as dangerous wounds in the one are followed in 

 most cases by fevers and inflammations, which bear the 

 same names in every subject, and to which we apply the 

 same remedies, so wounds of the other are commonly 

 followed by similar symptoms of derangement in the 

 feelings, and to mitigate the smart and the fever, philo- 

 sophy applies the same salves, and religion, when called 

 upon, pours in the same balm. 



1 There is an analogy between grief in its first stage 

 and that state of imperfect consciousness which is in- 

 duced by a severe blow. We are stupefied rather than 

 pained, and our only feeling seems to be one of wonder 

 and regret that we should feel so little. AVe ask our 

 hearts why they are so callous and indifferent, and won- 

 der that what we so prized as the lost should be so little 

 regretted. But we know not that, were we affected less, 

 we should feel more. The chords have been so rudely 



