That his sufferings upon the death of his wife were severe, beyond what
are commonly endured, I have no doubt, from the information of many
who were then about him, to none of whom I give more credit than to Mr.
Francis Barber, his faithful negro servant, who came into his family
about a fortnight after the dismal event. These sufferings were
aggravated by the melancholy inherent in his constitution; and although
he probably was not oftener in the wrong than she was, in the little
disagreements which sometimes troubled his married state, during which,
he owned to me, that the gloomy irritability of his existence was more
painful to him than ever, he might very naturally, after her death, be
tenderly disposed to charge himself with slight omissions and offences,
the sense of which would give him much uneasiness. Accordingly we find,
about a year after her decease, that he thus addressed the Supreme
Being: 'O LORD, who givest the grace of repentance, and hearest the
prayers of the penitent, grant that by true contrition I may obtain
forgiveness of all the sins committed, and of all duties neglected in
my union with the wife whom thou hast taken from me; for the neglect of
joint devotion, patient exhortation, and mild instruction.' The kindness
of his heart, notwithstanding the impetuosity of his temper, is well
known to his friends; and I cannot trace the smallest foundation for
the following dark and uncharitable assertion by Sir John Hawkins: 'The
apparition of his departed wife was altogether of the terrifick kind,
and hardly afforded him a hope that she was in a state of happiness.'
That he, in conformity with the opinion of many of the most able,
learned, and pious Christians in all ages, supposed that there was a
middle state after death, previous to the time at which departed
souls are finally received to eternal felicity, appears, I think,
unquestionably from his devotions: 'And, O LORD, so far as it may be