mild, and benevolent; exerts itself in acts of kindness and charity,
and seems only substituting the love of God to that of man.

Who can help admiring, whilst they pity, the foundress of the
Ursuline convent, Madame de la Peltrie, to whom the very colony in some
measure owes its existence? young, rich and lovely; a widow in the
bloom of life, mistress of her own actions, the world was gay before
her, yet she left all the pleasures that world could give, to devote
her days to the severities of a religion she thought the only true one:
she dar'd the dangers of the sea, and the greater dangers of a savage
people; she landed on an unknown shore, submitted to the extremities of
cold and heat, of thirst and hunger, to perform a service she thought
acceptable to the Deity. To an action like this, however mistaken the
motive, bigotry alone will deny praise: the man of candor will only
lament that minds capable of such heroic virtue are not directed to
views more conducive to their own and the general happiness.

I am unexpectedly call'd this moment, my dear Lucy, on some business
to Montreal, from whence you shall hear from me.

Adieu!
Ed. Rivers.



LETTER 6.


To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.