Essays on the Principles of Morality & on the Private & Political Rights & Obligations of Mankind

of air and scene at various places in Devonshire recommended for their salubrity.

Early in 1827 he went to London for consultation with some of the most eminent medical men in that city. Among others, he thus met Dr. Thos. Hancock, who became deeply interested in his patient. In a letter to a friend, Dr. Hancock remarked, "I enjoyed but a short and melancholy portion of his society and acquaintance, for it was under peculiar and trying circumstances that I last saw him; yet an impression has been left on my mind that can never I think be removed." "His mind was then remarkably clear and vigorous, and he appeared to be quite free from depressing anticipations with regard to the result of his malady. This proved in the end to be pulmonary consumption."

After his return from London, thirteen weeks were passed at a farmhouse in the neighborhood of Exeter. This was a retired and picturesque spot near the village of Whitestone, and here he was soon diligently employed in preparing for the press the treatise contained in this volume. In the shady lanes around his peaceful retreat, he was wont to seek relaxation from the sedentary labors of composition, a gentle pony carrying him from one favorite rural scene to another. On these rambles, he seldom started, without a copy in his pocket of that sacred volume whose precepts he so highly valued, and to whose inspired pages he was in the habit of constantly referring. For twenty months however, he was obliged to resort to his slate and pencil for the expression of his thoughts or wishes, which, to one of his conversational abilities, must have proved no common trial.

From Whitestone, he thus wrote to a friend in the summer of 1827: “There is a time for all things-and what I add, I add with seriousness; that to feel quiet,

and capable of enjoyment amidst trying circumstances, is one amongst the great items of goodness for which we are indebted to our Creator. Although I am not always cheery, yet I have a happy share of that chastened comfort which is perhaps as good for us as more brilliant things." In a letter to his wife in 1828, he writes: "I would not have thee cast down, for I do not think there is cause for being so. Not that there are no fears and no sorrows, but none that are allowed to agitate and alarm me, for myself or for thee. As to the matters of this world, I sometimes try to leave them. To live a day at a time, seems our present business; without over anxiety for greater enjoyment or brighter prospects, in temporals or spirituals either."

On returning to his home at Exeter, he assiduously continued the preparation of his "Essays," a great part of which, as well as his “Inquiry into the accordancy of War with the Principles of Christianity," were written in a little room adjoining his shop, subject to frequent interruptions from customers, in the midst of his most profound and engrossing thoughts.

Of the closing days of Jonathan Dymond, whose decease occurred on the 6th of Fifth month, 1828, at the age of thirty-one, his father, in a letter to Dr. Hancock, writes: "Through the merciful regard of our Holy Head and High Priest, I believe I may venture to say that his mind was kept in perfect peace, and that he was favored while living to experience a foretaste of that state of blessedness into which I dare not doubt his being entered.”

The year 1828 proved one of sore bereavement to the family of John Dymond. The letter from him, above referred to, records the death of his daughter, the 8th of Third mo.; his son George, the 24th of Fourth mo.; and Jonathan Dymond, as already stated, the 6th of Fifth mo. "So," the stricken father continues, "in

rather less than two months, I have had to experience the loss of three of my children, near and dear to me, not only by the ties of nature, but additionally so, as they were all of them eminently favored with the precious influence of Heavenly love, and concerned in no ordinary degree to live in the fear of Him who called them to virtue, and who, I humbly trust, has received them into glory."

To the close of his well-spent life, Jonathan Dymond bore with remarkable patience and serenity the sufferings and privations attending his failing health. He displayed an entire resignation to the Divine will and a childlike trust in his Heavenly Father, while he was by no means a stranger to that spiritual communion with God, which is the sacred privilege of the true Christian. His estimate of his own religious attainments was exceedingly humble, and on his death-bed he evidenced a deep conviction of that great truth referred to in the concluding words of his "Essays," namely, that the only foundation of our hope for eternity is the mercy of God, "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."

NOTE.-In preparing the foregoing sketch the compiler has drawn largely upon, and used freely, a brief biography of Jonathan Dymond which precedes the American edition of his Essays, published in New York, in 1834. The passing reference to his wife, Anna Dymond, is taken from a short memorial contained in the "Annual Monitor," for 1850.

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