A Letter To Mrs Peake – July 22nd, 1859
My dear afflicted friend Mrs. Peake,
I sincerely desire to sympathize with you under your truly distressing bereavement, and hope that the Lord may support your soul in this season of grief and sorrow. When I saw your poor dear husband in town, I could scarcely indulge a hope that his life would be spared. Still I could not have anticipated his removal from this valley of tears so suddenly as it has pleased the Lord to take his soul unto Himself.
I do not pretend to offer you any consolation in this most distressing hour, as I know that grief must and should have its way, and that nothing short of the immediate support of God can bear you up under your load of sorrow. You may say with Job – “The thing that I greatly feared has come upon me.” And when I recollect what I have seen you to feel in the anticipation of the event, I hardly dare paint to myself your feelings under the dreadful reality. Still, all is not unmingled grief and sorrow. You have a sweet persuasion that he is safely landed in that happy spot where he has often longed to be. Our dear friend, Mrs. Keal, mentioned in her letter the words which he spoke to you in the night, and I hope that the sweet assurance which they conveyed may impart a balm to your troubled spirit. You did not indeed need any such testimony, as you knew well the ground of his hope. Yet it was a ray of parting light, and as his poor mind seemed to have been allowed to lose its balance, it was a great mercy that he was enabled to leave a dying testimony, to which you will be enabled sometimes to look, in sweet confidence that he entered the open heaven which then seemed revealed to his eyes and heart.
I do hope and pray that the Lord may support you under this most heavy trial, and make it a most gracious means of bringing you nearer to Himself—that He may be Himself your Husband, according to His promise.
Your most affectionate Friend,
J. C. P.
Jesus is LORD! 
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