1.  I heard of your unendurable loss, and was much distressed.  Three or four days went by, and I was still in some doubt because my informant was not able to give me any clear details of the melancholy event.  While I was incredulous about what was noised abroad, because I prayed that it might not be true, I received a letter from the Bishop fully confirming the unhappy tidings.  I need not tell you how I sighed and wept.  Who could be so stony-hearted, so truly inhuman, as to be insensible to what has occurred, or be affected by merely moderate grief?  He is gone; heir of a noble house, prop of a family, a father’s hope, offspring of pious parents, nursed with innumerable prayers, in the very bloom of manhood, torn from his father’s hands.  These things are enough to break a heart of adamant and make it feel.  It is only natural then that I am deeply touched at this trouble; I who have been intimately connected with you from the beginning and have made your joys and sorrows mine.  But yesterday it seemed that you had only little to trouble you, and that your life’s stream was flowing prosperously on.  In a moment, by a demon’s malice, cf. Luke xiii. 16 and 2 Cor. xii. 7. all the happiness of the house, all the brightness of life, is destroyed, and our lives are made a doleful story.  If we wish to lament and weep over what has happened, a lifetime will not be enough and if all mankind mourns with us they will be powerless to make their lamentation match our loss.  Yes, if all the streams run tears cf. Lam. ii. 18. they will not adequately weep our woe.