FRIENDS’

REVIEW.

A Religions, Literary and Miscellaneous Journal.

 

Vout. XV.

 

EDITED BY SAMUEL RHOADS,
To whom all Communications may be addressed.

PUBLISHED WEEKLY,
At No. 109 N. Tenth street, Philadelphia.

Price, PAYABLE IN ADVANCE, Two dollars per annum, or six copies
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Postage on this paper, when paid quarterly or yearly in advance,
13 cents per annum in Pennsylvania, and 26 cents per annum in.
other States.

 

 

For Friends’ Review.
NOTICES OF DAVID COOPER.
NO. VI.

In letters dated in 1764, we find the first
traces of a friendship with one who was much
his junior, based upon congeniality that ignored
the difference of years. ‘I. Hood said, speak-
ing of the author of Elia, who much enjoyed
the society of the young: “* Perhaps, in his
fine generalizing way, he thought that, in rela-
tion to eternity, we are all contemporaries.”
Certain it is that there is often the highest at-
tainment of intellectual communion, when the
feeling of brotherhood is tempered on the one
side by a paternal, on the other, by a filial re-
gard,—

‘While in their age they differ, joined in heart.”

Between D.C. and Samuel Allinson, a lawyer of
Burlington, an intimacy sprang up, and a cor-
respondence which treated upon the Stamp-act,
and various matters of British and colonial
legislation, philanthropy, religion and morals.
Tke experience of the subject of our memoir,,
as a Christian, a patriot and a legislator, was
attractive to his younger friend, whilst the legal
knowledge of the latter, connected with high
principle and earnest piety, rendered his friend-
ship both attractive and valuable to one so alert
as David Cooper to serve his fellow-men. They
co-operated in important public measures. D.
C. having been recently ill, S. A. wrote on the
occasion, and D.C. in a reply, 11 mo. 4th, 1764,
says : “Thus, my friend, are our lives chequered
with clouds and sunshine, and, though we have

PHILADELPHIA, FIFTH MONTH 8, 1862.

 

bitter portions allotted, when we consider that

 

No. 85.

 

unerring wisdom governs, we must believe it
was necessary. Happy he who, under a reverent
acquiescence in the dispensations of Providence,
is guided in the paths of wisdom. ‘Tis he en-
joys the calm of life, while others are tossed to
and fro by every puff of wind. When death
appears, in that hour most terrible to the un-
faithful servant, he is undismayed, free from
anxiety about the trifling affairs of time, his
thoughts participate the joys of the blessed,—

‘The soul’s calm sunshine and the heartfelt joy ©
Which nothing earthly gives or can destroy.’”’

Alluding in the same letter to the prospective
second marriage of his brother James, he ex-
presses the wish “that he may,witness, in its
highest degree, the happiness that state af-
fords ;” continuing, with pensive pleasantry,
after referring to his correspondent’s celibacy,
“a happiness, ’tis true, of which a bachelor can
have but a faint idea. Yet, if our pleasures con-
sist more in pursuit than possession, in antici-
pation than realization, he may, for aught I
know, be the happier man. For, though he has
not tasted the sweets flowing from such an union
of soul, neither has he of the corroding bitters
of separation ; and here, perhaps, a brief sub-
lime happiness may shadow the remainder of
life. Experience alone can teach us

‘ After rapture, anguish how severe !’

For misfortune bears proportion to the happi-
ness lost. The torments of fallen angels were
augmented by their having known a happier
state. It is a pinching situation, my friend,
when retrospect induces the pathetic language :
‘Qh, that it were with me as in days past!’
Alas, how frail all earthly happiness! It con-
sists in society, and the more numerous and
dear our connections, the greater our disquietude
in fear of and at the severance which must
inevitably happen.”

To the same friend he writes, Ist mo., 1766:
‘¢T presume thou hast heard of our late elec-
tion continuing three days with great warmth,
and not 60 votes given.” A

From their correspondence we shall be spar-
ing in extracts, as they would too much swell
these notices, and might more appropriately be-