My dear, dear boys, for the sake of that mother
who loved you very dearly--and for the sake of your own happiness for
ever and ever--attend to and try to remember, and from time to time
read over again the last words she can ever speak to you. When I
think about leaving you all, two things press heavily upon me: one,
your father's sorrow (for you, my darlings, after missing me a little
while, will soon forget your loss), the other, the everlasting welfare
of my children. I know how long and deep the former will be, and I
know that he will look to his children to be almost his only earthly
comfort. You know (for I am certain that it will have been so), how
he has devoted his life to you and taught you and laboured to lead you
to all that is right and good. Oh, then, be sure that you _are_ his
comforts. Let him find you obedient, affectionate and attentive to
his wishes, upright, self-denying and diligent; let him never blush
for or grieve over the sins and follies of those who owe him such a
debt of gratitude, and whose first duty it is to study his happiness.
You have both of you a name which must not be disgraced, a father and
a grandfather of whom to show yourselves worthy; your respectability
and well-doing in life rest mainly with yourselves, but far, far
beyond earthly respectability and well-doing, and compared with which
they are as nothing, your eternal happiness rests with yourselves.
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