Matthew Franklin letter to Charity Rotch, New York, 3 mo 21st, 1805

              B-255-9
                                     New York 3 mo 21st 1805
  Dear friend
                        I am now sitting up in company with our mutual friend B.D. Perkins, to watch the remains of my dear and much valued friend Robert Mott who departed this life between the hours of 4 & 5 OC this morning of whom it may be emphatically said "he being dead yet speaketh the latter Years of his lfe, has been chequered with many and varied afflictions, which previous to the illness that has taken him from us had much weaned him from the love of things that perish with the using." had stained the beauty and glory of this fading world in his View; he had not left the great work of his soul's salvation, unattended to, till arrested by the King of Terrors, but for several years past has evinced by the expressive language of conduct, a diligence to make his "calling and slection sure before going hence and being suns of Men no more" his countenance :betraying him o have been with Jesus" and by reason hereof, when his late sickness took hold of him, which presaged a speedy dissolution; he was not affrighted, death had not a terrific aspect to him, but his mind was brought into such a purest serenity, and Christian patience, that it was truly pleasant to be with him; I have gone into his Room, when my Spirit hat as quickly felt the precious sweetening influence, with which his mind was cloathed, as we would feel the change in the atmosphere in going our of a cold into a warm room, his heart overflowed with love for the whole bulk of Mankind, and for individuals in a particular manner, divers of whom a few days before his death he sent for and delivered Gospel Messages to them, which were very memorable seasons indeed, and should they be erased from their memories without producing a lasting and salutary effect, will from I apprehend as a "dread hand writing on the wall "against them in a future day- notwithstanding he has been preserved in such remarkable equanimity, and sweetness of mind and a heart full of Love to his fellow Creatures, he has not felt that full assurance of eternal felicity, that his soul longed for, till within a few days past, previous to which he had often said there seemed nothing in the way but now of a sudden he loked around upon those about him, and with an animated countinance, expressive of the beatific  prospects