Note 3 — Author William Cooke

I do not think it inconsistent or irrelative to quote a passage from the Sermon of a celebrated preacher.

“I am afraid that this unusual result should produce an unhappy effect upon the spirits of those who are approaching the hour of child-birth. Let them recollect, that it is promised, ‘the woman shall be saved in childbearing if she continue in faith, and charity, and holiness, with sobriety.’ And, although it cannot be concealed that some sink in the struggle, (and for unfathomable reasons, the blow has fallen upon that illustrious personage, whose memory is this day embalmed with a nation’s tears), yet such occurrences, rare as they comparatively are, should be no more brooded over, as bearing upon this particular situation, than any of those calamities which are usually termed the accidents of life, are considered to affect its ordinary tenour and duration. It would be ungrateful, it would be sinful, to draw unfavourable conclusions from circumstances so extraordinary, against His tenderness and providence, who hath hitherto delivered, and will still deliver. Such persons are earnestly and affectionately exhorted to ‘lift up their eyes unto the hills, whence cometh their help,’ remembering, that their help cometh from the Lord, who made the heaven and the earth. And under this and every other instance of human instability and calamity, one common principle remains as a hope which cannot be shaken. We can look from earth to heaven, and say, ‘Thou, O Lord, remaineth for ever, thy throne from generation to generation.’”—Dr. Collyer’s Sermon, occasioned by the Death of the Princess Charlotte.