28th.  I began housekeeping, first on my return from the visit to New York, in the spring of 1825, in the so-called Allen House, on the eminence west of the fort, having purchased my furniture at Buffalo, and made it a pretty and attractive residence.  But after the death of my son, the place became insupportable from the vivid associations which it presented with the scenes of his daily amusements.

I determined this day to close the house, and, leaving the furniture standing, we took refuge at Mr. Johnston’s.  Idolatry such as ours for a child, was fit to be rebuked, and the severity of the blow led me to take a retrospect of life, such as it is too common to defer, but, doubtless, wise to entertain.  Why Providence should have a controversy with us for placing our affections too deeply on a sublunary object, is less easy at all times to reconcile to our limited perceptions than it is to recognize in holy writ the existence of the great moral fact.  “I will be honored,” says Jehovah, “and my glory will I not give to another.”  It is clear that there is a mental assent in our attachments, in which the very principle of idolatry is involved.  If so, why not give up the point, and submit to the dispensations of an inevitable and far-seeing moral government, of affairs of every sort, with entire resignation and oneness of purpose?  How often has death drawn his dart fatally since Adam fell before it, and how few of the millions on millions that have followed him have precisely known why, or been entirely prepared for the blow!  To me it seems that it has been the temper of my mind to fasten itself too strongly on life and all its objects; to hope too deeply and fully under all circumstances; to grapple, as it were, in its issues with as “hooks of steel,” and never to give up, never to despair; and this blow, this bereavement, appears to me the first link that is broken to loosen my hold on this sublunary trust.  My thoughts, three years ago, were turned strongly, and with a mysterious power, to this point, namely, my excessive ardor of earthly pursuits, of men’s approbation.  Here, then, if these reflections be rightly taken, is the second admonition.  Such, at least, has been the current of my thoughts since the 13th of the present month, and they were deeply felt when I took my Bible, the first I ever owned or had bought with my own money, and requested that it might be placed as the basis of the little pillow that supported the head of the lifeless child in his coffin.

April 30th.  A progress in territorial affairs, in the upper lakes, seems to have commenced; but it is slow.  Emigrants are carried further south and west.  Slow as it is, however, we flatter ourselves it is of a good and healthy character.  The lower peninsula is filling up.  My letters, during this spring, denote this.  Our county organization is complete.  Colonel McKenney, on the 10th, apprises me that he is coming north, to complete the settlement