yesterday’s sermon about God’s having as characteristic, individual a love to each of us as we have to our friends.  Think of that, dear, when you remember how I loved you in Mrs. G.’s little parlor!  Can you realise that your Lord and Saviour loves you infinitely more?  I confess that such conceptions are hard to attain....  Can’t you do M——­ S——­ up in your next letter, and send her to me on approbation?  Instead of being satisfied that I’ve got you, I want her and everybody else who is really good, to fill up some of the empty rooms in my heart.  This is a rambling, scrambling letter, but I don’t care, and don’t believe you do.  Well, good-bye; thank your stars that this bit of paper hasn’t got any arms and can’t hug you!

To Mrs. Leonard, New York, Dec. 13, 1868.

There is half an hour before bed-time, and I have been thinking of and praying for you, till I feel that I must write.  I forgot to tell you, how the verses in my Daily Food, on the day of your dear husband’s death, seem meant for you: 

“Thou art my refuge and portion.”—­Ps. cxliii. 5.

  ’Tis God that lifts our comforts high,
    Or sinks them in the grave;
  He gives, and blessed be His name! 
    He takes but what He gave.

The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away.—­JOB i. 21.

I have had this little book thirty-three years, it has travelled with me wherever I have been, and it has been indeed my song in the house of my pilgrimage.  This has been our communion Sunday, and I have been very glad of the rest and peace it has afforded, for I have done little during the last ten days but fly from one scene of sorrow to another, from here to Newark and from Newark to Brooklyn....  So I have alternated between the two dying beds; yesterday Jennie P. went into a convulsion just as I entered the room, and did not fully come out of it for an hour and a half, when I had to come away in order to get home before pitch dark.  What a terrible sight it is!  They use chloroform, and that has a very marked effect, controlling all violence in a few seconds.  Whether the poor child came out of that attack alive I do not know; I had no doubt she was dying till just before I came away, when she appeared easier, though still unconscious.  The family seem nearly frantic, and the sisters are so upset by witnessing these turns, that I shall feel that I must be there all I can.  I am in cruel doubt which household to go to, but hope God will direct.

Mr. Prentiss is a good deal withered and worn by his sister’s state; he had never, by any means, ceased to hope, and he is much afflicted.  She and Jennie may live a week or more, or go at any moment.  In my long hours of silent musing and prayer, as I go from place to place, I think often of you.  I think one reason why we do not get all the love and faith we sigh for is that we try to force them to come to us, instead of realising that they must be God’s