I would love to have you here with me in this dear little den of mine and see the mountains from my window.  My husband has gone back to town, and my only society is that of the children, so you would be most welcome if you should come in either smiling or sighing.  I have had a cloud over me of late.  Do you know about Mr. Prentiss’ appointment by General Assembly to a professorship at Chicago?  His going would involve not only our tearing ourselves out of the heart of our beloved church, but of my losing you and Miss K., and of our all losing this dear little home.  Of course, he does not want to go, and I am shocked at the thought of his leaving the ministry; but, on the other hand, there is a right and a wrong to the question, and we ought to want to do whatever God chooses.  The thought of giving up this home makes me know better how to sympathise with you if you have to part with yours.  I do think it is good for us to be emptied from vessel to vessel, and there is something awful in the thought of having our own way with leanness in the soul.  I am greatly pained in reading Faber’s Life and Letters, at the shocking way in which he speaks of Mary, calling her his mamma, and praying to her and to Joseph, and nobody knows who not.  It seems almost incredible that this is the man who wrote those beautiful strengthening hymns.  It sets one to praying “Hold Thou me up and I shall be safe.” ...  I should have forgotten the lines of mine you quote if you had not copied them.  God give to you and to me a thousandfold more of the spirit they breathe, and make us wholly, wholly His own!  My repugnance to go to Chicago makes me feel that perhaps that is just the wrench I need.  Well, good-bye; at the longest we have not long to stay in this sphere of discipline and correction.

To Mr. G. S. P., Dorset, July 13, 1870.

I had just come home from a delicious little tramp through our own woods when your letter came, and now, if you knew what was good for you, you would drop in and take tea and spend the evening with us.  I should like you to see our house and our mountains, and our cup that runs over till we are ashamed.  Had I not known you wouldn’t come I should have given you a chance, especially as my husband was gone and I was rather lonely; though to be sure he always writes me every day.  On the way up here I was glad of time to think out certain things I had been waiting for leisure to attend to.  One had some connection with you, as well as one or two other friends.  I had long felt that there was a real, though subtle, difference between human—­and, shall I say divine?—­affection, but did not see just what it was.  Turning it over in my mind that day, it suddenly came to me as this.  Human friendship may be entirely selfish, giving only to receive in return, or may be partially so—­yet still selfish.  But the love that grows out of the love of Christ, and that delights in His image wherever it is seen, claims no response; loves because it is