To Miss E. A. Warner, Dorset, July 20, 1870.

Did you ever use a fountain pen?  I have had one given me, and like it so much that I sent for one for my husband, and one for Mr. Pratt.  When one wants to write in one’s lap, or out of doors, it is delightful.  Mrs. Field came over from East Dorset on Sunday to have her baby baptized.  They had him there in the church through the whole morning service, and he was as quiet as any of us.  The next day Mrs. F. came down and spent the morning with me, sweeter, more thoughtful than ever, if changed at all.  Dr. and Mrs. Humphrey, of Philadelphia, are passing the summer here at the tavern, and we spend most of our evenings there, or they come here.  Mrs. H. is a very superior woman, and though I was determined not to like her, because I have so many people on hand already, I found I could not help it.  She is as furious about mosses and lichens and all such things as I am, and the other day took home a bushel-basket of them.  She is an earnest Christian, and has passed through deep waters; I ought to have reversed the order of those clauses.  Excuse this rather hasty letter; I feared you might fancy your book lost.  If you are alive, let me know it, also if you are dead.

To a young Friend, Dorset, Aug. 8, 1870.

I dare not answer your letter, just received, in my own strength, but must pray over it long.  It is a great thing to learn how far our doubts and despondencies are the direct result of physical causes, and another great thing is, when we can not trace any such connexion, to bear patiently and quietly what God permits, if He does not authorise.  I have no more doubt that you love Him, and that He loves you, than that I love Him and that He loves me.  You have been daily in my prayers.  Temptations and conflict are inseparable from the Christian life; no strange thing has happened to you.  Let me comfort you with the assurance that you will be taught more and more by God’s Spirit how to resist; and that true strength and holy manhood will spring up from this painful soil.  Try to take heart; there is more than one foot-print on the sands of time to prove that “some forlorn and shipwrecked brother” has traversed them before you, and come off conqueror through the Beloved. Don’t stop praying for your life. Be as cold and emotionless as you please; God will accept your naked faith, when it has no glow or warmth in it; and in His own time the loving, glad heart will come back to you.  I deeply feel for and with you, and have no doubt that a week among these mountains would do more towards uniting you to Christ than a mile of letters would.  You can’t complain of any folly to which I could not plead guilty.  I have put my Saviour’s patience to every possible test, and how I love Him when I think what He will put up with.