To a young Friend, Dec. 20, 1870.

I have been led, during the last month or two, to a new love of the Holy Spirit, or perhaps to more consciousness of the silent, blessed work He is doing in and for us? and for those whose souls lie as a heavy and yet a sweet burden upon our own.  And joining with you in your prayers, seeking also for myself what I sought for you, I found myself almost startled by such a response as I can not describe.  It was not joy, but a deep solemnity which enfolded me as with a garment, and if I ever pass out of it, which I never want to do, I hope it will be with a heart more than ever consecrated and set apart for Christ’s service.  The more I reflect and the more I pray, the more life narrows down to one point—­What am I being for Christ, what am I doing for Him?  Why do I tell you this?  Because the voice of a fellow-traveller always stimulates his brother-pilgrim; what one finds and speaks of and rejoices over, sets the other upon determining to find too.  God has been very good to you, as well as to me, but we ought to whisper to each other now and then, “Go on, step faster, step surer, lay hold on the Rock of Ages with both hands.”  You never need be afraid to speak such words to me.  I want to be pushed on, and pulled on, and coaxed on.

The allusion to her “beloved Fenelon,” in several of the preceding letters, renders this a suitable place to say a word about him and his influence upon her religious character.  “Fenelon I lean on,” she wrote.  Her delight in his writings dated back more than a quarter of a century, and continued, unabated, to the end of her days.  She regarded him with a sort of personal affection and reverence.  Her copy of “Spiritual Progress,” composed largely of selections from his works, is crowded with pencil-marks expressive of her sympathy and approval; not even her Imitation of Christ, Sacra Privata, Pilgrim’s Progress, Saints’ Everlasting Rest, or Leighton on the First Epistle of Peter, contain so many.  These pencil-marks are sometimes very emphatic, underscoring or inclosing now a single word, now a phrase, anon a whole sentence or paragraph; and it requires but little skill to decipher, in these rude hieroglyphics, the secret history of her soul for a third of a century—­ one side, at least, of this history.  What she sought with the greatest eagerness, what she most loved and most hated, her spiritual aims, struggles, trials, joys and hopes, may here be read between the lines.  And a beautiful testimony they give to the moral depth, purity and nobleness of her piety!

The story is not, indeed, complete; her religious life had other elements, not found, or only partially found, in Fenelon; elements centering directly in Christ and His gospel, and which had their inspiration in her Daily Food and her New Testament.  What attracted her to Fenelon was not the doctrine of salvation as taught by him—­she found it better taught in Bunyan and Leighton—­it was his marvellous