The preceding account would be incomplete without adding that the state of her health during this period, combined with a severe pressure of varied and perplexing cares, served to deepen the distress caused by her spiritual trials.  Whatever view may be taken of the origin and nature of such trials, it is certain that physical depression and the mental strain that comes of anxious, care-worn thoughts, if not their source, yet tend always greatly to intensify them.  In the present case the trials would, perhaps, not have existed without the cares and the ill-health; while the latter, even in the entire absence of the former, would have occasioned severe suffering.

To Mrs. Frederick Field, New York, Jan. 8, 1871.

’If I need make any apology for writing you so often, it must be this—­I can not help it.  Having dwelt long in an obscure, oftentimes dark valley, and then passed out into a bright plane of life, I am full of tender yearnings over other souls, and would gladly spend my whole time and strength for them.  I long, especially, to see your feet established on an immovable Rock.  It seems to me that God is preparing you for great usefulness by the fiery trial of your faith.  “They learn in suffering what they teach in song.”  Oh how true this is!  Who is so fitted to sing praises to Christ as he who has learned Him in hours of bereavement, disappointment and despair?

What you want is to let your intellect go overboard, if need be, and to take what God gives just as a little child takes it, without money and without price.  Faith is His, unbelief ours.  No process of reasoning can soothe a mother’s empty, aching heart, or bring Christ into it to fill up all that great waste room.  But faith can.  And faith is His gift; a gift to be won by prayer—­prayer persistent, patient, determined; prayer that will take no denial; prayer that if it goes away one day unsatisfied, keeps on saying, “Well, there’s to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow; God may wait to be gracious, and I can wait to receive, but receive I must and will.”  This is what the Bible means when it says, “the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force.”  It does not say the eager, the impatient take it by force, but the violent—­they who declare, “I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me.”  This is all heart, not head work.  Do I know what I am talking about?  Yes, I do.  But my intellect is of no use to me when my heart is breaking.  I must get down on my knees and own that I am less than nothing, seek God, not joy; consent to suffer, not cry for relief.  And how transcendently good He is when He brings me down to that low place and there shows me that that self-renouncing, self-despairing spot is just the one where He will stoop to meet me!

My dear friend, don’t let this great tragedy of sorrow fail to do everything for you.  It is a dreadful thing to lose children; but a lost sorrow is the most fearful experience life can bring, I feel this so strongly that I could go on writing all day.  It has been said that the intent of sorrow is to “toss us on to God’s promises.”  Alas, these waves too often toss us away out to sea, where neither sun or stars appear for many days.  I pray, earnestly, that it may not be so with you.