I have seen the time when the sense of being a pilgrim and a stranger was very sweet; and God can sweeten whatever He does to us.  So though perplexed we are not in despair, and if we feel that we are this summer living in a tent that may soon blow down, it is just what you are doing, and in this point we shall have fellowship.  I am sure it is good for us to have God take up the rod, even if He lays it down again without inflicting a blow.  I know we are going to pray till light comes.  I feel very differently about it from what I did last summer.  The mental conflicts of the past winter have created a good deal of indifference to everything.  Without conscious union and nearness to my Saviour I can’t be happy anywhere; for years He has been the meaning of everything, and when He only seems gone (I know it is only seeming) I don’t much care where I am.  I am just trying to be patient till He makes Satan let go of me.  Excuse this selfish letter, and write me one just as bad!

On the 7th of June she went to Dorset with her husband and the younger children.  The following lines, found among her papers, will show in what temper of mind she went.  It is worth noting that they were written on Monday, and express a week-day, not merely a passing Sabbath feeling: 

  Once more at home, once more at home—­
    For what, dear Lord, I pray? 
  To seek enjoyment, please myself,
    Make life a summer’s day?

  I shrink, I shudder at the thought;
    For what is home to me,
  When sin and self enchain my heart,
    And keep it far from Thee?

  There is but one abiding joy,
    Nor place that joy can give;
  It is Thy presence that makes home,
    That makes it “life to live.”

  That presence I invoke; naught else
    I venture to entreat;
  I long to see Thee, hear Thy voice,
    To sit at Thy dear feet.

To a young Friend, Dorset, June 12, 1871.

I trust it is an omen of good that the first letters I have received since coming here this summer, have been full of the themes I love best.  I was much struck with the sentence you quote, “They can not go back,” etc., [5] and believe it is true of you.  Being absorbed in divine things will not make you selfish; you will be astonished to find how loving you will gradually grow toward everybody, how interested in their interests, how happy in their happiness.  And if you want work for Christ (and the more you love Him the more you will long for it), that work will come to you in all sorts of ways.  I do not believe much in duty-work; I think that work that tells is the spontaneous expression of the love within.  Perhaps you have not been sick enough yourself to be skilful in a sick-room; perhaps your time for that sort of work hasn’t come.  I meant to get you a little book called “The Life of Faith”; in fact, I went down town on purpose to get it, and passed the Episcopal