bright creatures I never met at once, and we got a-going at such a rate that though I had never seen either of them before, I stayed nearly three hours!  I mean to have another dose of them before long, and give them another dose of E. P. I have been reading a book called “The Presence of Christ” [9]—­which I liked so well that I got a copy to lend.  It is not a great book, but I think it will be a useful one.  It says we are all idolaters, and reminds me of my besetting sins in that direction.  I feel overwhelmed when I think how many young people are looking to me for light and help, knowing how much I need both myself....  Every now and then some Providential event occurs that wakes us up, and we find that we have been asleep and dreaming, and that what we have been doing that made us fancy ourselves awake, was mechanical.

I must be off now to my sewing society, which is a great farce, since I can earn thirty or forty times as much with my pen as I can with my needle, and if they would let me stay at home and write, I would give them the results of my morning’s work.  But the minute I stop going everybody else stops.

To Mrs. Condict, April 7, 1872.

How I should love to spend this evening with you!  This has been our Communion Sunday, and I am sure the service would have been very soothing to your poor, sore heart.  And yet why do I say poor when I know it is rich?  Oh, you might have the same sorrow without faith and patience with which to bear it, and think how dreadful that would be!  Your little lamb has been spending his first Sunday with the Good Shepherd and other lambs of the flock, and has been as happy as the day is long.  Perhaps your two children and mine are claiming kinship together.  If they met in a foreign land they would surely claim it for our sakes; why not in the land that is not foreign, and not far off?  But still these are not the thoughts to bring you special comfort.  “Thy will be done!” does the whole.  And yet my heart aches for you.  Some one, who had never had a real sorrow, told Mrs. N. that if she submitted to God’s will as she ought, she would cease to suffer.  What a fallacy this is!  Mrs. N. was comforted by hearing that your little one was taken away by the consequences of the fever, as her Nettie was, for she had reproached herself with having neglected her to see to Johnny, who died first, and thought this neglect had allowed her to take cold.  I feel very sorry when mothers torture themselves in this needless way, as if God could not avert ill consequences, if He chose.

I have shed more than one tear to-day.  I heard last night that my dearly-loved brother, Prof.  Hopkins, is on his dying-bed.  I never thought of his dying, he comes of such a long-lived race.  I expect to go to see him, and if I find I can be of any use or comfort, stay a week or two.  His death will come very near to me, but he is a saintly man, and I am glad for him that he can go.  How