To a young Friend, New York, May 20th, 1872.

As to assurance of faith, I think we may all have that, and in my own darkest hours this faith has not been disturbed.  I have just come home from a brief visit to Miss ——­, with whom I had some interesting discussions.  I use the word discussions advisedly, for we love each other in constant disagreement.  She believes in holiness by faith, while denying that she has herself attained it.  I think her life, as far as I can see it, very true and beautiful.  We spent a whole evening talking about temptation.  Not long ago I met with a passage, in French, to this effect—­I quote from memory only:  “God has some souls whom He can not afflict in any ordinary way, for they love Him so that they are ready for any outward sorrow or bereavement.  He therefore scourges them with inward trials, vastly more painful than any outward tribulation could be; thus crucifying them to self.”  I can not but think that this explains Mrs. ——­’s experience, and perhaps my own; at any rate I feel that we are all in the hands of an unerring Physician, who will bring us, through varying paths, home to Himself.

I had a call the other day from an intelligent Christian woman, whom I had not seen for eighteen years.  She said that some time ago her attention was called to the subject of personal holiness, and as she is a great reader, she devoured everything she could get hold of, and finally became a dogmatic perfectionist.  But experience modified these views, and she fell back on the Bible doctrine of an indwelling Christ, with the conviction that just in proportion to this indwelling will be the holiness of the soul.  This is precisely my own belief.  This is the doctrine I preached in Stepping Heavenward and I have so far seen nothing to change these views, while I desire and pray to be taught any other truth if I am wrong.  I believe God does reveal Himself and His truth to those who are willing to know it.

To Miss Morse, New York, May 31, 1872.

I got home yesterday from Williamstown, where I went, with my husband, to attend the funeral of my dearly beloved brother, Professor Hopkins.  He literally starved to death.  He died as he had lived, beautifully, thinking of and sending messages to all his friends, and on his last day repeating passages of Scripture and even, weak as he was, joining in hymns sung at his bedside.  The day of the funeral was a pretty trying one for me, as there was not only his loss to mourn, but there were traces of my darling mother and sister, who both died in that house, all over it; some of my mother’s silver, a white quilt she made when a girl, my sister’s library, her collection of shells and minerals, her paintings, her little conservatory, the portrait of her only child, dressed in his uniform (he was killed in one of the battles of the Wilderness).  Then, owing to the rain, none of us ladies were allowed to go into the cemetery, and I had thought much of visiting my sister’s grave and seeing her boy lying on one side and her husband on the other.  But our disappointments are as carefully planned for us as our sorrows, so I have not a word to say.