It is an encouragement to hear Mahan compare states of the soul to house-cleaning time. [2] It is just so with me.  Every chair and table, every broom and brush is out of place, topsy-turvy....  But I can’t believe God has been wasting the last two years on me; I can’t help hoping that He is answering my prayer, my cry for holiness—­only in a strange way.  Dr. and Mrs. Abbot spent Sunday and Monday with us a week ago, and I read to them Dr. Steele’s three tracts and lent them Mahan.  They were much interested, but I do not know how much struck.  I can not smile, as some do, at Dr. Steele’s testimony.  I believe in it fully and heartily.  If I do not know what it is to “find God real,” I do not know anything.  Never was my faith in the strongest doctrines of Christianity stronger than it is now.

Feb. 13th.—­I spent part of yesterday in reading Stepping Heavenward!  You will think that very strange till I add that it was in German; and, as the translator has all my books, I wanted to know whether she had done this work satisfactorily before authorising her to proceed with the rest.  She has omitted so much, that it is rather an abridgment than a translation; otherwise it is well done.  But she has so purged it of vivacity, that I am afraid it will plod on leaden feet, if it plods at all, heavenward.  And now I must hurry off to my sewing-circle.

To a young Friend, April 4, 1873.

I want to correct any mistaken impression I have made on you in conversation.  The utmost I meant to say was, that I had got new light intellectually, or theologically, on the subject of the working of the Spirit.  In the sense in which I use the words “baptism of the Holy Ghost,” I certainly do not consider that I have received it.  I think it means perfect consecration....  Thus far, no matter what people profess, I have never come into close contact with any life that I did not find more or less imperfect.  I find, in other words, the best human beings fallible, and very fallible.  The best I can say of myself is, that I see the need of immense advances in the divine life.  I find it hard to be patient with myself when I see how far I am from reaching even my own poor standard; but if I do not love Christ and long to please Him, I do not love anybody or anything.  And if I have talked less to you on these sacred subjects this winter, it has been partly owing to my seeing less of you, and an impalpable but real barrier between us which I have not known how to account for, but which made me cautious in pushing religion on you.  Young people usually have their ups and downs and fluctuations of feeling before they settle down on to fixed principles, paying no regard to feeling, and older Christians should bear with them, make allowance for this, and never obtrude their own views or experiences.  I think you will come out all right.  Satan will fight hard for you, and perhaps for a time get the upper hand; but I believe the Lord and Master will prevail.  Perhaps we are never dearer to Him than when the wings on which we once flew to Him, hang drooping and broken at our side, and we have to make our weary way on foot.