You speak in your letter of being oppressed by the heat, and wearied by visitors, and say that prayer is little more than uttering the name of Jesus.  I have asked myself a great many times this summer how much that means.

  “All I can utter sometimes is Thy name!”

This line expresses my state for a good while.  Of course getting out of one house into another and coming up here, all in the space of one month, was a great tax on time and strength, and all my regular habits had to be broken up.  Then before the ram was put in I over-exerted myself, unconsciously, carrying too heavy pails of water to my flower-beds, and so broke down.  For some hours the end looked very near, but I do not know whether it was stupidity or faith that made me so content to go.  I am afraid that a good deal of what passes for the one is really the other.  Fortunately for us, our faith does not entitle us to heaven any more than our stupidity shuts us out of it; when we get there it will be through Him who loved us.  But if I may judge by the experience of this little illness, our hearts are not so tied to or in love with this world as we fear.  We make the most of it as long as we must stay in it; but the under-current bears home.

The following extract from a letter to a young relative, dated Sept. 23d, furnishes at once a key to several marked traits of her character and a practical comment upon her own hymn, “More love to Thee, O Christ!”

I had no right to leave my friend undefended.  I prayed to do it aright.  If I did not I am not ashamed to say I am sorry for it, and ask you to forgive me.  And if I were twice as old as I am, and you twice as young, I would do it.  I will not tolerate anything wrong in myself.  I hate, I hate sin against my God and Saviour, and sin against the earthly friends whom I love with such a passionate intensity that they are able to wring my heart out, and always will be, if I live to be a hundred....  People who feel strongly express themselves strongly; vehemence is one of my faults.  Let us pray for each other.  We have great capacities for enjoyment, but we suffer more keenly than many of our race.  I have been an intense sufferer in many ways; the story would pain you; nobody can go through this world with a heart and a soul, and jog along smoothly long at a time....  I do not remember ever having a discussion on paper with my husband; we should not dare to run the risk.  But I know I said something once in a letter, I forget what, that made him snatch the first train and rush to set things right, though it cost him a two days’ journey.  We are tremendous lovers still.  Write and tell me we’ve kissed and made up!  We both mean well; we don’t want to hurt each other; but each has one million points that are very vulnerable.  And neither can know these points in the other by intuition; a cry of pain will often be the first intimation that the one can hurt the other just there.  We must touch each other with the tips of our fingers....  To love Christ more—­this is the deepest need, the constant cry of my soul.  Down in the bowling-alley, and out in the woods, and on my bed, and out driving, when I am happy and busy, and when I am sad and idle, the whisper keeps going up for more love, more love, more love!