I loved her DEARLY and reverenced her most deeply; but between us there was such a gulf that I always felt unworthy to touch even the hem of her garment.  Whenever I did touch it, strength and comfort were imparted to me.  How much I was indebted to her most tender sympathy and her prayers in my own great sorrow, only another world will reveal.  Is it not a little remarkable that her last letter to me, written only a few weeks before her death, closed with a benediction?  I could go on talking about her without end; for I have often said that there was more of her, and to her, and in her, than belonged to any five women I ever knew.  How exceedingly lovely she was in her own home!  I remember you once said to me, “The greatest charm of my wife is, after all, her perfect naturalness.”  All who knew her, must have recognised the same winning characteristic.  She was always fresh and always new—­for she had “the well-spring of wisdom as a flowing brook.” ...  Were you not struck, in reading Thomas Erskine’s letters on the death of Madame de Broglie, by the wonderful likeness between her and dear Mrs. Prentiss?  Twin sisters could scarcely have resembled each other more perfectly.  Such passages as the following quite startled me: 

Her friendship has been to me a great gift.  She has been a witness to me for God, a voice crying in the wilderness.  She has been a warner and a comforter.  I have seen her continually thirsting after a spiritual union with God.  I have heard the voice of her heart crying after God out from the midst of all things which make this life pleasant and satisfying....  She had all the gifts of mind and character—­intelligence, imagination, nobleness, and thoughts that wandered through eternity.  She had a heart fitted for friendship, and she had friends who could appreciate her; but God suffered her not to find rest in these things, her ear was open to His own paternal voice, and she became His child, in the way that the world is not and knoweth not.  I see her before me, her loving spirit uttering itself through every feature of her beautiful and animated countenance....  There was an unspeakable charm about her.  She had a truth and simplicity of character, which one rarely finds even in the highest order of men.  I know nobody like her now.  I hope to pass eternity with her.  It is wonderful to think what a place she has occupied in my life since I became acquainted with her.

You know it is my belief that we become better acquainted with our friends after they have passed on “within the veil.”  And may it not be that they become better acquainted with us, too, loving us more perfectly and forgiving all that has been amiss? [4]

To her eldest son, New York, May 12, 1878.