* * * I am sorry for thy physical state, yet doubtless it is but the inverted image of a counterbalancing mental good, which is, or is about to be, perhaps to signify that

    “God doth not need
    Either man’s works or His own gifts; who best
    Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best;
    They also serve who only stand and wait.”

It is surely not for the value of the service itself, that He calls for it so long and so repeatedly, till at last the iron sinew gives way:  no, but for the sake of bending the iron sinew itself, and when it is bent in one direction, I conclude He does not mean to stiffen it there, but would have it bend perhaps back to the very same position as at first it was so hard to bend it from, with this one wide difference, that in the first case it was so in its own will, but now in His will.  Perhaps thou thinkest I am darkening counsel:  I do not wish to do so, but write just how things have happened to me in my small way.  Ought we not to be willing to be bent or unbent any way? and if a bow is to “abide in strength,” it must be unbent when it is not wanted.  But as we have all different places to fill, and different dispositions and snares, and besetments, we must not measure ourselves among ourselves.

It is indeed very good, as thou sayest, to be sometimes alone, and at times I trust I have found it so; but it has its dangers also, especially to me, who am perhaps more apt to make self of too much importance than to shrink from “due responsibility and authority.”  Indeed, this latter word belongs not to me at all, and if I may but keep life in me, (or have it kept,) well indeed will it be.  Oh, till we have grace enough willingly to do the smallest matters, thankfully to “sit in the lowest room,” meekly and patiently to be put out of our own way, and see our plans and intentions frustrated, and find ourselves of small account or value in the Church or in the world, yes, till we have grace enough to forget self altogether, “content to fill a little space, so thou art glorified,” I know not where is our claim to be followers of Him “who made Himself of no reputation.”  I am very far from this.  Couldst thou have seen how much hold the many small duties of my lonely week have taken on my mind, how little time I have found for the purpose for which we both value solitude, and how much my “lightly stirred” spirit has been hurried about from one object to another, I fear thou wouldst scarcely think even this note other than presumptuous.  Oh, how should I be rebuked by the thought,

    “One thing is needful, and but one: 
    Why do thy thoughts on many run?”