“MARY.”

Having for once lifted the domestic veil, we cannot resist the temptation to look into another corner of the home circle.  Among the letters of congratulation that poured in at this time, none was more sincere or touching than that which Mrs. Livingstone received from her mother, Mrs. Moffat[48].  In the fullnes of her congratulations she does not forget the dark shadow that falls on the missionary’s wife when the time comes for her to go back with her husband to their foreign home, and requires her to part with her children; tears and smiles mingle in Mrs. Moffat’s letter as she reminds her daughter that they that rejoice need to be as though they rejoiced not: 

[Footnote 48:  We have been greatly impressed by Mrs. Moffat’s letters.  She was evidently a woman of remarkable power.  If her life had been published, we are convinced that it would have been a notable one in missionary biography.  Heart and head were evidently of no common calibre.  Perhaps it is not yet too late for some friend to think of this.]

“Kuruman, December 4, 1856.—­MY DEAREST MARY,—­In proportion to the anxiety I have experienced about you and your dear husband for some years past, so now is my joy and satisfaction; even though we have not yet heard the glad tidings of your having really met, but this for the present we take for granted.  Having from the first been in a subdued and chastened state of mind on the subject, I endeavor still to be moderate in my joy.  With regard to you both ofttimes has the sentence of death been passed in my mind, and at such seasons I dared not, desired not, to rebel, submissively leaving all to the Divine disposal; but I now feel that this has been a suitable preparation for what is before me, having to contemplate a complete separation from you till that day when we meet with the spirits of just men made perfect in the kingdom of our Father.  Yes, I do feel solemn at death, but there is no melancholy about it, for what is our life, so short and so transient?  And seeing it is so, we should be happy to do or to suffer as much as we can for him who bought us with his blood.  Should you go to those wilds which God has enabled your husband, through numerous dangers and deaths, to penetrate, there to spend the remainder of your life, and as a consequence there to suffer manifold privations, in addition to those trials through which you have already passed—­and they have not been few (for you had a hard life in this interior)—­you will not think all too much, when you stand with that multitude who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb!

“Yet, my dear Mary, while we are yet in the flesh my heart will yearn over you.  You are my own dear child, my first-born, and recent circumstances have had a tendency to make me feel still more tenderly toward you, and deeply as I have sympathized with you for the last few years, I shall not cease to do so for the future.