“Could I but reveal myself unto myself!  What shall I say?  Is life dear to me?  No.  Are my friends dear to me?  I could suffer and die for them, if need were, but yet I have none of the old attachment for them.  I would clasp all to my heart, love all for their humanity, but not as relatives or individuals. . . .  Lord, if I am to be anything, I am, of all, most unfit for the task.  What shall I do?  Whom shall I cry to but Him who has given me life and planted this spirit in me?  Unto Thee, then, do I cry from the depths of my soul for light to suffer.  If there is anything for me to do, why this darkness all around me?  I ask not to be happy.  I will forego, as I always had a presentiment I must do, all hopes which young men of my age are prone to picture in their minds.  If only I could have a ray of light on my present condition!  O Lord! open my eyes to see the path Thou wouldst have me walk in. . . .

“Jan. 11.—­True life is one continuous prayer, one unceasing aspiration after the holy.  I have no conception of a life insensible to that which is not above itself lofty.  I would not take it on myself to say I have been ‘born again,’ but I know that I have passed from death to life.  Things below have no hold upon me further than as they lead to things above.  It is not a moral restraint that I have over myself, but it is such a change, a conversion of my whole being, that I have no need of restraint.  Temptations still beset me—­not sensual, but of a kind which seek to make me untrue to my life.  If I am not on my guard I become cold.  May I always be humble, meek, prayerful, open to all men.  Light, love, and life God is always giving, but we turn our backs and will not receive. . . .

“Who can measure the depths of Christ’s suffering—­alone in the world, having that which would give life everlasting, a heaven, to those who would receive it, and yet despised, spit upon, rejected of men!  Oh! how sweet must it have been to His soul when He found even one who would accept a portion of that precious gift which He came to the world to bestow!  Well could He say, ’Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.’  He would give them life, but they would not receive.  He would save them, but they rejected Him.  He loved them, and they despised Him.  Alas! who has measured even in a small degree the love of Christ and yet denied His superiority over man!  His love, goodness, mercy are unbounded.  O Lord! may I daily come into closer communion with Thy Son, Jesus Christ.”

On the 22d of February he addresses both of his parents in reply to a letter sent by his brother John, detailing some of their troubles on this head.  He writes: