raying over it. When I asked you for bits of poetry, I
meant pieces gleaned from time to time from newspapers. My plan was to
make a compilation, interspersing verses of my own anonymously. But Mr.
Randolph has convinced me that it is my duty and privilege to have the
little book all original, and to appear as mine; and in unexpected ways
my will about it has been broken, and I have ceased from all morbid
shyness about it, and am only too thankful that God is willing thus to
use me for His own glory. Of course, I shall meet with a good deal of
misapprehension and disgust from some quarters, but not from you or
yours. It is a comfort, on the other hand, to think of once more
ministering to longing or afflicted souls, as I hope to do in these
lines, written for no human eye. You say Jesus is pained when His dear
ones suffer. I hardly think that can be. Tender sympathy He no doubt
feels, but not pain. If He did, He would be miserable all the time, the
world is so full of misery.

When I look back over my own life, the precious times were generally
seasons of great suffering; so much so, that the idea of discipline has
become a hobby. But one can only learn all this by experience. Mrs. ----
says she never sings the verse containing "E'en though it be a cross
that raiseth me," and that little children never talk in that way to
their mothers, and, therefore, we ought not to talk so to God! I did not
argue with her about it, but I felt thankful that I could sing and say
that line very earnestly, and had been taught to do so by the Spirit of
God.

_To a Friend in Texas, New York, Dec. 1, 1873._

I am glad you like Faber better on a closer acquaintance. He certainly
has said some wonderful things among many weak and foolish ones. What
you quote from him about thanksgiving is very true. Our gratitude bears
no sort of comparison with our petitions or our sighs and groans. It is
contemptible in us to be such thankless beggars. As to domestic cares,
you know Mrs. Stowe has written a beautiful little tract on this
subject--"Earthly Care a Heavenly Discipline." God never places us in
any position in which we can not grow. We may fancy that He does. We
may fear we are so impeded by fretting, petty cares that we are gaining
nothing; but when we are not sending any branches upward, we may be
sending roots downward. Perhaps in the time of our humiliation, when
everything seems a failure, we are making the best kind of progress. God
del