a book would have helped me in
my youthful days.

You ask if I have been to hear Moody; yes, I have and am deeply
interested in him and his work. Yesterday afternoon he had a meeting
for Christian workers, in which his sound common-sense created great
merriment. Some objected to this, but I liked it because it was so
genuine, and, to my mind, not un-Christlike. So many fancy religion and
a long face synonymous. How stupid it is! I wonder they don't object to
the sun for shining. I am glad you think Urbane may be useful, for I
hear little from it. Junia's story is true as far as the laudanum and
the blindness go; it happened years ago. I do not know what religious
effect it had. As to the friend of whom you speak, she would not love
you as you say she does if her case was hopeless; at least I don't think
so. I am oppressed with the case of one who wants me to help him to
Christ, while unwilling to confide to me his difficulties. How little
they know how we care for their souls!

_To Mrs. George Payson, Feb 28, 1876._

I have been trying to do more than any mortal can, and now must stop to
take breath and write to you. In the first place, M.'s illness cut out
three months; then fitting up G.'s room at Princeton took a large part
of the next three; then ever so many people wanted me to paint them
pictures; then I began a book; then Moody and Sankey appeared, and I
wanted to hear them, and was needed to work in co-operation with them. I
don't know how you feel about Moody, but I am in full sympathy with him,
and last Friday the testimony of four of the cured "gin-pigs" (their own
language) was the most instructive, interesting language I ever heard
from human lips. In talking to those he has drawn into the inquiry
rooms, I find the most bitterly wretched ones are back-sliders; they are
not without hope, and expect to be saved at last; but they have been
trying what the world could do for them and found it a failure. Their
anguish was harrowing; one after another tried to help them, and gave up
in despair.

I had a vase given me at Christmas somewhat like yours, but a trifle
larger, and shaped like a fish. The flowers never fell out but once. I
had two little tables given me on which to set my majolica vases, with
India-rubber plants, which will grow where nothing else will; also a
desk and bookcase, and two splendid specimens of grass which grew in
California, and had been bleached to a creamy white. They are more
beau