your father. I am amazed at myself for not asking my dear mother many
a score about my father, which no human being can answer now. I do not
like to think of you all leaving New York. Few families would be so
missed and mourned.

I can sympathise with you in regard to your present Sunday "privileges."
We have a long walk in glaring sunshine, sit on bare boards, live
through the whole (or nearly the whole) Prayer-book, and then listen, if
we can, to a sermon three-quarters of an hour long, its length not being
its chief fault. I am utterly unable to bear such fatigue, and spend my
time chiefly at home, with some hope of more profit, at any rate. How
true it is that our Master's best treasures are kept in earthen vessels!
Humanly speaking, we should declare it to be for His glory to commit the
preaching of His gospel to the best and wisest hands. But His ways are
not as our ways.... I feel such a longing, when Sunday conies, to spend
it with good people, under the guidance of a heaven-taught man. A
minister has such wonderful opportunity for doing good! It seems
dreadful to see the opportunity more than wasted. The truth is, we all
need, ministers and all, a closer walk with God. If a man comes down
straight from the mount to speak to those who have just come from the
same place, he must be in a state to edify and they to be edified.

From New York she writes to Miss Shipman, October 24th:

Your letter came just as we started for Poughkeepsie. The Synod met
there and I was invited to accompany George, and, quite contrary to my
usual habits, I went. We had a nice time. I feel that you are in the
best place in the world. Next to dying and going home one's self, it
must be sweet to accompany a Christian friend down to the very banks
of the river. Isn't it strange that after such experiences we can ever
again have a worldly thought, or ever lose the sense of the reality of
divine things! But we are like little children--ever learning and ever
forgetting. Still, it is well to be learning, and I envy you your
frequent visits to the house of mourning. You will miss your dear friend
very much. I know how you love her. How many beloved ones you have
already lost for a season!... Don't set me to making brackets. I am
as worldly now as I can be, and my head full of work on all sorts of
things. I made two cornucopias of your pattern and filled them with
grasses and autumn leaves, and they were magnificent. I got very large
grasses