orrow; as to letters, I scratch them
off at odd moments, when too tired to do anything else. What a resource
they are! They do instead of crying for me. And how many I get every
week that are loving and pleasant!

What do you think of this? I hope it will make you laugh--a lady told me
she never confessed her sins aloud (in prayer) lest Satan should find
out her weak points and tempt her more effectually! And I want to ask
you if you ever offer to pray with people? I never do, and yet there are
cases when nothing else seems to answer. Oh, how many questions of
duty come up every hour, and how many reasons we have every hour to be
ashamed of ourselves!

_Monday morning._--It was a shame to write to you, when I was so tired
that I could not write legibly, but my heart was full of love, and I
longed to be near you. Now Monday has come, a lowering, forbidding day,
yet all is sunshine in my soul, and I hope that may make my home light
to my beloved ones, and even reach you, wherever you are. I am going
to run out to see how Mrs. Stearns is. Our plan is for me to make
arrangements to stay with her, if I can be of any use or comfort. I
literally love the house of mourning better than the house of feasting.
All my long, long years of suffering and sorrow make sorrow-stricken
homes homelike, and I can not but feel, because I know it from
experience, that Christ loves to be in such homes. So you may
congratulate me, dear, if I may be permitted to go where He goes. I
wish you could have heard yesterday's sermon about God's having as
_characteristic, individual_ a love to each of us as we have to our
friends. Think of that, dear, when you remember how I loved you in Mrs.
G.'s little parlor! Can you realise that your Lord and Saviour loves you
infinitely more? I confess that such conceptions are hard to attain....
Can't you do M---- S---- up in your next letter, and send her to me on
approbation? Instead of being satisfied that I've got you, I want her
and everybody else who is really good, to fill up some of the empty
rooms in my heart. This is a rambling, scrambling letter, but I don't
care, and don't believe you do. Well, good-bye; thank your stars that
this bit of paper hasn't got any arms and can't hug you!

_To Mrs. Leonard, New York, Dec. 13, 1868._

There is half an hour before bed-time, and I have been thinking of and
praying for you, till I feel that I _must_ write. I forgot to tell you,
how the verses in my Daily Food