, on the day of your dear husband's
death, seem meant for you:

"Thou art my refuge and portion."--Ps. cxliii. 5.

'Tis God that lifts our comforts high,
Or sinks them in the grave;
He gives, and blessed be His name!
He takes but what He gave.

The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away.--JOB i. 21.

I have had this little book thirty-three years, it has travelled with me
wherever I have been, and it has been indeed my song in the house of my
pilgrimage. This has been our communion Sunday, and I have been very
glad of the rest and peace it has afforded, for I have done little
during the last ten days but fly from one scene of sorrow to another,
from here to Newark and from Newark to Brooklyn.... So I have alternated
between the two dying beds; yesterday Jennie P. went into a convulsion
just as I entered the room, and did not fully come out of it for an hour
and a half, when I had to come away in order to get home before pitch
dark. What a terrible sight it is! They use chloroform, and that has a
very marked effect, controlling all violence in a few seconds. Whether
the poor child came out of that attack alive I do not know; I had no
doubt she was dying till just before I came away, when she appeared
easier, though still unconscious. The family seem nearly frantic, and
the sisters are so upset by witnessing these turns, that I shall feel
that I must be there all I can. I am in cruel doubt which household to
go to, but hope God will direct.

Mr. Prentiss is a good deal withered and worn by his sister's state; he
had never, by any means, ceased to hope, and he is much afflicted. She
and Jennie may live a week or more, or go at any moment. In my long
hours of silent musing and prayer, as I go from place to place, I think
often of you. I think one reason why we do not get all the love and
faith we sigh for is that we try to force them to come to us, instead of
realising that they must be God's free gifts, to be won by prayer....
And now Mr. P. has come up-stairs rolled up in your afghan, and we have
decided to go to both Newark and Brooklyn to-morrow, so I know I ought
to go to bed. You must take this letter as a great proof of my love to
you, though it does not say much, for I am bewildered by the scenes
through which I am passing, and hardly fit therefore to write. What I
do not say I truly feel, real, deep, constant sympathy with you in your
sorrow and loneliness. May God bless you in it.

[1] Dorset