to ----.

* * * Oh, how desirable it is to be willing to be
made of much or of little use!

"And careful less to serve thee much,
Than to please thee perfectly:"

and, very far back as I feel in the race, and insensible of
advance, I think we may be encouraged to believe that
we make some approaches to the "mark for the prize,"
if we have a clearer and more desirous view of the yet
far-distant goal. "Thine eyes shall see the King in his
beauty, they shall behold the land that is very far off,"
must have been addressed to one still "very far" from
the promised land. Thus I scribble to thee the musings
with which, in my now shady allotment, I try to encourage
myself to hope; and which perhaps are as incorrect
as the lament which the beautiful spring will sometimes
prompt, "With the year seasons return, but not to me."
It would, however, be most ungrateful to complain. To
live at all is a _great_ favor--an undeserved and unspeakable
favor; and though it be a life of pain and weariness,
and even grief, may it never become a life of
thankless ingratitude! We who have tried our heavenly
Father's patience so long, dare we complain of waiting
for Him?

_4th Mo. 13th_. Letter to M.B.

* * * However high be the capacity of the mind,
it is humiliating to find what small things can distract
it, if its anchor-hold be not truly what and where it
ought to be; and who does not find the need of this
being often renewed and made fast? The little experience
I have had, that even a life comparatively free
from trial, except as regards its highest significance, "is
but vanity," and the belief that it is so infinitely surpassed
by another, has much modified to me the feeling
of witnessing (might I venture to say of _anticipating?)_
the transition for others or for myself. I nevertheless
cannot say much from experience; for it has not yet
been my lot to lose one of my own intimate or nearly
attached friends, except where the course of time had
made it a natural and inevitable thing; and I know
there must be depths of sorrow in such events only
fathomed by descending to them.

_4th Mo.--th_. Letter to M.B.

What a privilege it is to be permitted to
expect and look for a better guidance than our own
judgment or inclination, even in the small things of our
small lives; small though they are, compared with the
great events which are rul