n has a more forgiving and truly gentle and
high-minded spirit.

_28th_. I began housekeeping, first on my return from the visit to New
York, in the spring of 1825, in the so-called Allen House, on the
eminence west of the fort, having purchased my furniture at Buffalo, and
made it a pretty and attractive residence. But after the death of my
son, the place became insupportable from the vivid associations which it
presented with the scenes of his daily amusements.

I determined this day to close the house, and, leaving the furniture
standing, we took refuge at Mr. Johnston's. Idolatry such as ours for a
child, was fit to be rebuked, and the severity of the blow led me to
take a retrospect of life, such as it is too common to defer, but,
doubtless, wise to entertain. Why Providence should have a controversy
with us for placing our affections too deeply on a sublunary object, is
less easy at all times to reconcile to our limited perceptions than it
is to recognize in holy writ the existence of the great moral fact. "I
will be honored," says Jehovah, "and my glory will I not give to
another." It is clear that there is a mental assent in our attachments,
in which the very principle of idolatry is involved. If so, why not give
up the point, and submit to the dispensations of an inevitable and
far-seeing moral government, of affairs of every sort, with entire
resignation and oneness of purpose? How often has death drawn his dart
fatally since Adam fell before it, and how few of the millions on
millions that have followed him have precisely known _why_, or been
_entirely prepared_ for the blow! To me it seems that it has been the
temper of my mind to fasten itself too strongly on life and all its
objects; to hope too deeply and fully under all circumstances; to
grapple, as it were, in its issues with as "hooks of steel," and never
to give up, never to despair; and this blow, this bereavement, appears
to me the first link that is broken to loosen my hold on this sublunary
trust. My thoughts, three years ago, were turned strongly, and with a
mysterious power, to this point, namely, my excessive ardor of earthly
pursuits, of men's approbation. Here, then, if these reflections be
rightly taken, is the _second_ admonition. Such, at least, has been the
current of my thoughts since the 13th of the present month, and they
were deeply felt when I took my Bible, the first I ever owned or had
bought with my own money, and requested that