and through us, finding
humanity and weakness, but also finding something on which His eye can
rest with delight--namely, His own Son. Every day I live I see that
faith is my only hope, as perhaps I never saw it before.... Read over
again the experience of Antiochus; he got in early life what dear Dr.
---- only found on his deathbed, and so may you.

_To Miss E. A. Warner, New York, Oct. 28, 1877._

I am too tired on Sunday evenings to find much profit in reading, and
have been sitting idle some minutes, asking myself how I should
spend the hour till bed-time, if I could pick and choose among human
occupations. I decided that if I had just the right kind of a neighbor,
I should like to have her come in, or if there was the right kind of
a little prayer-meeting round the corner, I would go to that. Then I
concluded to write to you, in answer to your letter of July 24. I write
few letters during the summer, because it seems a plain duty to keep out
of doors as much as I possibly can; then we have company all the time,
and they require about all the social element there is in me. We feel
that we owe it to Him who gives us our delightful home to share it with
others, especially those who get no mountain breezes save through us; of
some I must pay travelling expenses, or they can not come at all. Their
enjoyment is sufficient pay. My Bible-reading takes all the time of two
days not spent in outdoor exercise, as I have given up almost everything
of help in preparation for it but that which is given me in answer to
prayer and study of the Word. I am kept, to use a homely expression,
with my nose pretty close to the grindstone; in other words, am kept
low and little. But God blesses the work exactly as if I were a better
woman. Sometimes I think how poor He must be to use such instruments as
He does.

How is the niece you spoke of as so ill and so happy? For my part I am
_confounded_ when I see people hurt and distressed when invited home.
How a loving Father must feel when His children shrink back crying, "I
have so much to live for!" or, in other words, so little to die for. It
frightens me sometimes to recall such cases.

And now I am going to tote my old head to bed. It is 59 years old and
has to go early.

_To Mrs. Fisher, Oct. 31, 1877._

With young children, and artistic work to do, the wonder is not that you
have to neglect other things, but that you ever find time to attend to
any one outside of house and home.