e had slipped into our proper nook. But if we are going to
do any more brainwork, we must be where there is stimulus, such as we
find here. What a mixed-up letter! I have almost forgotten how to write,
in adorning my house and sowing my seeds and the like.

_To Mrs. Frederick Field, New York, Oct. 19th, 1870._

I deeply appreciate the Christian kindness that prompted you to write me
in the midst of your sorrow. I was prepared for the sad news by a dream
only last night. I fancied myself seeing your dear little boy lying very
restlessly on his bed, and proposing to carry him about in my arms to
relieve him. He made no objection, and I walked up and down with him a
long, long time, when some one of the family took him from me. Instantly
his face was illumined by a wondrous smile of delight that he was to
leave the arms of a stranger to go to those familiar to him--such a
smile, that when I awoke this morning I said to myself, "Eddy Field has
gone to the arms of his Saviour, and gone gladly." You can imagine how
your letter, an hour or two later, touched me. But you have better
consolation than dreams can give; in the belief that your child will
develop, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, into the perfect
likeness of Christ, and in your own submission to the unerring will of
God. I sometimes think that patient sufferers suffer most; they make
less outcry than others, but the grief that has little vent wears
sorely.

"Grace does not steel the faithful heart
That it should feel no ill,"

and you have many a pang yet before you. It must be so very hard to see
twin children part company, to have their paths diverge so soon. But the
shadow of death will not always rest on your home; you will emerge from
its obscurity into such a light as they who have never sorrowed can not
know. We never know, or begin to know, the great Heart that loves us
best, till we throw ourselves upon it in the hour of our despair.
Friends say and do all they can for us, but they do not know what we
suffer or what we need; but Christ, who formed, has penetrated the
depths of the mother's heart. He pours in the wine and the oil that no
human hand possesses, and "as one whom his mother comforteth, so will He
comfort you." I have lived to see that God never was so good to me as
when He seemed most severe. Thus I trust and believe it will be with you
and your husband. Meanwhile, while the peaceable fruits are growing and
ripening, may God he