y do I
tell you this? Because the voice of a fellow-traveller always stimulates
his brother-pilgrim; what one finds and speaks of and rejoices over,
sets the other upon determining to find too. God has been very good to
you, as well as to me, but we ought to whisper to each other now and
then, "Go on, step faster, step surer, lay hold on the Rock of Ages with
both hands." You never need be afraid to speak such words to me. I want
to be pushed on, and pulled on, and coaxed on.

The allusion to her "beloved Fenelon," in several of the preceding
letters, renders this a suitable place to say a word about him and his
influence upon her religious character. "Fenelon I _lean_ on," she
wrote. Her delight in his writings dated back more than a quarter of a
century, and continued, unabated, to the end of her days. She regarded
him with a sort of personal affection and reverence. Her copy of
"Spiritual Progress," composed largely of selections from his works, is
crowded with pencil-marks expressive of her sympathy and approval; not
even her Imitation of Christ, Sacra Privata, Pilgrim's Progress, Saints'
Everlasting Rest, or Leighton on the First Epistle of Peter, contain so
many. These pencil-marks are sometimes very emphatic, underscoring or
inclosing now a single word, now a phrase, anon a whole sentence or
paragraph; and it requires but little skill to decipher, in these rude
hieroglyphics, the secret history of her soul for a third of a century--
one side, at least, of this history. What she sought with the greatest
eagerness, what she most loved and most hated, her spiritual aims,
struggles, trials, joys and hopes, may here be read between the lines.
And a beautiful testimony they give to the moral depth, purity and
nobleness of her piety!

The story is not, indeed, complete; her religious life had other
elements, not found, or only partially found, in Fenelon; elements
centering directly in Christ and His gospel, and which had their
inspiration in her Daily Food and her New Testament. What attracted her
to Fenelon was not the doctrine of salvation as taught by him--she found
it better taught in Bunyan and Leighton--it was his marvellous knowledge
of the human heart, his keen insight into the proper workings of nature
and grace, his deep spiritual wisdom, and the sweet mystic tone of his
piety. And then the two great principles pervading his writings--that
of pure love to God and that of self-crucifixion as the way to perfec