esents a cheerless prospect. Dr. Fisher's is one of the four
fortunate homes that were saved in the burned district."

LETTER IV.

MY DEAR FRIEND:

In your last letter, you ask me what are the feelings of our people,
especially the immediate sufferers, under the severe stroke which has
befallen them; whether desponding or otherwise, and whether the spirit of
"retaliation for the bitterly severe losses and deprivations does not
largely manifest itself among them."

In regard to the first, I am enabled to say, that during the whole course
of my life, I have not witnessed such an absence of despondent feeling
under great trials and sudden reverses of earthly fortune, never such
buoyancy and vigor of soul, and even cheerfulness amid accumulated woes
and sorrows, as I have during these four weeks of our devastated town. And
I leave you to imagine the many cases of extreme revulsion from
independence and affluence to utter helplessness and want. The widow and
fatherless, the aged and infirm, suddenly bereft of their earthly all, in
very many instances, even of a change of clothing. Large and valuable
libraries and manuscripts, the accumulations of many years; statuary,
paintings, precious and never-to-be-replaced mementoes--more valuable than
gold and silver--gone forever. And yet amid all these losses and the
consequent self-denial and the necessity of adapting themselves to another
and almost entirely different state of things, to which the great majority
of the people were subjected, you seldom see a sad or sombre countenance
on the street or elsewhere. Exceptions there are doubtless, traceable in
part to feeble physical constitution, in part also to an inordinate love
of and dependence upon transitory objects. But in a general way the
sufferers by this wholesale devastation are among the most patient,
unmurmuring, cheerful, hopeful people I have ever known. God really seems
to have given special grace in a special time of need. When, on the
morning after the burning and pillage (God's sweet day of rest) I
attempted to preach to an humble flock of Germans, whom I serve once a
Sabbath, a godly woman belonging to the little congregation wept nearly
during the whole service. On the way to my lodging-place, I overtook her
and found her still in tears. Fearing I had been misinformed as to her
safety from the recent calamity, I asked for the cause of her grief. "I
weep for _others_, my dear pastor," she replied, "and