of my childhood! I have strongly felt that my
highest duty towards him with whom my future lot
may be linked, as well as my own highest interest,
is to live in the love and fear of God. Many deficiencies
I shall doubtless be conscious of! but if I
may live, and we may be united in the love and fear
of God, all, all will be well. Oh, then, to be watchful
and prayerful!

_1st Mo. 25th_. Letter to M.B.

* * * There is much, very much, connected with
any experience in these matters calculated to teach us
that this is not our rest; and often have I thought, when
pondering the uncertain future, that but for the small
degree in which the hope of things beyond, steadfast
and eternal, keeps its hold, I should be ready to sink;
and then I think of kind rich promises on which I try
to lay hold, "Thy shoes shall be iron and brass," and
"As thy day, so shall thy strength be." And so, dear
M., I trust it will be with us all, if our trust be but
rightly placed; and in this I fear I have sometimes, perhaps
often, been mistaken. I am sure it is well to have
this sifted and searched into, and none of the pains
which must attend such a process are in vain. When
we have learned more fully what and how frail we are,
then we can better appreciate the help that is offered,
and the abundant blessing of peace when it does come.
The depth of our own capacity for suffering is known to
few of us; and when we have made a little discovery of