All for the Best

comes of me. Since I wrote my mother's letter, God has carried me through new trials, and given me new supports. My little son1 has been sick with the slow fever ever since my brother left us, and has been brought to the brink of the grave. But I hope, in mercy, God is bringing him up again. I was enabled to resign the child (after a severe struggle with nature) with the greatest freedom. God showed me that the child was not my own, but his, and that he had a right to recall what he had lent whenever he thought fit; and I had no reason to complain, or say God Idealt hard with me. This silenced me. But how good is

God! He hath not only kept me from complaining, but comforted me, by enabling me to offer up the child by faith. I think, if ever I acted faith, I saw the fulness there was in Christ for little infants, and his willingness to accept of such as were offered to him. "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God," were comforting words. God also showed me, in such a lively manner, the fulness that was in himself of all spiritual blessings, that I said, "Although all streams were cut off, yet, so long as my God lives, I have enough." He enabled me to say. "Although thou slay me, yet will I trust in thee." In this time of trial I was led to enter into a renewed and explicit covenant with God, in a more solemn manner than ever before, and with the greatest freedom and delight. examination and prayer, I did give up dren to God with my whole heart. Never, until now, had I a sense of the privilege we are allowed in covenanting with God! This act of my soul left my mind in a quiet and steady trust in God. A few days after this, one evening, in talking of the glorious state my dear departed [husband] must be in, my soul was carried out in such 1 Aaron Burr, then about twenty months old.

After much selfmyself and chil

longing desires after this glorious state, that I was forced to retire from the family to conceal my joy. When alone, I was so transported, and my soul carried out in such eager desires after perfection, and the full enjoyment of God, and to serve him uninterruptedly, that I think my nature would not have borne much more. I think I had that night a foretaste of Heaven. This frame continued, in some good degree, the whole night. I slept but little; and when I did, my dreams were all of heavenly and divine things. Frequently since I have felt the same in kind, though not in degree. Thus a kind and gracious God has been with me in six troubles, and in seven. But, oh! sir, what cause of deep humiliation and abasement of soul have I, on account of remaining corruption which I see working, especially pride! Oh, how many shapes does pride cloak itself in! Satan is also busy shooting his darts; but, blessed be God, those temptations of his that used to overthrow me, as yet, have not touched me. Oh to be delivered from the power of Satan as well as sin! I cannot help hoping the time is near. God is certainly fitting me for himself; and when I think it will be soon that I shall be called hence, the thought is transporting.

Your dutiful and affectionate daughter,

ESTHER BURR

"Within the gate"

BEL

(To Mr. and Mrs. James T. Fields)

Monday Night [May, 1864]

ELOVED; When I see that I deserved nothing, and that my Father gave me the richest destiny for so many years of time to which eternity is to be added, I am struck dumb with an ecstacy of gratitude, and let go my

A Transporting Thought

mortal hold with an awful submission, and without a murmur. I stand hushed into an ineffable peace which I cannot measure nor understand. It therefore must be that peace which "passeth all understanding." I feel that his joy is such as "the heart of man cannot conceive," and shall I not then rejoice, who loved him so far beyond myself? If I did not at once share his beatitude, should I be one with him now in essential essence? Ah, thanks be to God who gives me this proof— beyond all possible doubt - that we are not and never can be divided!

If my faith bear this test, is it not "beyond the utmost scope and vision of calamity!" Need I ever fear again any possible dispensation if I can stand serene when that presence is reft from me which I believed I must instantly die to lose? Where, O God, is that supporting, inspiring, protecting, entrancing presence which surrounded me with safety and supreme content?

"It is with you, my child, saith the Lord, and seemeth only to be gone." "Yes, my Father, I know I have not lost it, because I still live." "I will be glad." "Thy will be done." From a child I have truly believed that God was all good and all wise, and felt assured that no event could shake my belief. To-day I know it. This is the whole. No more can be asked of God. There can be no death nor loss for me for evermore. stand so far within the veil that the light from God's countenance can never be hidden from me for one moment of the eternal day, now nor then. God gave me the rose of time; the blossom of the ages to call my own for twentyfive years of human life.

I

God has satisfied wholly my insatiable heart with a perfect love that transcends my dreams. He has decreed this earthly life a mere court of "the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Oh, yes, dear heavenly

Father! "I will be glad," that my darling ha caped from the rude jars and hurts of this out when I was not aware that an angel gen within the palace-door that turned on nois hinges, drew him in, because he was weary.

God gave to his beloved sleep. And ther which will require no more restoring slumber. As the dew-drop holds the day, so my hea presence of the glorified freed spirit. He was here, that he will not need much change t "shining one"! How easily I shall know hi children have done with me, and perhaps th draw me gently also within the palace-door, faint, but truly live, "Thy will be done."

At that festival of life that we all celebrated la did not those myriad little white lily-bells ring the eternal year of peace, as they clustered around the majestic temple, in which he once God? They rang out, too, that lordly incens come only from a lily, large or small. What l sculpture round the edge. I saw it all, even at t less moment, when I knew that all that was w about to be shut out from me for my future mor saw all the beauty, and the tropical gorgeousne that enriched the air from your peerless wreath s in Paradise. We were the new Adam and the again, and walked in the garden in the cool of and there was not yet death, only the voice of But indeed it seems to me that now again th death. His life has swallowed it up.

Do not fear for me "dark hours." I think nothing dark for me henceforth. I have to do the present, and the present is light and rest. the everlasting

358

Hope and Joy for All

"Morning spread

Over me her rich surprise?"

I have no more to ask, but that I may be able to comfort all who mourn as I am comforted. If I could bear all sorrow I would be glad, because God has turned for me the silver lining; and for me the darkest cloud has broken into ten thousand singing birds — as I saw in my dream that I told you. So in another dream, long ago, God showed me a gold thread passing through each mesh of a black pall that seemed to shut out the sun. I comprehend all now, before I did not doubt. Now God says in soft thunders, - "Even so!"

Your faithful friend,

SOPHIA HAWTHORNE

A Christmas letter

(Lucy Larcom to John G. Whittier)

627 TREMONT STREET,

BOSTON, December 25, 1881

MY

DEAR FRIEND,

Alone in my room this

evening, I feel just like writing a Christmas letter

to you, and I follow the impulse.

This day always brings back old times and old friends to memory, but never with sadness to me, because the one idea of the day is hope and joy for all souls, the possibilities of infinite help, unending progress. Whenever I enter deeply into the thought of Christ, whenever I feel Him the one Reality inseparable from my own being, then I feel that I have my friends safe, and that they are to be my friends forever. To me, He is the one Divine Friend in whom human friendships can alone be real and permanent, because He draws us into sympathy with what is best,