with what is eternal, the love of goodness, the consciousness of God in us and around us, and the solemn gladness of a human life into which God has entered, and where He still is.

God with us still, the Spiritual Presence of One who is more real than any other person can be to us, through whom indeed we receive our personality, this idea, so grand as at times to seem almost impossible, grows more definite and clear to me. It is the "So I am with you alway" of Christ. And with this idea, that of those whom we love unseen, our friends who have disappeared from sight, becomes more definite also.

Sometimes I can say undoubtingly, “I know I shall find them again, where He is." But though the light flickers and dims sometimes, what if it does? There the light is, and every year a larger space is redeemed from darkness.

Oh, my dear friend! life is a gift blessed as it is awful. To think how close we are to one another for good or evil, do what we will! We cannot be apart from our fellowbeings; the pulses of this life we have in common throb, upward or downward, through us forever. Death is not to

me half so solemn as life: but then death is no reality — a circumstance of our external life only. . .

The "sole ground of hope"

I

(John G. Whittier to Harriet M. Pitman)

AM greatly pained to hear of the illness of our old friend Garrison. For how many years he has been an important part of our world! Much of my own life was shaped by him. It is very sad to think I shall see him no more. The next mail may bring tidings of his death. I have been thinking over my life, and the survey has not been encouraging. Alas! if I have been a servant at all I have been an unprofitable one, and yet I

Holy and Pure Ideals

have loved goodness, and longed to bring my imaginative poetic temperament into true subjection. I stand ashamed and almost despairing before holy and pure ideals. As I read the New Testament I feel how weak, irresolute, and frail I am, and how little I can rely on anything save our God's mercy and infinite compassion, which I reverently and thankfully own have followed me through life, and the assurance of which is my sole ground of hope for myself, and for those I love and pray for.

LIST OF LETTER WRITERS

Adams, Abigail (Mrs. John), 13, 219, | Gibson, William Hamilton, 62, 63, 64.

Burr, Aaron, 71, 73, 74, 138, 139, 274, Jackson, Rachel (Mrs. Andrew), 277,

Burr, Esther Edwards (Mrs. Aaron, James, Henry, Sr., 152.

Channing, William Ellery, 79, 326, Lanier, Sidney, 119, 216.

Franklin, Benjamin, 6, 273, 313, 316, Longfellow, Stephen, 186.

Prescott, William Hickling, 93, 118, Warren, Mercy (Mrs

Story, William Wetmore, 125, 169, Willis, Nathaniel Park