Part 30 (1/2)

_Septeh if I had kno early the foliage was going to turn this year, I should have planned to stay a week longer to see it in all its glory It is looking very beautiful even now, and our eyes have a perpetual feast We have had a char summer, but one does not want to play all the time, and I hope God has work of so the winter Meanwhile, I wish I could send you a photograph of the little den where I aeneris_, and the bit of woods to be seen fro the lead of all other Dorset woods, have put on floral colors, just because they are ours and knoant theo away But this wish must yield to fate, like many another; and, as I have come to the end of my paper, I will love and leave you

IV

_The Story Lizzie Told_ Country and City The Law of Christian Progress Letters to a Friend bereft of three Children Sudden Death of another Friend ”Go on; step faster” Fenelon and his Influence upon her religious Life Lines on her Indebtedness to him

_The Story Lizzie Told_ was published about this tiazine The occasion of the story was a passage in a letter froraphic and touching way the yearly exhibition of the Society for the Pro the Poor The exhibition was held at the ”Dean's close” at Westave the prizes [9]

No one of Mrs Prentiss's smaller works, perhaps, has been so much admired as _The Story Lizzie Told_ It ritten at Dorset in the course of a single day, if not at a single sitting; and so real was the scene to her i to her husband, she had to stop again and again from the violence of her emotion ”What a little fool I am!” she would say, after a fresh burst of tears [10]

_To Mrs Leonard, New York, Oct 16, 1870_

Your letter came in the midst of the wear and tear of A's return to us

We were kept in suspense about her from Monday, when she was due, till, Friday when she caht up They had a dreadful passage, but she was not sick at all

Prof S better than I ever saw hiether once more I can truly re-echo your wish that you lived half way between us and Dorset, for then we should see you once a year at least Ito see you How true it is that each friend has a place of his own that no one else can fill! I do not doubt that the 13th of October was a silvery wedding-day to your dear husband His loss has made Christ dearer to you, and so has made your union more perfect I suppose you were never so htful suh, of course, we felt it hts were cool

I can not tell you how Mr P and myself enjoy our country home It seeoing to do any more brainwork, we must be where there is stimulus, such as we find here What a otten horite, in adorningmy seeds and the like

_To Mrs Frederick Field, New York, Oct 19th, 1870_

I deeply appreciate the Christian kindness that prompted you to write me in the midst of your sorroas prepared for the sad news by a drea your dear little boy lying very restlessly on his bed, and proposing to carry him about in my arms to relieve him He , long time, when some one of the family took him from me Instantly his face was illuht that he was to leave the aro to those fa I said to one gladly” You can iine how your letter, an hour or two later, touched ive; in the belief that your child will develop, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, into the perfect likeness of Christ, and in your own sub will of God I sometimes think that patient sufferers suffer rief that has little vent wears sorely

”Grace does not steel the faithful heart That it should feel no ill,”

and you haveyet before you It must be so very hard to see twin children part coe so soon But the shadow of death will not always rest on your hoht as they who have never sorrowed can not know We never know, or begin to know, the great Heart that loves us best, till we throw ourselves upon it in the hour of our despair

Friends say and do all they can for us, but they do not knoe suffer or e need; but Christ, who formed, has penetrated the depths of the mother's heart He pours in the wine and the oil that no human hand possesses, and ”as one whom his mother comforteth, so will He coood to me as when He seemed most severe Thus I trust and believe it will be with you and your husband Meanwhile, while the peaceable fruits are growing and ripening, rievous tirievous time in which you have my warm syriefs; but then my consolations, My joys, and my immortal hopes I know”--

joys unknown to the prosperous, hopes that spring fro buried in the dust

I shall read your books with great interest, I am sure, and who kno Godthe path of pain? ”Every branch that beareth fruit He purgeth it, that itforth more fruit”

What an epitaph your boy's oords would be--”It is beautiful to be dead”!

_To the Same, New York, Nov 30th, 1870_

I thank you so much for your letter about your precious children I remember them well, all three, and do not wonder that the death of your first-born, co upon the very footsteps of sorrow, has so nearly crushed you But what beautiful consolations God gave you by his dying bed! ”All safe at God's right hand!” What more can the fondest mother's heart ask than such safety as this? I am sure that there will come to you, sooner or later, the sense of Christ's love in these repeated sorrows, that in your present bewildered, amazed state you can hardly realise Letstor of its depths I will enclose you soht Please not to let theo out of your hands, for no one--not evento send my last book to your lonely little boy You will not feel like reading it now, but perhaps the 33d chapter, and some that follow, o back again to the subject of Christ's love for us, of which I never tire, I want to make you feel that His sufferers are His happiest, most favored disciples What they learn about Hiness to hurt us, His haste to bind up the very wounds He has inflicted---endear Hi, that His ”donation of bliss” included in it such donation of pain Perhaps I have already said to you, for I a it,

”The love of Jesus---what it is, Only His sufferers know”

You ask if your heart will ever be lightsohtsoayety with the new and higher love born of tribulation Just as far as a heavenly is superior even to maternal love, will be the elevation and beauty of your new joy; a joy worth all it costs I knohat sorrow means; I knoell But I know, too, what it is to pass out of that prison-house into a peace that passes all understanding; and thousands can say the sa sister, look on and look up; lay hold on Christ with _both your poor, eh He slay you, still trust in Him; and I dare in His name to promise you a sweeter, better life than you could have known had He left you to drink of the full, dangerous cups of un sympathy with you, that I would love to spend weeks by your side, trying to bind up your broken heart

But for the gospel of Christ, to hear of such bereavements as yours would appall, would madden one Yet, what a halo surrounds that word ”but”!