“RICHMOND, ALLEN’S HILL, “ONTARIO CO., N.Y., _Dec. 4th, 18—_. “MRS. CHURCHILL: “_Dear Madam_—I’ve had it on my mind to write to you ever since that terrible disaster by which you were deprived of a son, who was taken to eternity without ever the chance for one last prayer or cry to be saved. Let us hope he had made his prayers beforehand and had no need for them. He had been baptized, I suppose, as I hear you are a church woman, but are you High or Low? Everything to my mind depends upon that. I hold the Low to be purely Evangelical, while the High,—well, I will not harrow up your feelings; what I want to say is, that I do not and never have for a single moment upheld my niece, or rather my great niece, Edna, in what she has done. I took her from charity when her father died, although he was _higher_ than I in his views, and we used to hold many a controversial argument on apostolic succession, for he was a clergyman and my sister’s son. His wife, who set up to be a lady and taught music in our select school, died when Edna was born, and I believe went to Heaven, though we never agreed as to the age when children should be confirmed, nor about that word regeneration in the baptismal service. I hold it’s a stumbling block and ought to be struck out, while she said I did not understand its import, and confounded it with something else; but that’s neither here nor there. Lucy was a good woman and made my nephew a good wife, though she would keep a girl, which I never did.