I have never been able to accept the doctrine that the Great Source of Love is jealous of His own bounty, and reproaches us for bestowing again what He has freely bestowed. Yet, though unassenting, I feel pain when I read in the works of pious men that a devoted regard yielded to a mortal is an infringement of the Highest Right, and I am grateful to the teachers who permit us to learn to love the Father whom we have not seen by loving the brother whom we have seen. In those seasons which happen to us all, when a shadow seems to pass between the spirit and its sun, I have brought myself back to a full and delighted sense of the Supreme Benignity by supposing the generosity and tenderness of a noble human heart infinitely augmented; and I have invigorated my trust in the promises of God, the spoken and the implied, by calling to mind what I have known of the loyalty of man. Human ties wind themselves very quickly and very closely round my heart. I cannot be brought even casually into contact with others so nearly that I am made aware of their interests and aims, without in some sort receiving their lives into my own,--sharing, perhaps, in disappointments, that, in my own person, I should not have encountered, and rejoicing in successes which would have been none to me. But friendship is still something very different from this,--different even from a kind and pleasant intimacy. Nor can we create it at will. I feel deeply the truth of South's assurance, that "it is not a human production." "A friend," he says, "is the gift of God: He only who made hearts can unite them. For it is He who creates those sympathies and suitablenesses of nature that are the foundation of all true friendship, and then by His providence brings persons so affected together." Last Sunday was one of those days that are remembered for their own perfection, apart from the associations that may have gathered about them; and it seems to be one of the properties of these transcendent seasons to come attended by all harmonious circumstances. Nothing was wanting to last Sunday. It stands cloudless and faultless in my memory. Harry proposed that we should hold our services in the open air. My mother approved. We took up her couch and carried it out to your favorite dreaming-ground, setting it down near the old tree that goes, for your sake, by the name of Keith's Pine. The place is not rough as when you were here. I have had the stumps cleared away, and your pine no longer looks so lonely, now that it seems to have been always alone.