The greater number of invalids are under no such liability; but all may be subject to some injustice,--some misrepresentation which may reach their knowledge; and their emotions, both of recoil and of renovation, may be like in kind, and even equal in degree, to those I have intimated. If occasions for forgiveness should arise,--(and to whom do they not?)--may its relish be as sweet to them as it assuredly is to some more extensively tried! An inestimable gain from the longest sickness is the outgrowth of the scruples and other conflicts which constitute the chief evil of merely long sickness. Of some perils and pains of our condition I have spoken, and I must therefore declare that there is a remedial influence in the very infirmity which appeared to create them. If it be but continued long enough,--if the struggle be not broken off before it is fairly exhausted,--victory will declare itself on the side of peace. We may be long in passing through the experience of weakness, humiliation and submission; but up, through acquiescence, we must rise, sooner or later,--true things separating themselves infallibly from the transient, and all that is important revealing itself in its due proportions, till our vision is cleared and our hearts are at rest. If the invalid of five years can smile at some of the anxieties and scrupulosities of his first season of retreat, much more clear-sighted must the ten years’ thinker be in regard to the snares and troubles of his early or midway term. If, amidst the gain, as little as possible be lost, the privileges of our state may be such,--not as, indeed, to compare with those of health and a natural mode of life,--but as may satisfy a humble and rational hope that our season of probation is not lost, nor materially wasted. * * * * *