"If I do not mistake the spirit as well as letter of your remark you would have us believe that a righteous retribution has overtaken us, (or my husband, and we are one,) and that the world is justly punishing him for not having conciliated it, by conforming to its wills and ways.--You say that my husband was told ten years ago, that the world could not understand him. It perhaps fell dead on his ears and ever will. There is no human voice can convince him that the path he has chosen to tread, thorny, bleak, solitary, as it is, is not the right one for him. Just so did that man of Nazareth whom all the world profess to admire and adore, but few to imitate; and these few are the laughing-stock of the Christian Community. They are branded as visionaries and fools. But this little band when alone and disencumbered of idle observation, enjoy the recital of their privations; they have been reviled, but they revile not again; they know sorrow and are acquainted with grief; and yet there is joy in that group of sinless men, such as angels might desire to partake of. I am not writing poetry, but I have tried to place before your mind, in as brief, but clear a manner as I am able, our real condition, and Mr. Alcott's merit as a man, who, though punished and neglected by a wicked world, has much to console and encourage him in the confidence and cooperation of some of the wisest and best men living. Ten such, were they permitted in their several vocations to act as teachers, preachers, and printers, would save our wicked city from the ruin that awaits it. But they are turned, like the Nazarene, into solitary places to lament the blindness and folly of mankind, who are following the vain and fleeting shadow for the real and abiding substance. But to return to Mr. Alcott, is he to sell his soul, or what is the same thing, his principles, for the bread that perisheth? No one will employ him in his way; he cannot work in theirs, if he thereby involve his conscience. He is so resolved in this matter that I believe he will starve and freeze before he will sacrifice principle to comfort. In this, I and my children are necessarily implicated: we make and mean to make all the sacrifices we can to sustain him, but we have less to sustain us in the spirit, and therefore, are more liable to be overcome of the flesh. He has, for a long time gone without everything which he could not produce by labor, from his own place, that no one could in truth reproach him with wantonly eating of the fruits of another's labor.