Mr. Whittier came, but remained a very short time. I saw him only a moment, just before we went in. My escort--they were all coupled off by a printed plan--was Mr. William Winter, a New York poet and journalist. He was very entertaining, and I think his poem was the best and most effective of the occasion. ... I am fast getting to be a dissipated woman, but I must and will put myself to work steadily for a week or two. This was the first meeting between Miss Larcom and Mr. Brooks. She had heard him preach at Trinity Church and was greatly helped by his sermons, for which she had often thanked him by letter, and, in return, had received some few characteristic lines, like the following:-- BOSTON, April 14, 1879. MY DEAR MISS LARCOM,--The preaching of Christ as a personal friend and Saviour of all our souls becomes to me more and more the one interesting work of life, and the readiness of the people to hear that one simple message, which, in its endlessly various forms, is always the same, gives me ever new satisfaction and delight. I have known you by your verses for years. I hope some day we may meet. Yours very truly, PHILLIPS BROOKS. The friendship between them deepened, as the years went on. They had many serious conversations on spiritual subjects, and he became to her the great religious guide of her life. His personality, with its earnest, and even fierce, love for the simplicity of truth, and the power with which he presented it, made the deepest impression upon her in her last decade, and brought to the fruition of spiritual loveliness the remaining years of her career. BOSTON, March 20, 1880. MY DEAR MISS LARCOM,--You will allow me to thank you for your note and to say how truly glad I am if anything I said on Wednesday evening helped you in your thought of the Lord’s Supper. To me the Personalness of the great Sacrament seems to be the key to all its meaning, and its simplicity is its grandeur and its charm. Ever yours sincerely, PHILLIPS BROOKS. TO MRS. S. I. SPALDING. 627 TREMONT STREET, February 12, 1880. ... You must be disheartened often, in having to listen to the vagaries of the many who have ordained themselves prime ministers of divine affairs. I really cannot feel it right to put myself in the way of hearing such talk. What can the end be, since there is common sense among the people, but a disgust for preaching altogether?