Sometimes I can say undoubtingly, “I _know_ I shall find them again, where He is.” But though the light flickers and dims sometimes, what if it does? There the light is, and every year a larger space is redeemed from darkness. Oh, my dear friend! life is a gift blessed as it is awful. To think how close we are to one another for good or evil, do what we will! We cannot be apart from our fellow-beings; the pulses of this life we have in common throb, upward or downward, through us forever. Death is not to me half so solemn as life: but then death is no reality--a circumstance of our external life only.... TO THE SAME. 627 TREMONT STREET, BOSTON, June 6, 1881. ... I am steadily gaining in strength I think, and I am glad to keep on learning to live and to work, with such limitations as years necessarily bring. I find my life taking deeper hold of all other human lives; I feel myself more closely and warmly one of the great human family, every year of my life. And I feel through this the assurance of immortality--because we are in our deepest instincts children of the living God--because we, as sons and daughters, are united through the Son with the Father; we share His eternity; we cannot lose Him nor one another, nor the least spark of truth or love kindled within us from His being. I am glad that I live, and that I shall die; that I shall fall asleep to awake with all I love, with all that is permanent here, in Him. The forward outlook is full of good cheer; for is not He the Eternally Good?... TO FRANKLIN CARTER. BEVERLY, MASS., July 18, 1881. DEAR FRANK,--I want to write a word of congratulation to you, in your new position. C---- told me you thought of going to Williamstown, but I did not know it was fully decided, until I saw your address in a Boston paper. It was an excellent inaugural. I felt my sympathy go out to you as I read. I felt sure, and feel sure, that you will do good in your new position, which surely is a most responsible one, in a time like this. I wonder if it is really a time of greater unbelief than hitherto. Doubt is not an unhealthy symptom; it argues the possibility of belief. Indifference to high truth seems to me worst of all, the indifference that comes of _too much world_, which everybody seems to get suffocated in. It is a great privilege to be able to influence young men to the best things, as you will be able to,--to make low aims seem, as they are, unworthy of manhood. God bless you and help you!