"As I glance back at the period which has elapsed since you were here, one single thought takes precedence of all the rest. It is astonishment at the power of the soul to sustain the pressure of circumstances, the tension and excitement of feeling, the necessity of positive, energetic action, when the very heart-strings seem riven asunder,--and the capacity of sustaining a tranquil, and even cheerful aspect, when 'the dull, heart-sinking weight' of a vital grief is bearing us down, down, down,--one can scarcely believe there are any soundings to that _deep_ gulf. Yet so it is; and does it not open our vision to the glorious truth of the alliance of the soul with its divine origin? What but that inexhaustible, fountain of strength could sustain us, when the waves of trouble thus threaten to overwhelm us? Rich, blessed, indeed, is the experience which brings this conviction to our minds; holy is that season in which we can live as it were in the light of such a faith! And holy indeed has it been to me. "I feel that my danger now is, that I reluctantly do any thing that shall remove me from the influence of the atmosphere which it seems as if death had created around me. Death? transition I would rather call it. And yet let us strive to disabuse that word of some of the horrors in which education has wrapt it. O, could you have seen how mercifully it was stripped of all its terrors to us, how calmly that spirit left its earthly tabernacle, how sweet was the impress of peace and rest it left upon that face which had so long almost lost its own expression in the veil that sickness had thrown over it! Its last expression would have rebuked the slightest wish to recall the spirit, had we been so selfish as to have indulged one. We could scarcely be willing to be separated from that image of him we loved, so powerfully even in death did it express his character. Even the little children preferred being there, rather than anywhere beside; and will, I think, all, including even little Charlie, remember this first knowledge of a death-bed as a beautiful experience.