"Could I in any way serve you, how gladly would I do it! But when I take my pen to write you, and my heart would dictate something, which, to most of your age (particularly when so early deprived of a mother's care), might be useful, I am deterred by the thought of your maturity of mind, your well-regulated affections, and correct and dignified deportment. This is not flattery; you know me too well, I hope, to believe me capable of that, where my heart is interested. It is an opinion founded on a long, and for some time close observation. May you feel in your own bosom the reward you so richly deserve, and be sensible of those joys with which 'a stranger intermeddleth not.' So early disciplined in the school of affliction, your heart has felt the need of consolation which the world has not to bestow; and at a period of life when the follies and vanities of the world most commonly engross us, you have been led to an attention to those things which are unseen and eternal. God grant that you may be induced to persevere in the path of _piety_, to reach forward continually to higher attainments, nor ever rest satisfied till you have attained the glorious prize which is reserved for the followers of the blessed Jesus.... I should not, to many of your age, write so much on so serious a subject; but I believe you have a feeling persuasion of its reality and importance, and therefore will not deem me intrusive."