decision of character, some energy, some judgment, I feel as if I were reduced to a mere child, ready to lean upon any body's judgment but my own, heartsick and homesick at the sense of incapacity to meet my duties. Is this want of actual power, or want of faith to use the power that is left? I don't know. All I know certainly is this: that I find myself utterly inadequate to the duties which belong to me, and am in consequence in a perpetual state of anxiety, which incapacitates me from doing or enjoying. This is a new strain, you will say; for me, truly it is a new state of mind, and whether remediable or not, I cannot tell; can you tell me?... "... How strangely various seem to be the means appointed to bring about the same end in life; and it is not easy to see how our various lots can all be brought to bear the same fruit of holiness and happiness. The greatest evil to me in life is the perpetual hurry, hurry, to get through the business of the day without leaving any necessary duty undone,--without a moment for quiet thought or intellectual improvement,--while here is my neighbor, it may be, at a loss how to fill up the vacant hours, thankful to resort to sleep to dispose of some of them. Does it seem as if we were both destined to the same end? The more I look upon life, the more I feel that the outside has less to do with improvement or happiness. And dissatisfied as I sometimes feel with my own position, I know not how I should improve it, on the whole. When I look calmly at my deficiencies, I see that they are not so much the effect of any outside cause, as the weakness of my own character. And if at times this brings a feeling akin to despair, it makes me less restless than I should otherwise be. "Dear N----, I have a strong feeling that this is to be a year of change to me; not from any present indications, but that it seems presumptuous to expect that the trial which I believe hangs over me should be long averted. Pray for me, that I may be prepared for it. I fear I shall never be any better. And so I begin the year, not wishing to look to its end, but with more indifference as to what that end may be to me, than I ever felt before. I fear this is not a right feeling.... "Yours always. "M. L. W."