"_January 26, 1847._ Well, it was an event for me to go to Exeter. All my associations with the place are of the most interesting kind. All the romance of my youth was connected with it; my first knowledge of your father was during his residence there, through the medium of the admiration of that brilliant circle of young ladies, in whose society he found poetical inspiration. It was the home and the death-place of the first specimen of the highly intellectual and spiritual form of humanity that I had ever known intimately, in the person of your father's dear friend, John E. Abbot; and the very name of Exeter was sacred to me, from its connection with the daily details of his last sickness, which I received from Mrs. P----, then residing in her Aunt Abbot's family. I had been there, however, only once, twenty years ago with your father, when together we visited John Abbot's grave, and gave ourselves up to the emotions connected with his memory. You may believe that it was with no common feelings that I went alone, upon such an errand, to that spot. The sense of my sole responsibility in the care of my children presses upon me at all times; but it bore with peculiar power at that time and at that place, reminded, as I could not but be, how little qualified I was to decide the question, in comparison with a father's knowledge and experience." * * * * * "_February 2._ ... This has been an intensely interesting day to me. What a thing is this _gift_ of life,--this strange, first union of the spiritual and the material! How closely such an event brings one near to the great Origin of all, and in what an interesting, affecting relation! The tender Father, watching over, protecting, sustaining, a feeble, mortal child in the greatest work of creation, the introduction of a new heir of immortality to the path which is to lead it to receive its inheritance!" * * * * * "_March 3._ ... Do not for a moment lose sight of your dear father's example. He was what he was, not by the bestowment of great natural powers, but by the religious industry with which he used his powers, the high standard of moral and religious character at which he aimed, the disinterested devotion with which he labored for others' good. _He cultivated his conscience_, and by its light he cultivated his intellect; marking out for himself that path in life in which he felt himself most likely to be useful. And this was the secret of his great success. He was willing to do any thing he could; and he regulated that 'could' by the most unwearied industry. What cannot one do, with such a lever?"