"As I can neither see you nor hear from you, my dear Miss Cushing, I must write you, if it be only to say how much I think of and desire to see you. I know too well that I do not deserve any indulgence from you, but there is something so solitary, and at times almost overpowering, in the idea that those whom we have best loved, with whom we have passed happy hours of intercourse and sympathy, are, though still dear, divided from us, not perhaps by distance, but by circumstances which we cannot control, that I am almost tempted to repine that such must be our situation. You will, I know, be ready to ask why I have so neglected the only means in my power of continuing that intercourse? I would not complain of it, but I have little time, and so many occupations which the call of duty bids me not neglect, that I seldom write to any one, and always in so much haste that I should be ashamed to send such epistles to you. Beside all this, I have so little intercourse with the world, or those in it in whom I think you would be interested, that I must, from a dearth of ideas in this poor brain, write almost wholly of self, the most odious and wearisome of all topics. But this very isolation makes me depend so much on every little iota of external excitement, that I should be satisfied, or rather content, with any thing in the form of a letter you would find time to give me.... "I have felt, and I believe have expressed to you, or Miss P----, a kind of discontent sometimes operating on my mind at the want of opportunity to become what I have vainly thought I might be. But this is all over, and I am satisfied that I must be content with a very low degree in the scale of knowledge. But I trust I may be good, though never great, and am confident that the peculiar situation in which I am placed is one more calculated for me than any I could choose for myself. Trial is necessary to me, and I am happy in it, except when I am conscious it is not improved as it should be. It is not for us, who have so many blessings, to murmur if our faith is sometimes put to the test; did we view things aright, what now seems judgment is in truth mercy. What should we be, were we not sometimes reminded of our sins and the weakness of our minds? Surely, then, whatever may be the trials which bring us to a true sense of our accountability to our Father in heaven, they are the kindest expressions of his goodness. I never could have any gloomy views of religion, and the more experience I have of its cheering influences in the hearts of its votaries, the more I am convinced that it is the only sure guide to happiness even in this world; how much more in another!