Madame: Not being able to shake hands, and having thus been deprived of the pleasure of verbally telling you what we had to say, we now have recourse to our pen. Our hearts have heard, understood and treasured your words of last Sunday. Dear Lady, yours is a special task. In your field of labor are gathered crowds unnumbered, inert, inanimate, forming, as it were, a great desert, a Dead Sea uninhabited by any living thing. There lies a small world to be reconquered; such are the men who are to be reclaimed. How act upon them? How move their hearts? How gain mastery over them? In these questions lies the secret of the future. Holiness in your heart and the omnipotent hand of Jesus in yours cannot fail to bring about the reformation of a host of criminals. He will save them. Oh! climb the heights, display the brilliancy of those universal truths in whose presence every being gifted with reason and accessible to reflection feels compelled to bend the knee. Deeds, examples, striking evidence and incontestable proofs of abnegation, devotedness, charity and sacrifices are required. These are the sermons that awaken souls from their torpor; these the weapons that triumph over the world, however criminal, careless, frivolous and hardened it may be. SIGNED. * * * * * December 1, 1885. Mrs. Elizabeth R. Wheaton, Somewhere in America. Let me begin this letter by saying something very true concerning RUM. Let thy devotees extol thee, And thy wondrous virtues sum; But the worst of names I'll call thee, O, thou hydra monster, Rum! Pimple-maker, visage-bloater, Health-corrupter, idler's mate; Mischief breeder, vice promoter, Credit spoiler, devil's bait. Almshouse builder, pauper maker, Trust betrayer, sorrow's source; Pocket emptier, Sabbath breaker, Conscience stifler, guilt's resource. Nerve enfeebler, system shatterer, Thirst increaser, vagrant thief; Cough producer, treacherous flatterer, Mud bedauber, mock relief. Business hinderer, spleen instiller, Woe begetter, friendship's bane; Anger heater, Bridewell filler, Debt involver, toper's chain. Memory drowner, honor wrecker, Judgment warper, blue-faced quack; Feud beginner, rags bedecker, Strife enkindler, fortune's wreck. Summer's cooler, winter's warmer, Blood polluter, specious snare; Mob collector, man transformer, Bond undoer, gambler's fare.