In introducing subjects of a domestic nature, the word “_us_” should be more frequently used than “_you_.” It is well sometimes to speak particularly of our own difficulties and mistakes; it helps our listeners to regard us as fellow-sufferers—as friends, who can understand and sympathise with them. When a poor mother tells us how much misery the bad behaviour of her children is causing her, we must not say (though it might be true), “Ah! that is just the natural consequence of all your bad management; if you had only done what I advised, it would not have happened.” It must be—(and what mother cannot truthfully say so?)—“Ah! I can feel for you; for my children trouble _me_ a good deal sometimes, and occasion me much anxiety. I don’t know what I should do, if I could not bring them to God in prayer, and hope in His mercy for them.” On one occasion, while about to leave home for a few weeks, I received a message from a poor woman that several of her children had been attacked by fever. I could not, of course, go to her then; but I wrote to her the next day from the sea-side. I happened to mention, in my letter, that I was under some anxiety for the health of one of _my_ children. In her reply, after thanking me for my remembrance of her, she said, “And I thank you very much for telling me about your own child being ill. I pray for her, too, when I pray for my own children; and I seem to feel more sure that God will hear me.” During the first year, as I have already mentioned, I had to conduct this society alone; being without the kind assistance which I now enjoy. I was, of course, very anxious that nothing should ever prevent my being there at the appointed time. I had at one time, for some days, been suffering from toothache; and when the day for the meeting came, I was in such an unnerved state, that the slightest noise distressed me very much. But when the evening came, I felt that I must go. I remember standing at the foot of the stairs, trembling in every nerve; and wondering how it was possible to mount to the top, and go into the room to face all the women. I had, indeed, to look up to “Him who giveth power to the faint;” and He did not forsake me. After the preliminary business was over, and as I sat down to read, I said, “Now, though you are generally so quiet and orderly, I must ask you to-night to be, if possible, still more so. I have been suffering very much from pain in my face; and it has made me so nervous, that I cannot bear any noise. When my children came to me to-day, after dinner, though they tried to be quiet, yet even their moving about made me so much worse, that I had to send them away to the nursery. After they were gone, and the room was still, I thought that some of you, no doubt, suffered sometimes just in the same way, and that you had no nursery to send your children to; and I felt very sorry for you.”