My sister and brother Holland are with me at present and have been here for some weeks past. Many, indeed, are the pleasures of endeared and social intercourse, and I feel truly thankful that we have been permitted to enjoy them. We have never met as a family since my sister was married, and, though there has been all along an interchange of thought and feeling through letters, yet we have found how far short all this comes of vivâ voce and personal communications and endearments. I have no doubt but that a similar result would be experienced, could you and I occasionally meet together. And when we consider the almost insuperable impediments which lie in the way of such a meeting, some feeling, perhaps, steals into the mind which would have us think somewhat hardly of the divine appointments. Let us, however, be thankful that, though we have not all the sweets of friendship, yet that so many are still reserved to us. And who can tell but that these may be increased, if we are only more faithful in bringing each other, with our mutually known concerns, to our compassionate God and Saviour? * * * * * After speaking of the arduous duties of his parish, as oppressive to the flesh, the mind, and the spirits, he adds, in his usual heavenly strain, to the same friend:— “It is still very blessed to be engaged in any way for the blessed Saviour. This is, indeed, a work which pays in the doing. I pray God I may love it even more and more. But, were it otherwise, were every step toilsome and thorny, were there no brook to drink of by the way to enable us to lift up our heads, were the yoke galling and the burden heavy, were the cross, instead of concealing a latent good, only cruciating, were the cup of sorrows divested of all sweets and only filled with strongest bitters; still we have enough of stimulus arising from the glorious prospect of that blessedness above to inspirit our souls, and to enable us to toil up the most arduous ascent, and not only to drag on our wearied feet, but to lift them up with all the alacrity of cheerful obedience; for the joy which is set before us, we may well endure the cross, and, like our blessed Master, despise the shame. O, my dear Armstrong, may we both of us live more with heaven in our eye, and with a lively feeling of our Saviour’s love in our hearts! And then every murmur will be hushed, and nothing be heard from our joyful lips but the language of thanksgiving and praise.” I hope the children of my late endeared friend will forgive the following little notice of a father’s practice and of the habits of his children in their juvenile days:—