May God sustain you, if you do undertake this new work, and, in entertaining and augmenting your corporal strength and brain power, may He continue to inspire you with that moral irresistible power, that invincible strength, which He alone can give and which the incredulous humanitarian never can give. Accept, Miss Barton, and honored friend, the assurance of my respectful friendship. LOUIS APPIA, DR. DANSVILLE, July 1st, 1877 DOCTEUR LOUIS APPIA Membre Comité International de Secours aux Militaires blessés, Geneva DOCTEUR AND HONORED FRIEND: I cannot find the words to properly express to you my gratitude for the kind and careful manner in which you have treated my letter. But first allow me to thank Madame Appia for her generous part, and all the prompt care she took to place it in the proper hands, and let me thank both for the excellent photograph, so welcome now, and for all the future to be preserved among my choicest and most honored keepsakes. How kind it was of you, my good friend, to give me so much of your time and labor, embodied in that long letter so filled with valuable suggestions! If nothing more comes of it, it will at least bring us to an understanding in reference to the actual existence and standing of the Order of the Red Cross in America. I was extremely guarded in my letter, not at all knowing how you stood in regard to your selected representative in this country, for I knew you had one, and, if you were satisfied, I did not wish to ripple the calm waters of confidence and security by even one pebble of discontent or doubt. I wrote cautiously like a woman. _You_ have spoken out like a man, and it is well. With the pains your Comité have taken, the Red Cross should have been known and honored in every household in America to-day. It has not _died_ here: it was still-born; it has never once gasped on our shores; the nurses to whom you delivered it have never even uncovered its face, and America does not know that this holy child was ever an applicant for her adoption. She would have received it with open arms at the close of our war, when her own wounds were unhealed, and her memories fresh and tender. She will be less enthusiastic now at the end of a ten years’ peace, and no prospect of war. Still, the understanding and heart of the American people will lead them to examine and promote whatever cause has for its object the benefit of mankind, or the alleviation of human woe. I think I know my people, and although, through want of proper opportunities, or physical strength, or mental capacity, I may not be able to move them in this matter, this fact will in no way affect their general character, and, when all things combine for the proper presentation of this subject to them by whomsoever it may be, it _will_ be received and adopted by them. Your suggestions are excellent and lay out much such a field of labor as I had looked forward to, and all this would