man of affairs writes to say (it seemed incredible, but it used to
happen) that the book has given him his first intelligent respect for
religious faith. There, a poor colored girl, inmate of a charitable
institution, where she has figured as in deed and truth the black sheep,
sends her pathetic tribute:

"If heaven is like _that_, I want to go, and I mean to."

To-day I am berated by the lady who is offended with the manner of my
doctrine. I am called hard names in no soft language, and advised to
pray heaven for forgiveness for the harm I am doing by this ungodly
book.

To-morrow I receive a widower's letter, of twenty-six pages, rose-tinted
and perfumed. He relates his personal history. He encloses the
photographs of his dead wife, his living children, and himself. He adds
the particulars of his income, which, I am given to understand, is
large. He adds--but I turn to the next.

This correspondent, like scores upon scores of others, will be told
instanter if I am a spiritualist. On this vital point he demands my
confession or my life.

The next desires to be informed how much of the story is autobiography,
and requires the regiment and company in which my brother served.

And now I am haughtily taken to task by some unknown nature for allowing
my heroine to be too much attached to her brother. I am told that this
is impious; that only our Maker should receive such adoring affection as
poor Mary offered to dead Roy.