changed, too. He says little, and is all kindness and goodness to me,
but I can see here is a wound that will never be healed. I am
confined to my room now with nothing do but to think, think, think. I
do not believe God has taken our child in mere displeasure, but
cannot but feel that this affliction might not have been necessary if
I had not so chafed and writhed and secretly repined at the way in
which my home was invaded, and at our galling poverty. God has
exchanged the one discipline for the other; and oh, how far more
bitter is this cup!

Oct. 4.- My darling boy would have been six years old to-day. Ernest
still keeps me shut up, but he rather urges my seeing a friend now
and. People say very strange things in the way of consolation. I
begin to think that a tender clasp of the hand is about all one can
give to the afflicted. One says I must not grieve, because my child
is better off in heaven. Yes, he is better off; I know it, I .feel
it; but I miss him none the less. Others say he might have grown up
to be a bad man and broken my heart. Perhaps he might, but I cannot
make myself believe that likely. One lady asked me if this affliction
was not a rebuke of my idolatry of my darling; and another, if I had
not been in a cold, worldly state, needing this severe blow on that
account.

But I find no consolation or support in the remarks. My comfort is in
my perfect faith in the goodness and love of my Father, my certainty
that He had a reason in thus afflicting me that I should admire and
adore if I knew what it was. And in the midst of my sorrow I have had
and do have a delight in Him hitherto unknown, so that sometimes this
room in which I am a prisoner seems like the very gate of heaven.