III.
GROTON AND PROVIDENCE.
‘Heaven’s discipline has been invariable to me.
The seemingly most pure and noble hopes have
been blighted; the seemingly most promising
connections broken. The lesson has been endlessly
repeated: “Be humble, patient, self-sustaining; hope
only for occasional aids; love others, but not engrossingly,
for by being much alone your appointed task
can best be done!” What a weary work is before me,
ere that lesson shall be fully learned! Who shall
wonder at the stiff-necked, and rebellious folly of
young Israel, bowing down to a brute image, though
the prophet was bringing messages from the holy
mountain, while one’s own youth is so obstinately
idolatrous! Yet will I try to keep the heart with
diligence, nor ever fear that the sun is gone out
because I shiver in the cold and dark!’
Such was the tone of resignation in which Margaret
wrote from Groton, Massachusetts, whither, much to
her regret, her father removed in the spring of 1833.
Extracts from letters and journals will show how stern
