February 25.
My dear Mother.—You sent me a dear, good, welcome letter, and I kiss you heartily for all its affection and sympathy in my eccentric course. I did not miss out, either, any of the pious parts, but I do think, mother mine, that it is a little hard that you will not believe me when I tell you so seriously that my soul is doing first-rate. You urge upon me the importance of religion—why, bless the dear mother, what am I doing else but living religion all the time? Isn't it my meat and my drink to do the good will of God; didn't I use to sit in the lecture-room and send up a whole cannonade of little prayers; and didn't a whole flood of answers come straight down from the throne of grace? And what am I doing now? Do you think I care about medicine? Nay, verily, it's just to kill the devil, whom I hate so heartily—that's the fact, mother; and if that isn't forming Christ in one, the hope of Glory, why, I don't know what is. So pray comfort yourself, and have faith that such a 'child of many prayers' will be fixed up all straight at last. . . . I live in a good society, the fellowship of hard-workers, for however little the result of my actions may be, I have the strengthening conviction that my aim is right, and that I, too, am working after my little fashion for the redemption of mankind. I agree with you fully in distrusting the 'Harbinger,' and should certainly banish it from my centre table if I had risen to the dignity of possessing one. I dislike their discussions, and their way of discussing some subjects. I think them calculated to do a great deal of mischief, and am only consoled by the reflection that few people read them. I go in whole-souledly for the Divine marriage institution, and shall always support it by precept, and as soon as I get the chance by example too, and all those who would upset it
