In your earliest youth I endeavoured to impress upon your mind that we are not commanded to check every natural feeling.

We are but told to pour before God our trouble, to lean on His mercy, to trust in His providence, to restrain our lips from murmuring, and if we do so, though our tears may fall, and our heart feel breaking, yet our prayers will be heard and accepted on high.

It is not with you, my poor girl, the weak indulgence of sorrow that ever prostrates you on a couch of suffering, it is the struggle of resignation and concealment that is too fierce for the delicacy of your constitution; and do you not think that strife is marked by Him, who, as a father, pitieth His children?
Painful as it is to you, my dear Mary, your sufferings may be in a degree a source of mercy to your mother.

Agonizing as it is to the heart of a parent, to watch the fevered couch of a beloved child, yet had she not that anxiety, the conduct of your father and brother might present still deeper wretchedness.

For your sake, she dismisses the harrowing thoughts that would otherwise be her own; for your sake, she rallies her own energies, which else might desert her; and when you are restored to her, when, in those intervals of peace which are sometimes your own, she sees you in health, and feels your constant devotion, believe me, there is a well of comfort, of blessed comfort in her fond heart, of which nothing can deprive her.