This acquaintance was evidently much to Ephraim.

Susannah had made some complaint of the harshness of the divine counsel in which he asked her to believe; his answer was to send her Bushnell's sermons on the suffering of God.

Ephraim had added: "When you went from us, Susy, would you ever have been satisfied if we had detained you by force?
Yet that is what you ask of God.

If you were right in going, let the circumstance prove it; if we were right, let it appear by time.

So says God; and his friendship has eternity to work in; so also has every human friendship.