SEPTEMBER 1-This baby of mine, is certainly the sweetest and best Iever had I feel an inexpressible tenderness for it, which I cannot quite explain to myself, for I have loved them all dearly, most dearly.Perhaps it is so with all mothers, perhaps they all grow more loving, more forbearing, more patient as they grow older, and yearn over these helpless little ones with an ever-increasing, yet chastened delight.One cannot help sheltering their tender infancy, who will so soon pass forth to fight the battle of life, each one waging an invisible warfare against invisible foes.How thankfully we would fight it for them, if we might!
SEPTEMBER 20.-.The mornings and evenings are very cool now, while in the middle of the day it is quite hot.Ernest comes to see us very often, under the pretense that he can't trust me with so young a baby ! He is so tender and thoughtful, and spoils me so, that this world is very bright to me; I am a little jealous of it; I don't want to be so happy in Ernest, or in my children, as to forget for one instant that I am a pilgrim and a stranger on earth.
EVENING.-There is no danger that I shall.Ernest suddenly made his appearance tonight, and in a great burst of distress quite unlike anything I ever saw in him, revealed to me that he had been feeling the greatest anxiety about me ever since the baby came.It is all nonsense.I cough, to be sure; but that it is owing to the varying temperature we always have at this season.I shall get over, it as soon as we get home, I dare say.
But suppose I should not; what then? Could I leave this precious little flock, uncared for, untended? Have I faith to believe that if God calls me away from them, it will be in love to them? I do not know.The thought of getting away from the sin that still so easily besets me is very delightful, and I have enjoyed so many, many such foretastes of the bliss of heaven that I know I should be happy there, but then my children, all of them under twelve years old! Iwill not choose, I dare not.
My married life has been a beautiful one.It is true that sin and folly, and sickness and sorrow, have marred its perfection, but it has been adorned by a love which has never faltered.My faults have never alienated Ernest.; his faults, for like other human beings he has them, have never overcome my love to him.This has been the gift of God in answer to our constant prayer, that.whatever other bereavement we might have to suffer, we might never be bereft of this benediction.It has been the glad secret of' a happy marriage, and Iwish I could teach it to every human being who enters upon a state that must bring with it the depth of misery, or life's most sacred and mysterious joy.
OCTOBER 6.- Ernest has let me stay here to see the autumnal foliage in its ravishing beauty for the first, perhaps for the last, time.
The woods and fields and groves are lighting up my very soul! It seems as if autumn had caught the inspiration and the glow of summer, had hidden its floral beauty, its gorgeous sunsets and its bow of.
promise in its heart of hearts, and was now flashing it forth upon 'the world with a lavish and opulent hand.I can hardly tear myself away, and return to the prose of city life.But Ernest has come for us, and is eager to get us home before colder weather.I laugh at his anxiety about his old wife.Why need he fancy that this trifling cough is not to give way as it often has done before? Dear Ernest! Inever knew that he loved me so.
OCTOBER 31.-Ernest's fear that he had let me stay too long in the country does not seem to be justified.We went so late that I wanted to indulge the children by staying late.So we have only just got home.I feel about as well as usual; it is true I have a little soreness a bout the chest, but it does not signify anything.
I never was so happy, in my husband and children, in other words in my home, as I am now.Life looks very attractive.I am glad that I am going to get well.
But Ernest watches me carefully, and want me, as a precautionary measure, to give up music, writing, sewing, and painting-the very things that occupy me! and lead an idle, useless life, for a time.Icannot refuse what he asks so tenderly, and as a personal favor to himself.Yet I should like to fill the remaining pages of my journal;I never like to leave things incomplete.
JUNE 1, 1858.-I wrote that seven years ago, little dreaming how long it, would be before I should use a pen.Seven happy years ago!
I suppose that some who have known what my outward life has been during' this period would think of me as a mere object of pity.There has certainly been suffering and deprivation enough to justify the sympathy of my dear husband and children and the large circle of friends who have rallied about us.How little we knew we had so many!
God has dealt very tenderly with me.I was not stricken down by sudden disease, nor were the things I delighted in all taken away at once There was a gradual loss of strength and gradual increase of suffering, and it was only by degrees that I was asked to give up the employments in which I'd delighted, my household duties, my visits to the sick and suffering, the society of beloved friends.Perhaps Ernest perceived and felt my deprivations sooner than I did; his sympathy always seemed to out-run my disappointments.When I compare him, as he is now, with what he was when I first knew him I bless God for all the precious lessons He has taught him at my cost.There, is a tenacity and persistence about his love for me that has made these years almost as wearisome to him as they have been to me.As to myself, if I had been told what I was to learn through these protracted sufferings I am afraid I should have shrunk back in terror and so have lost all the sweet lessons God proposed to teach me.As it is He has led me on, step by step, answering my prayers in His own way; and I cannot bear to have a single human being doubt that it has been a perfect way.I love and adore it just as it is.
