p.

Pawtucket 11 mo. 20 1861

My dear friend,

Rachel B. Stevens, while sitting in my quiet
room to pen a line to an acquaintance; now, of many year; I am too fully
sensible of the work of disease upon me, holding me a prisoner most of the
time for eight months, and latterly, to my house, even to hope to put on
paper anything more than an indication of my deep sympathy with thee, and
those around thee, under the infliction of a wound upon the maternal breast
and one, carrying its pangs through the loved circle of home.

Little indeed, when writing thee and thy beloved children, after our pea-
ceful return from Vermont, could I have conceived for thee, a cup so near
at hand; wrung out to fullness, and mingled, not only with gall but over-
running with tears of sorrow.

That a tenderly cherished son, in his ready association with persons
who, at this sad time, feel no scruples in regard to soft defence or to defensive
warfare, should imbibe, by degrees, the sentiment, that the necessities of the
nation must lay upon us a moral obligation which takes away the entire
force of the Divine command; "[underline]"resist not evil, love your enemies"[/underline]; and give
that moral obligation a kind of over-strained religious Sanction, is, to my
mind nothing strange - it is in perfect conformity with the spirit of this
world; the dust of whose tumultuous stir is found too frequently blinding
to the eyes of older children than our sons. Still, the frequency of the
evil is no more a mitigation of the anguish of heart which it brings, than,
to the sinking sufferer by disease, would be the assurance that he
is only one of a [underline]thousand, who are languishing under the same fatal
malady[/underline].

To our short vision, the future is [underline]always wisely[/underline], and [underline]often mercifully[/underline] (h?]