p.

the Divine laws of health will enable him to escape the doom which
swept away so many of the sons, brothers & husbands of our sorrowing
country. tell me all about him & all the [rest?] - your prospects, [?]
hopes & fears & all that I [underline]may[/underline] know consistent with domestic
privacy & decorum on the one hand & my affectionate interest in all
that concerns you on the other. I heard yesterday through Arthur
Barton, that the Society was about to excommunicate William for
the cuase he has felt it right to pursue in the war. I do not see how
the society could consistently do otherwise, with its discipline & its
assumed obligation to execute it, but to my mind & with my present
views of religious organisations, this can only afford one more to the
many evidences of the utter irony & absurdity of all rules of disci-
pline or regulations of a church which impose a censure upon any
one for following his own convictions of duty & conscience. No doubt
it is a trial to thee to have thy beloved son deprived of what is regarded as
the privileges of religious membership, yet the brothers & sisters can entertain
no hardness toward the church for its action & it is a great comfort
to you all to reflect that the offence is not one which his own
conscience condemns. To his own master he standeth or falleth & may he
long live a comfort & solace to thee in thy decling years & an added
living momument to the superior excellence of that rule of life which required
obedience to individual convictions of duty rather than the proscribed
rules of men.

Though we all continue to feel deeply our great loss yet
we are favoured with as good indoor help as we can reasonably expect

[page break]

& as far as eating & drinking & sleeping & living as to the body are concerned
we get along quite comfortably. We have a widow of 45 from
Underhill as principal housekeeper who, tho not a Rachel or an Ann
in culinary arts yet does so well that we have no reasonto complain;
& we find too, for our comfort, that we can become reconciled by custom
to many little changes & even privations which would once have been
felt to be annoyances. My only fear with regard to our housekeeper is that
we may at a time when we think not be deprived of her by some
designing interloper, for I fancy she is not quite impervious to the [softer?]
sentiments. It is a great comfort to us that dear Sister Ann
is again domiciled with us, for, though from want of experience as well
as physical inability she takes no part in the household affairs except
the pretty constant use of the needle yet her presence in the old house
gives it an air of respectability of which it would be sadly deficient with
only hired help & for me the company of one so similar in sentiments
& so long acustomed to all my moods - good & bad - is cause of thankfulness.
She is well excepting weak & sore eyes & desires her love to thee & thine.

Our last letter from Ann left them all well & announced the good
news that their farm was advertised for sale, with a view to their
return to Vermont. Though they have an excellent, beautiful & in
many respects desirable farm & home yet they have never, since they
settled down upon it, felt reconciled to it as a permanent abode, &
if they succeed in selling, they will [probably?] find a place in this region
& be nearer to us. This at least will I trust be a mutual satisfaction.

I believe thy particular friends here are all in the enjoyment