MAY 26, 1846.-How long it is since I have written in my journal! We have had a winter full of cares, perplexities and sicknesses.Mother began it by such a severe attack of inflammatory rheumatism as Icould not have supposed she could live through.Her sufferings were dreadful, and I might almost say her patience was, for I often thought it would be less painful to hear her groan and complain, than to witness such heroic fortitude, such sweet docility under God's hand.I hope I shall never forget the lessons I have learned in her sick-room.Ernest says he never shall cease to rejoice that she lives with us, and that he can watch over her health.He, has indeed been like a son to her, and this has been a great solace amid all her sufferings.Before she was able to leave the room, poor little Una was prostrated by one of her ill turns, and is still very feeble.The only way in which she can be diverted is by reading to her, and Ihave done little else these two months but hold her in my arms, singing little songs and hymns, telling stories and reading what few books I can find that are unexciting, simple, yet entertaining.My precious little darling! She bears the yoke in her youth without a frown, but it is agonizing to see her suffer so.How much easier it would be to bear all her physical infirmities myself! I suppose to those who look on from the outside, we must appear like a most unhappy family, since we hardly get free from one trouble before another steps in.But I see more and more that happiness is not dependent on health or any other outside prosperity.We are at peace with each other and at peace with God; His dealings with us do not perplex or puzzle us, though we do not pretend to understand them.On the other hand, Martha with absolutely perfect health, with a husband entirely devoted to her, and with every wish gratified, yet seems always careworn and dissatisfied.Her servants worry her very life out; she misses the homely household duties to which she has been accustomed; and her conscience stumbles at little things, and overlooks greater ones.It is very interesting, I think, to study different homes, as well as the different characters that form them.
Amelia's little girls are quiet, good children, to whom their father writes what Mr.Underhill and Martha pronounce "beautiful" letters, wherein he always styles himself their "broken-hearted but devoted father." "Devotion," to my mind, involves self-sacrifice, and Icannot reconcile its use, in this case, with the life of ease he leads, while all the care of his children is thrown upon others.But some people, by means of a few such phrases, not only impose upon themselves but upon their friends, and pass for persons of great sensibility.
As I have been confined to the house nearly the whole winter, I have had to derive my spiritual support from books, and as mother gradually recovered, she enjoyed Leighton with me, as I knew she would.Dr.Cabot comes to see us very often, but, I do not now find it possible to get the instruction from him I used to do.I see that the Christian life must be individual, as the natural character is-and that I cannot be exactly like Dr.Cabot, or exactly like Mrs.
Campbell, or exactly like mother, though they all three stimulate and re an inspiration to me.But I see, too, that the great points of similarity in Christ's disciples have always been the same.This is the testimony of all the good books, sermons, hymns, and, memoirs Iread-that God's ways are infinitely perfect; that we are to love Him for what He is, and therefore equally as much when He afflicts as when He prospers us; that there is no real happiness but in doing and suffering His will, and that this life is but a scene of probation through which we pass to the real life above.
