"It is a common and very natural idea with young people, that older ones cannot understand or sympathize in their feelings; forgetting that we have all been young, and that the struggles by which the soul is exercised in youth are never to be forgotten. The experience of different natural characters of course varies, but the fact of struggle is common to all. And upon no spot in the review of the past does one's memory dwell with so much intense emotion, as upon that thorny and tangled labyrinth through which the spirit wandered, 'bewildered, but not lost,' at the period when the necessity and duty of proving its own character first roused it to a sense of its responsibilities. You say most truly, that it is good to look at things at a distance, from new and various points of view. I have always advocated this, for my own changeful life forced the conviction upon me; and for the same reason, I would advocate free, confidential discussion of inward and spiritual experience. The mere clothing our thoughts and feelings in words sometimes places them in a different position. We take them out of the atmosphere of our own perhaps morbid fears and anxieties, and can therefore see them more clearly. Then, too, we have the advantage of another's observation, and, may-be, experience of the selfsame difficulties, to aid us in our judgment of their true character. At any rate, we have the certainty of that warm kindling of the affections which to a loving heart is always a help in bearing the burden of life. Believe me, dear John, there is ample reward for all the effort it may cost in unclothing ourselves, in the consciousness that however the outer world may think of us, at _home_, in that sanctuary which God and nature have alike appointed as the best resting-place for the spirit upon earth, we are understood and appreciated and loved. Let us not suffer any factitious thoughts or circumstances to cheat us of this privilege, but with trusting, confiding hearts take the good which Heaven designed for us when the family-community was established in the world.... I could write more than I should care to give you the trouble to read, if I attempted to write half that I have in my heart to say."