"From your ever-loving and dutiful son, A. L."
"I have been constantly gaining since my last to you, and with constant care, hope to acquire my usual health. I am, however, admonished, by the two attacks I have experienced within a month, that the continuance of my life for any considerable period will be very likely to depend upon a rigid prudence in my labor and living. The recovery from this last sickness is almost like being restored to life; and I hope the span that may be allowed me may be employed in better service than any period of my past life. We are placed here to be disciplined for another and higher state; and whatever happens to us makes a part of this discipline. In this view, we ought never to murmur, but to consider, when ills befall us, how we can make them subserve our highest good. What I am more desirous than anything else for you is, that you may feel that you are accountable for all your talents, and that you may so use them as to have an approving conscience, and the final recompense of a faithful servant at last. The period of trial is short; but the consequences are never-ending. How important to each individual, then,--to you and to me,--that we use aright the period assigned us!"
JOURNEY TO NEW HAMPSHIRE.--LETTERS.--RESIGNS OFFICE OF TRUSTEE AT HOSPITAL.--LETTERS.
A few days after the date of the preceding letter, a change was thought desirable for the improvement of Mr. Lawrence's health; and he accordingly, with Mrs. L., went to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and remained a week with his friend and brother-in-law, the late Hon. Jeremiah Mason. From thence he proceeded to visit friends in Amherst, New Hampshire, where he was attacked by a severe rheumatic fever, which confined him for several weeks; and it was with great difficulty that he succeeded in reaching home about the 20th of September, after an absence of nearly two months. On the 27th of September, he writes to his son:
"It is only within a few days that I have been able to be removed to my own house. I am now able to walk my chamber, and sit up half the day; and, by the best care in the world, I have a fair hope of again enjoying so much health as to feel that I may yet be of some use in the world. My bodily sufferings have been great during this last sickness; but my mind in general has been quiet. I seem to want nothing which this world can give to make me an enviably happy man, but your presence and a return of my health; but these last are wisely withheld. We are apt, in the abundance of the gift, to lose the recollection whence it came, and feel that by our own power we can go forward. Happy for us that we are thus made to feel that all we have is from God; this recurrence to the Source of all our blessings makes us better men. I do not expect to be able to leave the house before the next spring; and, in the mean time, must be subject to the casualties incident to a person in my situation."