selves strong," I believe that the opposite is equally true; nay, that we need Him most when most distrusting our own capabilities. And I have come to this point; I think myself not good, not gifted in any way. I can not see why I should be loved, why I should hope for myself a beautiful and useful life or a glorious immortality at its close. Never before in all my life have I held myself at so cheap a rate as since I came home this last time. It is a query with me, however, whether really I amount to so little as I think. I can not quite content myself to belong to what Dr. Ludlam once called, much to my disgust, then, “the happy mediocrity." Is it, then, inev. itable that I am to account myself one of the great "commonalty" during life? Let us see. Jump into the scales, F. E. W., in honesty as before God, and, I say it reverently, you shall be weighed. What you believe of yourself is vital to you. Let others think as they will, if you feel "the victory in you," as my father says, all things are possible. Then deal generously with yourself; let not overweening modesty (of which I think you never have been accused) cause you to pass lightly over any redeeming traits you may possess. Let us have just weights and measurements in all respects. Beginning at the lowest and yet the highest department (let the paradox go unexplained), you are not beautiful, pretty, or even good looking. There is the bald fact for you, make what you can of it. And yet (offset No. 1,) you are not disagreeable nor unpleasant, either in face or figure. You have no shocking defects in respect to personal appearance, and that is something. Your expression is perhaps rather resolute than otherwise, and naturally, perhaps artfully, you tell but little with your face. In manner you are reserved toward those to whom you feel indifferent. You are too much inclined to moods, and yet you are as a rule exceedingly careful not to wound the feelings of others and you intend to be deferential toward those you think superiors, kind to your inferiors and cordial with your equals. You are hardly natural enough when in society, and have a certain air of self-consciousness sometimes that ill becomes you. However, as you think much upon the subject, it is not unlikely that by and by your manner will assume the half cordial, half dignified character that accords best with your nature. You have a good mind, but one not evenly balanced or developed. Your perceptions are rather quick, your memory on the whole, unusual, imagination good, reasoning faculties very fair; your judgment in practical matters not extraordinary, but elsewhere excellent. Your nature is appreciative; you are not cross-grained. You feel with a surprising and almost painful quickness. An innuendo or double entendre smites you like a blow.

Your nature, though not of an emotional cast, is not unfeeling. You lack the all-embracing love for man as man that is so noble and admirable, yet the few friends that you count among your treasures, have more devotion from you than they dream of, doubtless, for your love for them approaches idolatry. And yet your affections are completely under your control, are never suffered to have "their own wild way," and they fix themselves only upon those objects among the many that might be chosen, where they are manifestly desired. As for your will, I can not find out whether it is strong

or weak. I hardly think it particularly powerful, and yet there is something about you for which I hardly know how to account on any other supposition. There is a sort of independence and self-reliance that gives the idea of will and yet is not really such. However the facts may be on this point, I think you would not be accounted a negative character. For the religious qualities of your mind, you are not particularly conscientious, you are rather inclined to skepticism and sometimes haunted by thoughts of unbelief. The æsthetics of Christianity have rather a large measure in your creed, both theoretical and practical, and yet you have right wishes and great longings after a pure and holy life.

The conclusion. Dear me, I don't make you out half as bad as I feel you ought to be. Placed in the scale against your beautiful ideal character by which you fain would mould yourself, you would kick the beam quickly enough, but somehow my consciousness affirms that the picture I have drawn has not all the shades it merits. In a spasmodic way, you are generous, yet beneath this, selfishness is deeply rooted in your heart. You are not a bit natural; you are somewhat original but have not energy or persistency enough ever to excel, I fear. However, you have some facility as a writer; less, I candidly think, than you had a year or two ago (that is encouraging)! Well, on the whole, I do not seem to make you out so poor and commonplace as I thought you to be, and perhaps if you keep your eyes wide open to your faults, and God will help you, you may yet come to be rather good than bad. For this, thank God and take courage. But oh, forget what you will, Frances, my best friend in all the world, ask the mighty, infinite Helper to model you by His plans, let them be what they will, so that every year you may grow 'calmer and calmer,' richer in love and peacefulness, and forgetting the poor dreams of less thoughtful years, have this and this only for your ambition; to be gentle, kindly and forgiving, full of charity which suffereth long, and patience, which is pleasing in the sight of God and man.

On the next page my sister Mary, as was her custom, skipped into my journal without leave or license and wrote the following paragraph:

I hope Miss Willard, though she be not conscious of it, does not hold herself at such a low rate as some of the foregoing remarks would incline one to think she did. When she calls herself neither beautiful, pretty nor good-looking I think she errs, as I am of the opinion she does come under one of these heads; of course I shall not say which one, however. I think she is right when she affirms that she has a good mind, but she contradicts this in the next breath, at least this might readily be inferred. I must say that in her dissertation on her affections, I notice nothing that would convey to the average mind the overpowering affection she cherishes for her sister! It may have been modesty that prevented her from mentioning this. I can not tell. I have a great interest in both these young ladies, Miss W. and her younger sister, and though my heart "yearns" more for the

younger of the two, I can not say but that my affection for both is unbounded. Hoping that Miss W. will take no offense at my remark, I remain, hers very truly.

January 19.-I have united (on probation) with the Methodist church because I like its views of the doctrines taught in the Bible better than those of any other branch of God's church militant; because I have been reared in it, and for me to attach myself to any other would cause great sorrow and dissatisfaction in quarters where I should most desire to avoid such consequences, other things being equal. I honestly believe that I regard all the churches, the branches rather of the one Church, with feelings of equal kindness and fellowship. For myself, under existing circumstances, I prefer the one to which I belong, but that a person belonged to that church and was a true Christian, would be to me no more of a recommendation than that he was a true Christian and belonged to any other. The churches are all fighting nobly and zealously to make the world better and happier. Oh, I earnestly pray that as I grow older, the kindly, all-loving, catholic spirit may more deeply ground itself in my heart! I intend to observe all the customs and usages of the church. I have resolved never to be absent from Sabbath services, communion, Sunday-school, prayermeeting and class-meeting, save when it is unavoidable. I will talk with any person upon the one great subject in the world whenever my prayerguided judgment teaches me that it will be appropriate. That is, when it will not be so ill-timed as to jar upon the individual's prejudices and modes of thinking, so as to be the means of ill to him rather than good.

January 30.-Mary and I have been busy from morning until three o'clock renovating, changing and improving our room, and now I will describe it. In the southeast corner between the windows, stands my desk, with its friendly, familiar look. Once it was father's, but I have owned it many years and it has seen hard service. On my desk lying one above another are Butterworth's "Concordance," Niebuhr's "Life and Letters," Watts "On the Mind," Carlyle's "Schiller," Mercein's "Natural Goodness," Kames' "Elements of Criticism," Boswell's "Life of Johnson," Tennyson's "Poems" and my Bible. Below them a copy of The Home, for which I write, cousin Lottie's portfolio that she gave me and which I use for my unanswered letters, Webster's Dictionary and Blackwood's Magazine for May, 1838, which contains an article relating to insects, that I wish to read; my sand-box, microscope, inkstand, memorandum paper, pen-wiper and a cork bristling with beetles, Cicindella," "Belostoma Americana," and many other varieties, though by the way, the last is a bug and not a beetle. Over my desk hangs an engraving of Schiller, and close beside, pasted to the wall, is my "program of daily occupations," which, I am sorry to say, is an illustration of the form without the power. Above it is a bit of excellent advice by Dr. Todd, whose Student's Manual I have very much enjoyed "and over all, softening, mellowing," a very pretty picture of a flower-girl. Suspended from the upper part of the casement of the east window, by a straw-colored ribbon, is Gypsey's cage, and its occupant is exhausting himself in a vain endeavor to

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A Temperance Lecturer.

collapse the tympani of Mary and me. On the north side of the window Mary sits, inflicting a letter on our mutual cousin, Sarah Gilman. She calls the affair at which she is writing, "Her book-case and desk." In point of fact, it is a pine-board arrangement, more valuable for its convenience than for its beauty. In it are her books, on it her portfolio, dictionary, etc.; over it a photograph of the Madison State Fair grounds when father was president; a Grecian painting representing a girl feeding a canary, my own handiwork, and a curious piece of whittling by Eben Marcy, a boy we knew when we were children. In the northeast corner of the room, Oliver's college cane maintains an unshared supremacy. Then follow the closet door, and one of the parlor chairs, over which hangs a beautiful engraving of grapes in clusters; and then there is the bureau, with Mary's portfolio, books of my borrowing, daguerreotypes, a painting, "Sunset," by myself, Mary's cute little basket, Oliver's hunting knife and Sac Gilman's drawing of the house in which her mother and ours lived when they were children. Over all this is the mirror, grandly looming, surmounted by a battered and shattered statuette in plaster of Paris, supposed to represent Devotion. This record is made in view of the pleasure it will give me to read of these passing days, when more sorrowful years shall draw nigh.

February 16.-Attended last evening a temperance lecture by Parker Earle, Chicago agent of the Illinois Temperance League, I believe. It was the best lecture of the kind I have ever heard, almost the only one. Forbearing to refer to orphans' groans and bloodshed, the usual material on such occasions, he reasoned the case, dealt chiefly in logic, presented interesting statistics, all in good, even elegant language. His subject was the relation of government to society and temperance. There are in Chicago at this time fifteen hundred shops for the sale of intoxicating liquors, exclusive of those which sell it for medicinal and mechanical purposes. Outside of Chicago, in the state of Illinois there are five hundred such shops. Twenty million dollars are annually expended in Illinois for intoxicating drinks, more than the cost of all the schools from universities to district schools. In one shop, on a certain day in Chicago, $2,000 were paid in for rum in its various forms. All this was astonishing to me. Thus we go on, one half of the world knowing not how the other lives.

February 25.-Received a letter from Lillie Hayes Waugh, describing her home in India. She gave me the Hindu definition of woman: "That afterthought of God which was sent to bring woe to man!" That single sentence gives the key to India's awful degradation.

Have resolved that neither public opinion, nor narrow-minded pride, nor any other creature, shall prevent me from showing, whenever I can, kindness as delicate, and respect as genuine, as I know how, to those whom the community as a rule treats slightingly or with positive meanness. If I do this I shall be of value to the world whether the world knows it or not. I shall, I think, bring some happiness into troubled and wounded hearts, and, oh, will it not be sweet to remember in the hour when I shall most need comfort, the hour in which I am to die!