as Warden, to the other two as Chaplain. Be so kind as to let me have the correct description of each institution for insertion in the formal Licenses. You will then be free to consider what date you will wish the formal completion of your resignation to bear. "Believe me to be,

"Yours very sincerely,

"J. F. OXON."

CHAPTER VIII.

LETTERS.

"MY DEAR

Love of Aged Parents.

"1867.

"I am very glad of your account, and earnestly trust you may be able to persevere. I feel sure you ought to take good courage and have a brighter hope. Your present state seems a stronger one than I have before known you to have reached. Go on, therefore, with the brighter assurance that you can put forth strength, and can maintain now a more steadfast discipline of inner life. You may do this and not find the loss of the Retreat, as God ordered it. I am quite ashamed of having let a pressure of things hinder my writing to you before, and now I am uncertain whether you may not have returned to England; and I regret my delay, as I fear you may have suffered from a continuance of the tried state you were in when you wrote. I do not think that I less care to be all that God enables me, only at these pressing times I find writing especially difficult. And now, my dear child, I would earnestly tell you that you must not dwell on thoughts which will revenge themselves in destroying your true peace. I am most anxious about your feelings toward your mother. I feel the trial of the present, but there is a special warning against our turning from parents in the days of their infirmities, and when from any cause they become a burden. It requires an effort of faith, but the remedy for present trial is to be found in thinking what they have been, what in one's own infirmity and faultiness when we wearied them, and what we can look for from God, if when we received life, this giving through them, we lose the grateful love and care which is the only possible recompense.

And, then, there are sorrows in a parent's heart, especially in a mother's; specially there may be in yours, which to think of at all cannot but move one's soul to its depths. My dear child, you will not forget that one deep part of the mind of Christ is that which feels now as fully and warmly as ever towards her who gave Him birth; and you will dwell on this, and not think of weaknesses and faults, things which may try you, nor shrink from self-sacrifice which it may cost now to 'requite' what you have received of her in your need. May God bless you in this care, and enable you to repair by increased thoughtfulness whatever you may have been wanting in.

"I am greatly sorry you have been tried otherwise, with the sad disturbance of mind you have known of old. That charge was a sad view to take; the mystery of God's love towards us, and the augury of life in us, is that, with such drawbacks and such hindrances, the very movement of grace, which so stirs opposition, is yet so widely spreading, and, I think, so surely now settling in amongst us. And it is enabling us to express what would otherwise have seemed mere theory-the blessed doctrine of the Eucharistic Presence and Sacrifice. It makes us feel more sure that God is bringing it out, and awakening a wider intelligent sympathy. The more blessed this is that there is so much to teach in humility and patience, so much that ought to breathe in us a spirit of quiet waiting for God Himself to do what He will in His own way and time. Your own personal life will not lose by the denials and far distant separation to which you are subjected, even though it be from sacraments, if you can but leave all, subdued and patient, and keep such rules as you tell me truthfully. To be thrown on yourself, then, and inner communion with God, tests you, and will indeed lead you to a deeper, truer work of grace in you, if you can still cherish hope. It will teach you to value much better what you may have had in time past and not used as well; and the past simple spiritual leaning on His love, with less of outer aid, is for a time not against the growth of your life. Trust me, my dear child, in this. I shall like to hear again from you, and if I can see you on your coming near, I shall be glad.

"Your affectionate

"T. T. C."