1826 September 12, Montrose, to Sisters, Philadelphia

              Montrose 9mo 1826



My Dear Sisters,



Your acceptable communication of 29th [---] has reached me.  it was truly grateful to my soul to enter into fellow feeling with you, in traveling in th't to ye Heavenly Mansion to which it has pleased the Father of Spirits to call the purified spirit of our deceased Mother.  tho' in general, I wd. be ye last to discourage an affable, benevolent, & christian cheerfulness, yet I believe we will find that it is sometimes, "better to go to ye house of mourning than go to ye house of feasting": that sorrow is better than [---].  Pa[-]ly ye sadness of ye countenance ye heart is made better."  I trust that we shall often be refreshed when thus dwelling together in unity & sympathy.-  when I reflect upon ye great affection which our departed Mother manifested to us, upon ye moment when she has prest me to her bosom, when, she has evinced her maternal care by instilling into my mind, new & useful ideas, my feelings are affected with a sensability, which language is inadequate to convey to another.



"Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall,
Ne'er roughened by those cataracts & breaks,
That humour interposed, too often makes;-
This, still is legible in mem'ry's page,
And still will be so to my latest age."



When my tho'ts are thus led, there seems to be a sacredness in them, which it wd. be sacrilige to interrupt by words or ye common occurances of ye world around us.  I experience a degree of that feeling which is produced in approaching ye Sanctuary of the Most High & calling to mind ye injunction, "The Lord is in his Holy Temple, let all the Earth, keep silence before him."



I[---]