Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

LETTERS. 177
heart. God comfort you! He alone can carry you
through this dark passage. He has given you beautiful little grandchildren to love, and I trust their
soft arms will help to bear you up. Most sincerely
do I wish that my old life could have been sacrificed
to save your brave and beautiful boy. But the Heavenly Father ordereth all things in wisdom and in
mercy, too; as we should acknowledge if we could
only see the end from the beginning.
In your last but one you wrote as if I might think
you did not pity me enough. I was going to answer
that you pitied me more than enough; more than I
pity myself. I was going to ask you what was my
misfortune 1 compared with that of the poor wretches
driven from their homes by murderous mobs; or what
was it compared with the anxiety of a mother whose
only son was leading a colored regiment into South
Carolina. But now in view of this terrible rumor,
how utterly insignificant and contemptible seem all
my troubles! I thank Mrs. Gay very much for her
hearty sympathy; but tell her that at a crisis like
this it is merely as if a mosquito had stung me.
Ought I not to be taking care of the sick and
wounded soldiers? Sometimes that thought worries
me. Yours with a heart brimful of love and sympathy.
TO FRANCIS G. SHA5W.
July, 1863.
Words are inadequate to express what I feel for
you. The same faith that made you willing to sacrifice your only son in defence of righteous principles
will help to sustain you under this sorrowful bereavement. But oh, how hard it would be for our poor
1 A fire had burned a part of her house.
12