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Remsen, Nov. 12, 1855

My dear Sister,

I must crowd what I have to say, into a pretty small compass so that some other can say something. Thank you much for your letter which I received last Saturday night. It was dated Oct 27. I think we can appreciate, in a measure your letters. They are more than common messages of love, for they are written in sickness, in weakness, when the use of the pen must cause some exertion -- We have reason to thank the Lord, that though he has brought you so low in weak and apparently so near the brink of the "dark river" he has yet spared your lives. And he will, I trust strengthen you and once more, let you bathe in the river of health. Dear ones all, how often the wish comes to us, that we could be with you and could comfort you and assist you a little -- I hope you have received that box ere this, I suppose Mary will tell you when it was sent. It will do you no good for me to write surmises of how you are, and what you are doing, for you already know all about that. But you have, I suppose no Oracle, who tells you how your home friends are occupied so perhaps a little news of them would be as acceptable as any thing I could write. I say home friends which seems most like home to you, Remsen, or Kansas? The Mountain Parsonage or your "Snug House"? The "home is where the heart is." And though perhaps you each have your dearest friend by your side,sharing in all your troubles, still do not your thoughts sometimes travel here? Are not your hears or the love of your hearts often with us? Why what is the matter with me? I am asking you questions, instead of telling you of us. Well, we often let our thoughts travel to you and sometimes suffer our imagination to picture your forms and home but we do not like to have it bring your sufferings before our eyes. But then, when you write tell us just how you are. I feel that we cannot indeed understand what you suffer. Mary has been for a several weeks