Johnstown Dec. 8^th 1863

 

Sergt. F. C. Miller.

                                    Friend Frank.

 

                                                            Your interesting and ever welcome epistle arrived in due season. (excuse) I cannot tell why it was but I felt all last week as if I was doing wrong in not answering your letter then but I really could not find the time without neglecting other duties. I have a small private class which claims my attention some two or three hours in the day, besides studying myself. Then you know a girl at home always has some household matters requiring her attention. But before I go farther it would be well to define our position in/reference to each other. I am glad you mentioned the subject for I had been debating in my own mind for some time the propriety of doing so myself. Had the correspondence been sought simply for its own sake, I would then have stipulated that it should be in friendship merely. But growing out of circumstances as it did I felt a delicacy in mentioning it. My experience has been that a correspondence founded on friendship is much more pleasant, edifying & enduring than when established upon any other foundation. If at any time the correspondence should become irksome, I beg that you will not hesitate to say so, and I will pledge myself to do the same. And thus we will let the subject drop, and I am sure we can both fell freer in writing than heretofore. We are all in usual health excepting myself and I am in unusual good health, for which, I trust, I am duly thankful./

 

            And, now, my friend, I hope that ere this you have found peace in the wounds of a once crucified, but now risen Saviour. I deeply sympathize with you in the struggle which has been disturbing your mind. But I would rather that you should thus suffer for a time, and then step into the realization of pardoned sins, than that you should be living in disregard of your future state. You say you sometimes fear the spirit of God has left you. The state of mind you are in is an evidence that it is still striving with you. You also say “the harvest is passed and you are not saved.” The harvest is only passing; there is yet time for you to be gathered in among the sheaves. But take earnest heed lest the grim reaper Death should claim you for his before you have been gathered into the fold of Christ. I would advise you to unite with some branch of the christian church if you have any opportunity whatever of doing so.

 

Even if you do not have the privilege of worshipping long with the members with whom you are associated in church fellowship, it will still have a restoring influence over you, the strength of which you cannot conceive until you have experienced it. I do not know which would be the church of your choice, but I do know that you will not find such help anywhere in finding the “pearl of great price” as you will find in a Methodist class room. Whether you unite with that church or not, seek out one of their class rooms next Sabbath day, and when the leader speaks to you, first rise and tell him first how you feel, and if you do not feel that you are benefitted I will be dissapointed. I know that I would have become as wordly-minded as any non-professor long ago, had it not been for these/same class-meetings. I made it a point when I went to the first one never to refuse to give in my testimony as to how my religious interests were prospering, and I never liked to tell my classmates that I was losing ground, but I always liked to be able to tell them that I was growing in grace. You say you have suffered much. None but God knows how much I have suffered and am even now suffering. Such floods of anguish sometimes sweep over me as almost to overwhelm me. But God knows what is best and will alleviate it in his own good time. I have come to the conclusion that all earthly joys are fleeting and I have been striving to give myself up wholly to the work of doing good. But how how often I think of these beautiful lines— “From every strong wind that blows,

                                                            From every swelling tide of woes,

                                                            There is a calm, a sure retreat;

                                                            Tis found beneath the mercy-seat./

 

                                                            “There is a place where Jesus sheds

                                                            The oil of gladness on our heads;

                                                            A place than all beside more sweet,—

It is the blood-bought mercy-seat.

 

“There is a scene where spirits blend,

Where friend holds fellowship with friend;

Though sundered far, by faith they meet,

Around one common mercy-seat.

 

“There, there on eagles’ wings we meet soar,

And sin and sense molest no more;

And heaven comes down our souls to greet,

While glory crowns the mercy-seat.

 

Hoping that you and I may both be blessed at that same “mercy-seat,” I close with kind regards. All send respects.                                                  Mollie E. Bowen.

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