Is it right to say to those who are in deep distress,'
God is interested in you; He feels for and loves you'?"
Appended to this letter is a short note from Miss Catherine Beecher,
who evidently read the letter over and answered Harriet's questions
herself. She writes: "When the young man came to Jesus, is it not said
that Jesus loved him, though he was unrenewed?"
In April, 1828, Harriet again writes to her brother Edward:---
"I have had more reason to be grateful to that friend than ever
before. He has not left me in all my weakness. It seems to me that my
love to Him is the love of despair. All my communion with Him, though
sorrowful, is soothing. I am painfully sensible of ignorance and
deficiency, but still I feel that I am willing that He should know
all. He will look on all that is wrong only to purify and reform. He
will never be irritated or impatient. He will never show me my faults
in such a manner as to irritate without helping me. A friend to whom I
would acknowledge all my faults must be perfect. Let any one once be
provoked, once speak harshly to me, once sweep all the chords of my
soul out of tune, I never could confide there again. It is only to the
most perfect Being in the universe that imperfection can look and hope
for patience. How strange! . . . You do not know how harsh and
forbidding everything seems, compared with his character.
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