Transcription:
It is a blessed reflection that the Lord always knows the exact measure of our grief, will always provide strength not only
to hear it but to make it food for our souls, making us stronger, purer, more spiritual In my many lonely wanderings I have
derived a great deal of comfort from the contemplation of the Lords care over all his creatures; wherever he has made them
a home they have his protection supplies for all their wants. I remember one day when walking along the coral shore of Cuba
to gather shells I found a tiny fragile purple flower with its circlet of petals confidingly cast open to the bright tropic
sun, it lived in the coral rocks that were washed by the tremendous white capped waves of every illegible storm. In the terrible
Northers the dread of seamen in the Gulf of Mexico, wave after wave rolled over it tons in weight with a settled irresistible
force sufficient to crush a ship at a single blow, but the purple flower tended by its maker closed fast its petals, scrouched
low in its illegible of a home enjoyed the storm in perfect safety. On time I was very lonely in Tennessee. I had been walking
most all day without coming to a house but on crossing a illegible shaded stream in a forest that almost closed over it with
a leafy sky, I found the first Dicksonia fern that I had long been looking for the first Magnolia too that I had ever met
growing on the bank. I sat down among the ferns moss reveled in the glory of my discoveries, the enclosing forest was the
most deeply solitary that I had ever felt though the stream sang Natures songs upon every ripple feelings of isolation soon
caught me again but one of the Lords smallest birds came out to me from some dense branches of saxifrage that grow by moss
covered rock It had a wonderful- ly expressive eye in one moment that cheerful confiding bird preached me the most impressive
sermon upon heavenly trust that I ever heard in all my life before I went on not half so heart sick nor half so weary in
margin: I have only room to add that I hop you will all continue to feel me a friend wherever I may wander to. Farewell, John
Muir