Transcription:
2 you the past five years. My life has been a hard struggle in some respects, pleasant successful in others. I have had
work always requiring very close attention, and filling my life with toil care. I have been successful in my lectures, preaching
and pastoral labors, having large congregations constant encouraging additions to my churches. I have learned much, inproved
much (I hope) in preaching power, and enjoyed much. Have been successful in everything but in making money. During the last
two or three years the horror of proverty as Marion Crawford says has smitten me in the face . It has been a losing fight
against debt and want. To owe money and not be able to pay it--that seems to me to be the very climax of human misery. And
the added an- 3 guish of it that swells the heart to bursting is that others suffer in the same way. For I would not be
in debt at all if I could collect what others owe me--but they cannot pay, thus have added the bitter drops of broken promises,
made in good faith, to my cup. I don't know why I have told you this. I have never written it before to a soul. Perhaps in
a vague feeling of self-justification for my long stupor of almost despair. The feeling has been so strong at times that only
family ties have prevented me from breaking entirely away fleeing back to my beautiful, fruitful wilderness --burying my body
in the forest shades--laying my tired head on Mother Nature's breast. But I have strong ties, strong love for my own, am much
beloved by them, and am, in a sense, happy. I certainly have had in good meas- 02227