‘I am thinking of you on this your opening day, and this text seemed given me for you. “Be strong, and He shall comfort (strengthen, i.e.) thine heart, and put thou thy trust in the Lord.”
‘Try, my child, to live more this year for your children, and to enter, as you are doing, more into the thought that to save our lives we must lose them.’
‘September 18, 1899.
‘I have been thinking about you, and supposed you would begin to-morrow.
‘What a glorious Epistle for this week. May you be strengthened with might by the Spirit, and be filled with all the fulness of God. His power does work in it, above all that we ask or think.
‘The prayer in “Great Souls” speaks specially of those worn down by sickness. I am sorry you feel weak, but the heat has tried every one, and I think you will revive when your children gather round you.
‘Perhaps this sort of class will be better for you, and I think you are suited for it, because you are sympathetic, and will encourage those who feel themselves backward or not clever, to use the powers they have, to do what they can. May our Lord bless and comfort and guide you, my dear child.’
The College was not an easy place to leave. Miss Beale was proud of the number of head-mistresses she sent out, but she grudged parting with her best teachers. And there were many who, like Miss Belcher,[76] sacrificed their own interests to that of the College.
The following is a characteristic letter on the subject:—