It was, on the whole, a pleasant season, although she was often uncomfortable if not actually in pain. Friends urged her to come into the country, but to this she did not feel equal. Mrs. Spofford had met with an accident, but before the summer was over was able to resume her visits; and more than anything else her companionship brightened the days.
The autumn brought back the accustomed circle, and in October came the following letter from Dr. Ames:
Dr. Ames to Mrs. Moulton
12 Chestnut St., Boston,
October 24, 1907.
My Dear Friend: I am somewhat foot-fast; but very far from indifferent, and you will never know how often your name is called as I tell my rosary beads.
I wonder if you find comfort, as I often do, in the thought that all true and honorable human friendship is representative of its inspiring source, and that we should not thus care for each other, and wish each other's highest welfare, if our hearts were not in receptive touch with a Heart still greater, purer, and more loving? Can you rest in the imperfect good will of your friends and yet distrust its Origin and Fountain?
I appreciate and share your perplexity over the world's "Vast glooms of woe and sin." But, when most weary and heavy-laden with all our common burden of sorrow and shame, I find some measure of strength and peace in the example and spirit of One who knew and felt it all, One who could gather into a heart of boundless compassion all the blind and struggling multitudes, and could yet trust all the more fully to the Father's love for all, because He felt that love in His own.
The problem of evil—my evil, yours, everybody's—was not solved by Him with any reasoning; it was simply met and overmatched by faith which saw all finite things held in the Infinite, as all the stars are held in space.