Clinton October 17th I842 My Dear Sister Eliza You will perhaps are this have concluded that I have relapsed into one of my old silent fits but it has not been so; I will first acknowledge the receipt of your kind letter of 26th May My last which I got, I think one month after its last post mark on your side of the Atlantic, which was by far the shortest period in which I ever got a letter from there & also some time after Brother & Sister Cordner's letter came to hand. Both those letters found me confined to bed where I am still yet confined even while I wrote this scroll, I was taken suddenly worse on the 19th. of last March with my head & spine & oftimes during the month of April & I think beginning of May my life seemed to hang only by a hair but blessed be God I am now, and hase been for some time able, to bear a little noise/and moderate light without distressing my head or hurting my eyes. I am far from being well able to write yet,as I gather little or no strength but lest you should not know what to make of my silence I am endeavouring to scribble a little though I believe is the 20th. or 2Ist. & I find it best to rest even now (Nov. 5th. ) You see my Sister I make slow progress, I have been very weak indeed & much troubled with my head & spine since my above date. And yet my Sister I trust I can safely affirm that "Godliness is profitable in all things"& particularly in affliction. Thank God that he so afflicted me Though I have much to lament & mourn before God yet I can humbly say" hitherto the Lord hath helped me Blessed be the name of the Lord. Help is laid upon one that is mighty to save, I feel so weak I must stop again Novr 14th),See how rapidly time rolls, Eternity is fast ushering in its "endless day! I have had much bodily weakness since I left off the above but I feel thankful to-day that I feel a little stronger to-day though as I write I feel weak, but thank God calm, happy & cheerful. I hope my Sister that I speak truly what I feel, when I say, that no condition can be really called a bad one when Our Maker gives us Grace to bear it. Though it is also true that affliction may not be for the present joyous but rather grievous, nevertheless it worketh the peaceable fruits of righteousness in them that are exercised & thereby. I might have wrote you long since if I had taken this mode of writing a little as I felt able but I thought then that ere this I should be able to write more satisfactory or be numbered among the dead, I sometimes feel enough returning energy to render some probability of restoration to health, & then suddenly I am changed for the worse, so if I might be allowed so to speak I might say I am closely weighed in the balance. could find a greta deal to say was I able. I will make a remark or two in answer to your letter, you see from my present condition I must be content without the bodily ability to return to my erathly Father's house, return my dear Father thanks for his kind remembrance of me & say also to him, that did my health permit I have still left quite sufficient means of my own private funds to carry me back to Ireland though in case of my demise anything I may have left will as an equitable & lawful matter, go to the creditors of our old Firm which is still unsettled. Give my kindest love to our Dear Father.I sincerely feel for Sister Jane but I can only commend her to the Father of the