The winter had worn well on, before I received the answer to
the letter I had written my father about the prayer-meetings
and Mr. Edwards. It was a short answer, not in terms but in
actual extent; showing that my father was not strong and well
yet. It was very kind and tender, as well as short; I felt
that in every word. In substance, however, it told me I had
better let Mr. Edwards alone. He knew what he ought to do,
about the prayer-meetings and about other things; and they
were what I could not judge about. So my letter said. It said
too, that things seemed strange to me because I was unused to
them; and that when I had lived longer at the South they would
cease to be strange, and I would understand them and look upon
them as every one else did.
I studied and pondered this letter; not greatly disappointed,
for I had had but slender hopes that my petition could work
anything. Yet I had a disappointment to get over. The first
practical use I made of my letter, I went where I could be
alone with it — indeed, I was that when I read it, — but I
went to a solitary lonely place, where I could not be
interrupted; and there I knelt down and prayed, that however
long I might live at the South, I might never get to look upon
evil as anything but evil, nor ever become accustomed to the
things I thought ought not to be, so as not to feel them.
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