Family illness
Feb. 28, 1843
To Elizabeth Pease, after “cheering news” that she is in better health, after illness: “I, too, have been ill, severely so, and know experimentally how to sympathize with those who are prostrated on beds of sickness… My dear Helen was called to summon all her fortitude and devotedness as a wife and a mother, and faithfully did she perform her part. With a babe at her breast, a husband sick almost unto death, and three children lying ill at the same time of that dreadful disorder scarlatina, she nobly passed through the ordeal; and it was not until we were all convalescent, that her exhausted frame gave out, when she was brought down by a slow, intermittent fever, from which she has since happily recovered. Truly, we have been afflicted as a household, but the wings of divine love and mercy have overshadowed us all the while.” 1