Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: rememoer that they were either written with the sense of feeling, by means of a grooved card, and pencil, or prompted to a friend, from an overburdened heart. s. H. Dekroyft. New-York Institution for the Blind, September 25, 1849. A PLACE IN THY MEMORY. Rochester, April, 1848. My Precious Mother,—My whole heart is drawn out to you. When William was with me, I loved him more than all the world oeside, but he is in the grave now, and my purest affections, mother, evermore are yours. If this frail body could move with the fleetness of thought, I would come to you now, and pillow my weary head on your bosom, and your soft hands would dry these tears from my poor eyes. Oh that I could open them once more, mother, and see your smiling face, and feel my spirit grow warm and gentle in the light of your eyes, and your looks of love. Tell me, dear mother, have you changed at all ? Do you look as when I saw you last ? Oh, had I known that ere we should meet again, the light would leave me, how would I have gazed on your form, until on my spirit were engraved your every look and feature! You often come to me now, when dreams possess my thoughts, and then I tell you how sad it is to be blind, and how melancholy the long days and nights are, and how I sometimes almost pray to go into the spirit world, and mount the wings of light for ever. But mother, I bless God for a cheerful faith, and a heart all resigned. Whatever his hand orders is for the best. You taught me early to know, and try to do, the will of God; but, mother, to suffer it is another thing. I could climb the Rocky Mountains to teach the Indians, cross the seas, and live for ever with the Hindoos, and the task would seem light, and my burdens easily borne; but when I look along the current, of perhaps fifty years, o...