Sunday Jan 8 1865 My dear friend I [received] your kind note to father and the P.S. and I want you to know how grateful I feel for your love and wide hearted charity. It has ever been with me a strong feeling, to consider that very heart has its own wants & must seek for itself its own supply, suitable to itself. But I find [underlined] very [/underlined] few who are willing to let each one choose to think for himself. When I meet such then I know they have truly Divine Charity within them. Tossed for years in speculation I have gone back to the [left side] Faith of my early years, for rest. To my temperament it is the most congenial, but it does not make me any the less liberal or the less willing to grant to every one liberty. A yield them any love. Your kind words struck a chord in my heart that I cannot but respond to. When I saw you I was full in the hope of being able to join you in your noble work at the Prison Home, but I have since then had a return of my prostrating attacks and they unfit me for days, for any labor. I hope yet to get over them to one of my energy & desire 'to do' they become a real cross when [right side] and deprive me of great usefulness. I do not think I am lacking in will or sympathy in your cause. God bless you for your loving tender heart & the love you have my dear parents. My Mother " is my watch word could I only be like her I would feel I was not living in vain. Yours [Affectionately] Laura Edmonds.