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DEAR FRIEND DOUGLASS:--

More than a month has now elapsed since I last [suffered] you to hear from me. Do not, I entreat you, be too severe in your judgments upon this silence. The duties of my present calling in life exact a larger share of my time; and when I do have a little leisure I find it far more accordant with a temperament unhappily not too active to while it away over the pages of some pleasant book, than to devote it to the jotting down of my own significant relections. Add to this, too, the fact that am st[?{ed away here in retreat whose daily quiet is unbroken save by a repetion of the incidents which happened yesterday and the recurrence of which may be looked for to-morrow; and you can readily imagine that,
should you, who are already acquainted with the general routine of my existence again call upon me for the story of it. I might in truth [illegible] with Canning's knife-grinder. A Story [illegible] you! I have none to tell, Sir.

Then, again, if the announcement of some incident that has occurred in the "busy haunts of men," should penetrate into our service it comes to us so decked out with murmerings with approvals or censures, at the hands of the journalists, our sole mediums of communication with the outer world, that an original [illegible] with regard to it is an utter impossibility. I trust that these several excuses will [be accepted graciously by you, especially, as they are offered preliminarily to a promise of being more regular in correspondence in future.

It was a matter of both of graticication and regret to me, to learn tha your aide and zealous co-worker, Miss Griffiths, was about to [illegible] her native England" - of gratification bcause that estimable lady will doublless [illegible] much pleasure in seeing once more her [illegible] of former days,-- of regret, because the oppressed and the enslaved will mecessarily, during her absence be deprived of an earnest and [illegible] advocate. Well, indeed, does she deserve encomiums and noble acknowledgments [illegible] assistance which you expressed in reference to her, in announcing her departure. She [illegible] truly devoted and self-sacrifing in her philanthropy, and in this, can afford an exemplary duty to many a derelict abolutionist. It is a sad reflection that too many of the professed friends of the colored man have either never learned, or to readily forget the fact that does not stand in [illegible] merely of words of [illegible], but of acts of earnest, practical beneviolence. It is hard enough for him who has fallen among thieves and been left bleeding in the highway, to see the priest and the levite pass by on the other side:-- it is more than humans bear, to learn that the good Samaritan has nothing bur expressions of sympathy, and tears of woo, to serve us a balm for his many wounds. But let me rather speak of one who is faithful than of many who are false. Sincerely do I trust tha a safe voyage, a pleasant visit and a speedy return to her chosen field of labor, may be accorded to our worthy friend. Her active zeal merits, as a reward, the furlough which she has now taken but the good servive she has rendered thus far in the battle of freedom, [illegible] too valuable a nature to allow us willingly to perceive her long absent from her past.