Your New Year's message, reached me yesterday, just as I was leaving home for this place.

I have not been here since last March.

I have come now to defeat and forgive my enemies, undo my mistakes, and so far as my 'life has become corrected', to bless my dear students here, and through them, the world. You have been surgeon as well as mother to me, and have proved your love by doing the thing that was hardest for both mother and child.

Yet there was no other way, by which I could learn to hear and obey God.

May you be able this coming year to help the world through me, and receive the comfort that should come to you from a loving, grateful child, who thus far has done but little to merit your great tenderness—

Mrs. Bangs is here with me. We both feel we have much to do and undo here– before we go on further–