Amoy Saturday, Oct. 21st, [18]48@Mrs. E.A.L. Doty [Eleanor Augusta Smith], Letter to Mrs. John Dubois, 21 October 1848, Doty-Dubois Family Papers: Correspondence 1846-50, Personal [Misc.], Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, New York. This letter was written in blue ink on the front and back of thin paper of 8 3/8" x 10 13 /16".

My dear Mrs. Dubois:

We cannot think of closing our mail for the dear friends in the U.S. without sending at least a few lines to Gansevoort, though we have both had an unusual amount of writing to do for this month and are both very tired, mentally, physically.

We wrote you last month, acknowledging the reception of a letter from you in July, which is the last we have received. In that we informed you of the death of our previous babe, which occurred just before your letter arrived. It was a cutting stroke to us, and the vacancy produced by it will long be felt. Our dear little son was a great source of comfort and was much loved by all. He was an unusually playful happy babe, and playing with him was almost the only source of innocent recreation we possessed. But he was only lent us; while our heart bleed under the chastisement, we are, I trust, enabled to say “the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.[”]

How is the ‘precious Amelia’? She is the subject of many thoughts and prayers as are also her beloved guardians. Your minute account of her little sayings and doings, does much to clear her beloved Father’s heart. You cannot think how much we value this in your letters or how much happiness you are imparting, when mentioning anything in reference to this subject of so much interest and affection.

Nothing new has occurred in our mission since we last wrote you. While as yet, we see very few marked results of labour, there are some delightful features of encouragement.

My dear husband’s school is in a flourishing condition, and our meeting for females better attended. For the first time, I went out alone, this week, taking only my old “Rover,” to see some Chinese ladies, and to try and get them to come out to meeting. I went about an hour before meeting time thinking they would perhaps be more likely to accompany me than to come alone. We visited several places where I had never been before, and were universally, kindly and politely received.

The experiment proved a very encouraging one, and it was a cheering sight to see, in addition to a school of between twenty and thirty boys, twenty one of these long-secluded Chinese females listening to the words of Life. We have been greatly cheered by the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Young, who have been to England for the benefit of their health. They return, greatly improved and prepared to enter fresh upon their duties and labours. Mrs. Young is a lovely woman. She is soon to open a Girls’ School, which we feel to be a very desirable thing. She possesses a pretty good knowledge of the language and consequently can go to work at once.

I am studying and progressing as fast as I can expect to though I often feel it is very slow and am very impatient to be able to begin to be more useful. There is so much to be done, that one can scarcely be contented to wait, such a length of time, before anything can be done, after one is on the field. We are all enjoying our usual good health, though we have all felt something of the debilitating effect of the hot season. The weather is now delightfully cool and bracing, and we already feel its healthful effects upon us. Our Chapel is nearly completed, a neat little building it is. It contrasts beautifully with the low-dark-mud houses, by which it is so densely surrounded, and is a fitting and beautiful emblem of the superiority of the Christian religion, when compared with the moral darkness and degradation, in which so many are enveloped. May this little sanctuary, be indeed, a light shining out of darkness, and be the birth place of many precious souls.

Very often do we think of and talk about you, dear friends, and earnestly hope you may long be spared to labour in your pleasant field, and be cheered by seeing the fruits of your exertions. I remember the faces of some of your dear people, but cannot reveal their names. Remember me to that young lady, whom we called upon, and who returned with us in the Sleigh, if you please. Dear Husband unites in much love to you and Mr. Dubois, and much love and many, many kisses to the precious daughter.

Yours very affectionately

Mrs. E A L Doty