A long time ago, when giving up the editorship of the Journal of Christian Science you wrote me a very kind and complimentary note – possibly more than deserved – with respect to my attention to your wishes on said paper. I was very busy at the time, & could not find a moment in which to acknowledge it, indeed felt it deserved more than such brief acknowledgement. I mentioned its receipt to Dr Frye, & told him I would write you. I put it in my pocket & to night Corrected: tonight in going through old letters came across it.

I wish to say that it afforded me gratification to attend to your esteemed orders, & my only regret was, that sometimes the invoice for the work was swelled swollen far beyond what was agreeable to me on a/cExpanded:account of of the time consumed in making change which often caused the overrunning of whole paragraphs. The work did not show, and I had sympathy for the new undertaking, but was not in a position to throw all the extra labor in.

The work, to me done properly, requires almost a technical understanding of the subject, & by this time I am pretty well drilled into the rudiments of your faith and practice. You use terms a little differently from the commonality of professed Christians, and that is what causes the confusion. Still, I hope we got thro’Expanded:through the job without making any serious blunders.

I can truly say, I hope some time Corrected: sometime in the future I may have the great pleasure of seeing you directly as heretofore – for I can my memory will ever tell me of harmonious relations with yourself. I shall very shortly be in a position to excel my best past efforts, as I have taken another (additional) office to in which to execute my patrons’ orders; and with a lot of new type and new machinery of the very latest make & all the improvements, I ought to be able to do much the very very best of printing.

Your successor, Mrs. Hopkins seems to be a very [?] Unclear or illegible  agreeably lady, and I do not anticipate any more disharmony with her than with yourself. There is one thing however that I think it right to say, and that is, that all MSSExpanded:manuscripts should be edited – paragraphs, sentences, &c.Expanded:et cetera, being properly punctuated (I mean, as the editor desires it; because my punctuation, by rule, does not always accord with an editor’s [?] Unclear or illegible  judgement), and all illegible, obscene and interlined words re-written, so that a compositor, unless a blunderer, cannot make a mistake.

With thanks for your letter, and gratification that I have given satisfaction,