Great work of translating the word of God

Now what to do I know not. I would most gladly give my time to my friends; I would give it all to my family; I would devote it all to the great work of translating the word of God; and I would with all my heart spend it in publishing the good news. But to devote the whole of it to each one of these objects is an impossibility. Only a certain portion can be given to each, and as one may receive more, another must receive less. Now, if any one could tell me exactly how to proportion the amount to be given to each, I should be thankful. But, while everybody seems to feel that I am very deficient somewhere, nobody seems to agree with his neighbor as to where the deficiency lies; and I seem to myself to be like the poor man who tried to please everybody, and pleased nobody, and accomplished nothing for himself. I must try more to please my blessed Lord, and let the whole world go.”

In the family of Mr. Goodell. Mrs. Goodell, who more than once before had been very low with sickness, was again, in the spring of this year, brought to the borders of the grave, and several members of the family were prostrated by the same disease, — a malignant and prevailing fever. So repeated and protracted were these visitations, that, toward the close of the following year, Mr. Goodell wrote: “ It is now more than two years since the voice of health has been heard in our habitation.”

Stricken household

But the hand of God was laid yet more heavily upon the stricken household, and one who was peculiarly dear to their hearts, the child of promise and of hope, the first-born of Americans in the city of the Sultans, the one who had received his name from the city of his birth and the land of his fathers, Constantine Washington, after a very trying illness, was removed beyond the reach of earthly love. He was the first of Mr. Goodell’s children from whom he was separated by death, and the only one whom he found waiting for him at the heavenly gates, when his work on earth was done.