Frankfort  August 23  1850

My dear children

                              I have an opportunity in the morning to send to N. York by a gentleman who is here as delegate to the convention & though it must be a hurried letter I thought I would not suffer the opportunity to pass without so much as saying to you that we are yet in the land of the living & quite far from the place from which we last wrote you, viz. London, if I am not mistaken, about the 12th.  If you set as high a value upon a letter from us, as we do from you, you will not grudge a 5 cents postage on as many lines, if they contain the gratifying intelligence of health & prosperity.  And as to the first we are about as usual- & for the second we have abundant reason for thankfulness since we have been brought on our way without accident or any very calamitous event & this is testifying abundantly of the goodness of our Heavenly Father in the midst of so many dangers seen & unseen- We have had a great deal of rain since we left London.  I think there has not been more than one or two days entirely without during this time- though it has scarcely impeded our travelling.  But we have been negligent to a

[We do not forget that it is Charlie’s birth day though I have not mentioned it before in my letter- I hope he is spending it properly & is satisfied with having lived fourteen years in sin-- I will now consecrate himself to God- this is the wish & prayer of his father & mother]