Handwritten letter from G. R. Starkey to Gertrude Starkey Pitcairn. Seal pressed into upper left corner. Written “Sunday after Church.” With Gertrude’s 19th birthday approaching, G. R. Starkey notes that they have walked through life together for the last 18 years. As she enters adulthood, Gertrude is now approaching the final and most important stage of life, and Starkey feels it is his fatherly duty to give her a clear idea of what this last stage entails. He begins with a lesson on the spiritual development of the first men; They were natural in childhood and became spiritual in adulthood with little effort. In the present day however, people are born with evil loves, inherited from their parents, which make the process of becoming spiritual “a painful, laborious, long continued work.” In order to become spiritual, people must study the Lord’s truths, as revealed through His revelation, and thereby learn to love what is good. Starkey hopes to speak with Gertrude more on these matters in the future. He writes, “May I live to see you my darling daughter, an intelligent receiver of many of these beautiful & precious truths. . .”