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Bless you, my dear friend, for opening to me so freely your religious life and faith. Had I not been gradually recognizing it for the last two or three months, I should have been astonished to find it is so great a thing to you. And I am surprised and impressed that yours was that common experience of revelation and rest by a sudden flash, as it were. There must be, I suppose, preparation and thought; but the finishing stroke seems God-given, and fastens itself in a way that must be wonderfully impressive. As to my own opinions, it would be pretty difficult to describe them. Perhaps you have done it as nearly as it can be done-yet I do not wholly recognize it as my condition. All these things have seemed very much a muddle to me my mind never could solve them. I can generally average and condense the intelligent views and opinions of others on most subjects; but here the wide divergence of great and good men, the contradictions of revelation and science, the variant testimony of all our sources of information, have been too much for the grasp and condensation of my mind. So I have just put it all aside- and waited. I have striven to keep my heart and my head free and unprejudiced, open to all good influences-ready to receive the gift, but perhaps not reaching out for it and not reaching out, perhaps, again, because when I made the effort I felt a sickening feeling of hypocrisy, mixed with the apprehension that to go ahead was for me to go back. And that the faith of the fathers and the testimony of good men forbade me to do. So I have seemed forced to be content to grow in goodness in my more practical way, and to leave theories and faith to time. I try to make my life show the result of Christianity and godliness, if I have not the thing in its theoretical form. Patience, charity, faith in men, faith in progress, have been lessons that I have been learning these many years. Purity of life too has been a steadfast aim. Measured by my fellows, I have been successful — more successful than many who have firmer foundations, or affect to have. But this consciousness is injurious to me. It is leading me to be content. It is perhaps reconciling me to a little sin. And indeed I do not expect ever to be perfectly good, or to find any other person so. I do not see how that is possible VOL. I.-22

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with any nature. That is, I mean by goodness, purity of soul— perfect purity in thought as well as action. Deeds may be commanded, though that is rare, and I do not know that I ever saw or expect to see a person who can do it,- but the thought, never, it seems to me, so long as we are human. Indeed, does God expect or demand it of us? We cannot crucify our earthly desires, that has been tried, and it was semi-barbarism. They are the elements of growth, of usefulness, of progress, almost as much as the yearnings of a higher and holier nature. Strike out from the world the deeds or that portion of them done through the promptings of what may be called the human side of our nature-ambition, selfishness, passion, love, hate, etc.and the world would stop, retrograde. There is not force enough in the divinity within us to carry on the machine. Does not God understand this better than we do? Are we not made as we are with a view to produce the greatest results? Let any candid mind, honest but severe, examine the motives which lead it to the execution of its highest and noblest deeds-I imagine it will find subtly but not always feebly working there some elements of selfishness, pride, ambition, desire to appear well, make an impression, gain the applause of the multitudes or the one. Did you ever think of that? I have, and watched myself and others- and sometimes I have thought there was never an absolutely pure action-pure I mean of any human element, wholly divine. And why should there be? Can human beings become divinities - wholly, exclusively? When they do they will cease to be human, and go hence. So I learn patience and charity, even for myself. All progress, all good, is but an approximation. The end is never reached, never can be, perhaps never could be,- but the effort should be continuous and earnest. It should also be intelligent. It should not be self-upbraiding and morbidly dissatisfied with itself. Praise is said to be useful to others- is it not to ourselves from ourselves? Justice is the better word. we should be just and generous to ourselves. There are some people are you not one? - charitable and loving and generous to everybody else, but hard and severe to themselves. This is cruel, wicked. It limits their happiness and their usefulness. One of our first

duties is to ourselves- to make ourselves happy. Then we can make others happy, and make them grow, and grow with them. Of course, indulgence is not always the way to make ourselves happy-and yet there are some indulgences that we should permit ourselves. The philosophy of life is understood by but few. Our humanity makes us oftener blindly practice and illustrate it, than spread intelligent theories. We practice better than we preach. Mr. Staples's sermon had some fine illustrations bearing on this point the protests and conquering protests of human nature against dogmas and creeds and theories, that seemed to be of God at the time,― you remember them. There is no end of the application of this philosophy; the difficulty is in the intelligent application. Give one man the doctrine I have enunciated, and he would run away to the devil under it. And in the application of it, there will occur thousands of cases full of doubt and trial-questions of Love and Duty-Duty to ourselves and Love to others. . . . And indeed in the application of any rule there would spring up a new crop of questions below the first-and so on and on. Here is the field for our higher intelligence, our purest justice to ourselves and to others. Every one must be a law unto himself. If I should tell you what to do, in the case of

, it might be impossible for you to do it - it might give too little to yourself or too little to him. And all this is life. We grow in all ways and by all sorts of means here by indulgence, there by restraint. But I think you, and such as you, as often do yourselves wrong by restraint as by indulgence, by being unjust to yourselves in your great desire to do no injustice to others. . . . I have meant to speak generally, and to utter very generally my views of religion and life and humanity. Perhaps you think it is low-that it betrays lack of faith in humanity as well as faith in God. Consider it again and you will think otherwise. I have great faith in man, and the faith in God is perfect, only it cannot describe and take hold of the object. But I have run away from my religious life. I know what I want and lack-it is a higher inspiration. It would not change my theories, but it would lift up my life, give it more play, more richness, more power for daily good.

To his Wife before sailing for Europe.

BREVOORT HOUSE, Tuesday night.

DEAREST: We are in the midst of a snow-storm, but the Cunard steamers wait for nothing, and besides it will probably be clear to-morrow. I was very deeply drained by the last few days at home, but surprised that I was able to stand so much. There was a cheery crowd of men at the depot; the Briggses and Merricks were on the train; and I had a pleasant call at New Haven with the Whitneys, and got in here in good season at night, and went to bed by eleven o'clock, and had a fair sleep for me. To-day I have been about a little, but not so much as I had proposed. The weather was bad, and I could not go over to Brooklyn without too great fatigue, and so I cut that and some other calls I had intended to make. I find it very easy to say good-bye to friends after the hard strain of parting with home and its nearer and dearer ones. On the whole I feel better and cheerier about my going away than I have done. I have faith that it will all work out rightly and happily for my and our happiness and health. At any rate, we must both act and live as though we expected and believed that. But as I have kept clear of emotional indulgences since I left home, I will not get back to them now, for if I do I shall break down. You know how I feel and what I should say if I yielded to the impulses of the heart and the occasion. . .

BREVOORT, 9 o'clock, Wednesday.

DEAREST: Now good-bye for a few months. We shall come together again, healthier and happier-both better I trust for the separation. Don't shut yourself up. Go out, circulate around, see your friends, and know always that I never shall be so happy as when I know you are well and happy and enjoying all that life gives you of home and friends and beauty and love around you.

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has just come in to say good-bye. He will write you. He accepts our offer. I am very glad of it. Now send him and the money regularly, and tell nobody.

Kisses and love for children, and love for every friend.

UNTIL

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE CIVIL WAR.

NTIL April, 1861, politics was but an incidental and minor interest of the American citizen. The people of the Northern states plowed and reaped, builded and traded, and were absorbed in the interests of the family and the neighborhood. They read the newspapers, talked over the news of the day, went to townmeeting or to the polling-place once or twice a year, and seemed to leave the affairs of the nation mainly to congressmen, editors, and wire-pullers. Then the aspect of the country changed as suddenly as when the curtain rises on a new scene in the theater. These men of peace left their plows and shops and forges, and by hundreds of thousands enlisted for the discipline of the camp and the perils of the battle-field. The flower of the population resolved itself into an army. Back of that army lay the resources and the hearts of the entire community.

The people of the South fought to vindicate their political independence and in defense of their homes. To the typical Southerner, always attached to his state and his section more than to the Union, the defense of the Confederacy against invasion was as natural an impulse as was his forefathers' maintenance of American independence against Great Britain. A minority had opposed secession as politically inexpedient. But the moment

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