of neighbours, have come all summer long, to bid me a blithe good morning, and tell me news of sunshine and fresh air. A piece of sponge, graceful as if it grew on the arms of the wave, reminds me of Grecian seas, and of Hylas borne away by water-nymphs; it was given me for its uncommon beauty; and who will not try harder to be good, for being deemed a fit recipient of the beautiful? A root, which promises to bloom into fragrance, is sent by an old Quaker lady, whom I know not, but who says, 'I would fain minister to thy love of flowers.' Affection sends childhood to peep lovingly at me from engravings, or stand in classic grace, embodied in the little plaster cast. The far-off and the near, the past and the future, are with me in my humble apartment. True, the mementoes cost little of the world's wealth, for they are of the simplest kind; but they express the universe because they are thoughts of love, clothed in forms of beauty.

Why do I mention these things? From vanity? Nay, verily; for it often humbles me to tears, to think how much I am loved more than I deserve; while thousands, far nearer to God, pass on their thorny path, comparatively uncheered by love and blessing. But it came into my heart to tell you how much these things helped me to be good; how they were like roses dropped by unseen hands, guiding me through a wilderness-path unto our Father's mansion. And the love that helps me to be good, I would have you bestow upon all, that all may become good. To love others is greater happiness than to be beloved by them; to do good is more blessed than to receive. The heart of Jesus was so full of love, that he called little children to his arms, and folded John upon his bosom; and this love made him capable of such divine self-renunciation, that he could offer up even his life for the good of the world. The desire to be beloved is ever restless and unsatisfied; but the love that flows out upon others is a

perpetual well-spring from on high. This source of happiness is within the reach of all; here, if not elsewhere, may the stranger and the friendless satisfy the infinite yearnings of the human heart, and find therein refreshment and joy.

Believe me, the great panacea for all the disorders in the universe, is Love. For thousands of years the world has gone on perversely, trying to overcome evil with evil; with the worst results, as the condition of things plainly testifies. Nearly two thousand years ago, the prophet of the Highest proclaimed that evil could be overcome only with good. But when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? If we have faith in this holy principle, where is it written on our laws or our customs?

Write it on thine own life: and men reading it shall say, lo, something greater than vengeance is here; a power mightier than coercion. And thus the individual faith shall become a social faith; and to the mountains of crime around us, it will say, 'Be thou removed, and cast into the depths of the sea!' and they will be removed; and the places that knew them shall know them no more.

This hope is coming toward us, with a halo of sunshine around its head; in the light it casts before, let us do works of zeal with the spirit of love. Man may be redeemed from his thraldom! He will be redeemed. For the mouth of the Most High hath spoken it. It is inscribed in written prophecy, and He utters it to our hearts in perpetual revelation. To you, and me, and each of us, he says, 'Go, bring my people out of Egypt, into the promised land.'

To perform this mission, we must love both the evil and the good, and shower blessings on the just as well as the unjust. Thanks to our Heavenly Father, I have had much friendly aid on my own spiritual pilgrimage; through many a cloud has pierced a sunbeam, and over many a pitfall have I been guided by a garland. In gratitude for this, fain would

I help others to be good, according to the small measure of my ability. My spiritual adventures are like those of the little boy that run away from Providence.' When troubled or discouraged, my soul seats itself on some door-step-there is ever some one to welcome me in, and make a nice little bed' for my weary heart. It may be a young friend, who gathers for me flowers in Summer, and grasses, ferns, and red berries in the Autumn; or it may be sweet Mary Howitt, whose mission it is 'to turn the sunny side of things to human eyes;' or Charles Dickens, who looks with such deep and friendly glance into the human heart, whether it beats beneath embroidered vest, or tattered jacket; or the serene and gentle Fenelon; or the devout Thomas a Kempis; or the meek-spirited John Woolman; or the eloquent hopefulness of Channing; or the cathedral tones of Keble, or the saintly beauty of Raphael, or the clear melody of Handel. All speak to me with friendly greeting, and have somewhat to give my thirsty soul. Fain would I do the same, for all who come to my door-step, hungry, and cold, spiritually or naturally. To the erring and the guilty, above all others, the door of my heart shall never open outward. I have too much need of mercy. Are we not all children of the same Father? and shall we not pity those who among pit-falls lose their way home?

LETTER XXXIII.

December 8, 1842.

I went, last Sunday, to the Catholic Cathedral, a fine-looking Gothic edifice, which impressed me with that feeling of reverence so easily inspired in my soul by a relic of the past. I have heard many say that their first visit to a Catholic church filled them with laughter, their services seemed so absurd a mockery. It was never thus with me. I know not whether

it is that Nature endowed me so largely with imagination and with devotional feelings, or whether it is because I slept for years with Thomas a Kempis's Imitation of Christ' under my pillow, and found it my greatest consolation, and best outward guide, next to the New Testament; but so it is, that holy old monk is twined all about my heart with loving reverence, and the forms which had so deep spiritual significance to him, could never excite in me a mirthful feeling. Then the mere circumstance of antiquity is impressive to a character inclined to veneration. There stands the image of what was once a living church. A sort of Congress of Religions is she; with the tiara of the Persian priest, the staff of the Roman augur, and the embroidered mantle of the Jewish rabbi. This is all natural; for the Christian Idea was a resurrection from deceased Heathenism and Judaism, and rose encumbered with the graveclothes and jewels of the dead. The Greek and Roman, when they became Christian, still clung fondly to the reminiscences of their early faith. The undying flame on Apollo's shrine reappeared in ever-lighted candles on the Christian altar; and the same idea that demanded vestal virgins for the heathen temple, set nuns apart for the Christian sanctuary. Tiara and embroidered garments were sacred to the imagination of the converted Jew; and conservatism, which in man's dual nature ever keeps innovation in check, led him to adopt them in his new worship. Thus did the spirituality of Christ come to us loaded with forms, not naturally and spontaneously flowing therefrom. The very cathedrals, with their clustering columns and intertwining arches, were architectural models of the groves and 'high-places,' sacred to the mind of the Pagans, who from infancy had therein worshipped their strange gods.' The days of the Christian week took the names of heathen deities, and statues of Venus were adored as Virgin Mothers. The bronze image of St. Peter, at Rome,

whose toe has been kissed away by devotees, was once a statue of Jupiter. An English traveller took off his hat to it as Jupiter, and asked him, if he ever recovered his power, to reward the only individual that ever bowed to him in his adversity.

Let us not smile at this odd commingling of religious faiths and forms. It is most natural; and must ever be, when a new idea evolves itself from the old. The Reformers, to evade this tendency, destroyed the churches, the paintings, and the statues, which habit had so long endeared to the hearts and imaginations of men; yet while they flung away, with ruthless hand, all the poetry of the old establishment, they were themselves so much the creatures of education, that they brought into the new order of things many cumbrous forms of theology, the mere results of tradition; and the unpretending fishermen, and tentmaker, still remained Saint Peter, and Saint Paul.

Protestants make no images of Moses; but many divide the homage of Christ with him, and spiritually kiss his toe. Thus will the glory of a coming church walk in the shadow of our times, casting a radiance over that which it cannot quite dispel.

I think it is Mosheim, who says, ' After Christianity became incorporated with the government, it is difficult to determine whether Heathenism was most Christianized, or Christianity most heathenized.'

Wo for the hour, when moral truth became wedded to politics, and religion was made to subserve purposes of state! That prostration of reason to authority still fetters the extremest Protestant of the nineteenth century, after the lapse of more than a thousand years, and a succession of convulsive efforts to throw it off. That boasted triumph of Christianity' came near being its destruction. The old fable of the Pleiad fallen from the sky, by her marriage with an earth-born prince, is full of significance, in many applications; and in none more so, than the attempt to advance a spiritual principle by political