"I have received a paper and often something else every other week.
These I have accepted as a kind of trust; and when there has been a
favorable opportunity, given them away to friends and
acquaintances. I do not press them on any one, nor talk about it
much. I have not the courage of a reformer. When I speak to friends
(that are kind every other way) of a broader religious belief, they
meet me with coldness and distrust. It chills me, and I am silent.
Yet I believe, with Helen Williams, if any one is brought to face a
great truth, if they accept it, yet do not speak or act upon it,
there is retribution, barrenness, for them,--a plunging in the
whale's belly, as Jonah was,--a figure so many have laughed at, yet
significant for all that. I wonder now at my struggles in former
years; am happier since the tangled skein is partially
straightened. Still I am not fully in accord with the Unitarians.
Miss ---- [another correspondent in the same village] spoke to me
some time ago of your desiring us to form a reading circle. I do
not know what she said to you. I will give you the situation. I
live in a small village of about one hundred inhabitants, and Miss
---- lives about two miles away. I cannot call to mind a woman that
would take any interest. They would go to sleep over their
knitting, or want to use the time for social chat, as they do not
meet day after day at the village store, as the men do (I speak of
winter). True, there are a few that would enjoy the reading, yet
are so severely Orthodox they could not comprehend a new truth
outside of _their_ church. That is the dark side. Now I have often
thought if we had a place of meeting, where we could seat a small
audience (which we have not), and a good reader (ditto), we could
call them together Sunday afternoons and read some of the beautiful
sermons you have sent.
"Your work is grand,--the elevation of the human race. The ones that
_will_ read, will become better, kindlier, more patient with
ignorance; and while they yearn to give every soul a chance, will
naturally throw out a better influence and teach a broader religion.
As to your paper, not now. It is midwinter; husband, carpenter, out
of employment. Intend to take one of your publications after a
while."
About two weeks after Miss Ellis's death she addressed this letter to
her:--
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I received a "Register" yesterday, directed in a
different hand. Are you sick? I hope not. I should grieve indeed if
I knew that physical pain had stopped your work. These lines come
to my mind:--
"Only a woman, and I could not find
The quiet household life that women know;
So too, my part where there were sheaves to bind,
Not much, perhaps, but more than I could do.
My tired feet failed me in the harvest lands,
My ripened grain but half-way reaped across;
And, where it dropped from over-wearied hands,
My best sheaf lies half bound for winds to toss."
Instead, may you continue your work till eventide.
Who can tell, when a mind gives up its beliefs, where it will stop?
I seem to believe nothing, unless it is in the Supreme Good,
whatever that is,--and my religion, to live the best life I know.
The Orthodox preachers say if one strays from the "path," or
"back-slides," they are always uneasy and unhappy. How different my
experience is! How glad I am to have escaped the little enclosure of
dogma, and to stand "far indeed from being wise, but free to learn"!