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To Mrs. S. B. Russell.

Wayland, May 24, 1878.
Thanks for your affectionate, cheerful letter. I am as pleased as a child with a new (loll, to think you liked my little book 1 “entirely.” In this secluded place, where people take little or no interest in anything, I love no means of knowing what effect the book produces. My motive was good, and I tried to write in a candid and kindly spirit. I leave it to its fate, merely hoping that it may do somewhat to enlarge the bands of human brotherhood. Personally [247] I have never expected any advantage from the publication of it. If it pays its own expenses I shall be satisfied. It would mortify me to have the publishers incur debt by it.

It is wonderful how shy even liberal ministers generally are about trusting people with the plain truth concerning their religion. They want to veil it in a supernatural haze. They are very reluctant to part with the old idea that God has given to Jews and Christians a peculiar monopoly of truth. It is a selfish view of God's government of the world, and it is time that we knew enough to outgrow it.

1 Aspirations of the world. A Chain of Opals. Collected, with an Introduction, by L. Maria Child. Boston, 1878.

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