To Miss Lucy Osgood.
Wayland, 1860.
You are almost constantly present with me, in these days of this declining year, and to-morrow I am sure my first waking thought will be of you and the dear one who a year ago passed behind the veil; that veil so dark and heavy, with merely a line of golden light around its edges, intimating the inner, invisible glory.
More and more strongly do I feel, as I grow older, that this unsatisfactory existence is the mere threshold of a palace of glories; but reason is importunate with its questions of how and where.
I strive to attain to an habitual state of child-like trust, to feel always, as I do sometimes, like a little one that places its hand within its father's, and is satisfied to be led, it knows not whither.
Mr.-- is a great, good man, and when he lets doctrines alone his preaching always edifies and strengthens me. But he has no logic in his composition; not a jot; and sometimes I wish I had not.
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Sometimes I think the light from God's own throne is best transmitted through the transparent golden veil of poesy.
But there stands my reason, a stubborn fact; and it will not accept any supernatural mediums between my soul and its Heavenly Father; whether the mediums be Virgin Mothers, or Divine Humanities.
There is undoubtedly a sense in which the doctrine of Divine Humanity is true; for in its highest ideal all humanity is divine.
But that sense would be very unsatisfactory to Mr.--.
How I should like to know what your sister's active soul is now thinking of all these things!
Perhaps she has introduced Theodore Parker to Dr. Hopkins; and perhaps Luther comes up behind them “with the sound of iron shoes upon a stone pavement,” as Swedenborg describes his walk in the spiritual world.
It bears considerable resemblance to his walk in this world, I think.
If Dr. Channing joins them, it will be in velvet slippers, on the softest carpet. 