they who
from just confidence in right action, and from the habit of carrying
out their convictions, need little foreign support. I thank you for
this expression of your heart. Without the least tendency to
distrust, without the least dejection at the idea of neglect, with
entire gratitude for my lot, I still feel that I have not the power,
which so many others have, of awakening love, except in a very narrow
circle. I knew that I enjoyed your esteem; but I expected to fade
with my native land, not from your thoughts, but from your heart.
Your letter satisfies me that I shall have one more friend in
England. I shall not feel far from you, for what a nearness is there
in the consciousness of working in the same spirit!" The friendship
between Channing and Lucy Aikin, as seen in the rich series of her
letters to him, extending over a period of sixteen years, must have
been a valued resource, enjoyment, and stimulus to them both. An
extract or two will make the reader regret that relations charged
with such priceless blessings are not more cultivated. "To converse
with my guide, philosopher, and friend, has now become with me not a
mere indulgence, but a want. I daily discover more and more how much
I have come under the influence of your mind, and what great things
it has done, and I trust is still doing, for mine. I was never duly
sensible, till your writings made me so, of the transcendent beauty
and sublimity of Christian morals; nor did I submit my heart and
temper to their chastening and meliorating influences. In particular,
the spirit of unbounded benevolence, which they breathe, was a
stranger to my bosom: far indeed was I from looking upon all men as
my brethren. I shudder now to think how good a hater I was in the
days of my youth. Time and reflection, a wider range of acquaintance,
and a calmer state of the public mind, mitigated by degrees my
bigotry; but I really knew not what it was to open my heart to the
human race, until I had drunk deeply into the spirit of your
writings. You have given me a new being. May God reward you!" At
another time she writes, "O my dear friend, I was told yesterday that
you had been very, very ill; and though it was added that you were
now better, I have been able to think of little else since. What
would I give to know how you are at this moment! The distance which
separates us has something truly fearful in such circumstances."

"Never, my friend, are you forgotten, when my s