dekoper's "Judaism in Rome"? It has
interested me very much. The Jews, as a people, present the greatest of
historic problems. A narrow strip of land, that "scowl upon the face
of the world,"--a small people, no learning, no art, no military power;
yet, by the very ideas proceeding from it,-Christianity included,-has
influenced the world more than Greece or Rome. Huidekoper's book is very
learned. I am glad to see such a book from our ranks. We have done too
little elaborate work in learning or theology. Your Ministers' Institute
promises well for that.

To his Sister, Miss J. Dewey.

ST. DAVID'S, March 26, 1877.

YOUR letter has come this afternoon, astonishing us with its date, and
leading us to wonder where your whereabouts are now. Such an 4,-nis
fatuus you have proved for the month past! With plans of goings and
comings, with engagements and disengagements, you have slipped by us
entirely, so that the kind of assurance I have had that you would come
and pass two or three weeks with us before going eastward has come
utterly to nought. You should have come; our chances of seeing one
another are narrowing every year. But we will not dwell gloomily upon
it. We may live three or four years longer,--people do; and I think I
am more afraid of a longer than of a shorter term. [339] The "pain at
heart," of which you speak at putting a wider space between us, is what
I, too, have felt; and your thoughts, taken literally, are pleasant,
while spiritualized, they are our only resource. Yes, the heavenly
spaces unite us, while the earthly separate. Oh! could we know that we
shall meet again when the earthly scene closes! But what we do not know,
we hope for, and I think the supports of that hope increase with me.
Development for every living creature, up to the highest it can reach,
is the law of its nature; and why, according to that law, should not the
poorest human creatures--the very troglodytes, the cave-dwellers--rise,
till all that is infolded in their being should be brought forth?
Where and how, is in the counsels and resources of infinite power and
goodness. Where and how creatures should begin to exist would be as much
mysterious to us as where and how they should go on.

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.

ST. DAVID'S, April 22, 1877.

DEAR HOSPITALITY,--I minded much what you said about my coming down in
May, but I have been so discouraged about myself for six weeks past,
that I have not wanted to write to you;--