Is there any fair way of disposing of the current of assertion, and
the still deeper undercurrent of implication, on this subject, without
one which loosens all faith in revelation, and throws us on pure
naturalism? But of one thing I am sure,--probation does not end with
this life, and the number of the redeemed may therefore be infinitely
greater than the world's history leads us to suppose.
The views expressed in this letter certainly throw light on many
passages in "The Minister's Wooing."
The following letter, written to her daughter Georgiana, is introduced
as revealing the spirit in which much of "The Minister's Wooing" was
written:--
_February_ 12, 1859.
MY DEAR GEORGIE,--Why haven't I written? Because, dear Georgie, I am
like the dry, dead, leafless tree, and have only cold, dead,
slumbering buds of hope on the end of stiff, hard, frozen twigs of
thought, but no leaves, no blossoms; nothing to send to a little girl
who doesn't know what to do with herself any more than a kitten. I am
cold, weary, dead; everything is a burden to me.
I let my plants die by inches before my eyes, and do not water them,
and I dread everything; I do, and wish it was not to be done, and so
when I get a letter from my little girl I smile and say, "Dear little
puss, I will answer it;" and I sit hour after hour with folded hands,
looking at the inkstand and dreading to begin.
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