John's River, and if I
settle at Mandarin, it will be one of my stations. Will you consent to
enter the Episcopal Church and be our clergyman? You are just the man
we want. If my tasks and feelings did not incline me toward the
Church, I should still choose it as the best system for training
immature minds such as those of our negroes. The system was composed
with reference to the wants of the laboring class of England, at a
time when they were as ignorant as our negroes now are.
I long to be at this work, and cannot think of it without my heart
burning within me. Still I leave all with my God, and only hope He
will open the way for me to do all that I want to for this poor
people.
Affectionately yours,
H. B. STOWE.
Mrs. Stowe had some years before this joined the Episcopal Church, for
the sake of attending the same communion as her daughters, who were
Episcopalians. Her brother Charles did not, however, see fit to change
his creed, and though he went to Florida he settled a hundred and
sixty miles west from the St. John's River, at Newport, near St.
Marks, on the Gulf coast, and about twenty miles from Tallahassee.
Here he lived every winter and several summers for fifteen years, and
here he left the impress of his own remarkably sweet and lovely
character upon the scattered population of the entire region.
[Illustration: THE HOME AT MANDARIN, FLORIDA.
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