Part 38 (1/2)
SAME.
”PROVIDENCE, June 12, 1859.
”MY DEAR MRS. UNDERHILL:
”I have been waiting a long time, hoping to hear from you and to have that visit appointed. Now the country is so beautiful I must urge you to come and enjoy it with me. Last evening I met Mr. Bartlett, who inquired for you and hoped you would come very soon. He gives a strawberry party on Sat.u.r.day evening of this week. You shall see just whom you would like to see, and no others. You shall ride, walk, or rest, just as you like, and have a good time, that shall make you forget all the disagreeables of the past. How fortunate it is that we have the ability to forget some things, and that the heart prefers to retain the beautiful and cast aside the evil. Come next week, as then I shall have strawberries in abundance and cherries too. Mr. Underhill must come _for_ you. If he comes _with_ you, he will hurry you away too soon, I know, and there are a thousand things for us to talk about. My little Maybell is in splendid health and spirits. Give my kind regards to Mr. Underhill, and tell him to give you leave of absence now. Let me hear from you soon. If you come by the Fall River boat you have a beautiful sail up the river, and be here to breakfast about half-past ten o'clock.
”I will meet you with a carriage at the wharf.
”Yours with much affection, (Signed) ”PAULINE W. DAVIS.”
JOHN E. ROBINSON.
”NEW YORK, October 1, 1884.
”MY KIND FRIEND, MRS. UNDERHILL:
”Learning that you are about having published a new book on the general subject of Modern Spiritualism, and that, in connection therewith, you propose to avail yourself of such writings of mine as were suggested by a careful study of its phenomenal facts during the early days of their occurrence; I write now to say that, so far from having any objections to such a design, I acquiesce promptly and thoroughly in your request.
”Furthermore, if any letters of mine, either of a public or private character, can be of service to you, you need not, as a suggestion of delicacy, withhold my name. What is truth to me, I utter, if the occasion seems to call for its expression.
”It has occurred to me, in this connection, that some thoughts of my maturer years, which have quite recently pa.s.sed through my mind, may be pertinent to the general subject.
”Without being censorious, and desiring to keep strictly within the bounds of propriety, allow me to say that I have noted a marked tendency, especially in these latter years, of a more general atheistic quality in public thought upon the general subjects which lie at the base of all human religious belief.
”I might, perhaps, italicize what I refer to, as a near approach to a positive unbelief, in most grades of modern intellects; from the most gifted to those lower strata which take their initial thoughts from their superiors.
”Now it seems to me on reflection, during a long season when my thoughts have been almost my only companions, that the cause of all this general declension or 'eclipse of faith' is, that Science has taught too much, _unless it teaches more_!
”I would rather phrase it, however (for the emendation is a better solution), that the true teachings of science have not been followed out to their ultimates.
”Now, to my apprehension, this is a most grievous error, and was well expressed by the poet who penned the lines,
'Oh, star-eyed Science! hast thou wandered there To bring us back the tidings of Despair?'
”Science has, as I apprehend it--and I would not be erroneous in my judgment, nor willingly harsh--generally impressed the intellects of its votaries in such a manner as to lead them intellectually to find _nothing beyond the elemental matter of the Universe as their eyes behold it_. Exceptions there have been, and are, to this general charge; but they are rare. To refer in especial to the fact stated (without being ungenerously personal), I may add that the acknowledged highest and most accomplished medical authority in New York to-day (so I am informed) hesitates not to aver, as his best and highest conviction, that when a human body is thoroughly dissected upon his table, he has shown to his cla.s.s of students all _that was or is_ of the specimen of humanity, save the extinct principle of animal existence.
”This is simply bald, blank atheism!
”It is an undoubted fact that such an opinion _may be held_ by many a man of sincerity; but such products have been initiated by the gross sensuousness of the religious thought, that has given _form and substance_ to what should never have been considered as coming within the range of things designated by and possessing those attributes.
”Let me explain, if I can, to the comprehension of such as may, perchance, read this, the nature of the Faith that is in me.
”I am willing in my elder days to live by it, and to be judged of it by the enlightened convictions of my fellow-men while I live upon this earth, and by that Deity in whom I verily believe.
”I know--we all know--of the imperious forces of nature which rock a continent or roll back an ocean from its sh.o.r.es.
”We also know something of gigantic and of microscopic life; of the intelligence of animated nature, through all its varied and wonderful forms; we know and study the wonders of the human intellect, even from (I might almost say) the first dawn of life.
”We are all, more or less, conversant with the action of principles which inhere in many species of vegetable life, in which we note a rare and exquisite faculty of sensation, which mirrors in its perfection the faculty of human consciousness, and human ingenuity.