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Letters 
 
 FROM AN 
 
 Unknown Friend. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "ZErinities an& Sanctities/' 
 
 
 
 BOSTON : 
 H. H. CARTER, PUBLISHER, 
 
 No. 3 BEACON STREET. 
 
 1594. 
 
 6^r 
 
Library 
 
 CoNGkKSg 
 I UNGTON 
 
 A 
 
 Copyright, 1894, by T. W. Ripley. 
 
LETTERS 
 
 FROM AN 
 
 UNKNOWN FRIEND. 
 
 My F?-iend, the World's, and Trtittis, — 
 
 For I do not reach out to possess thee in any 
 personal sense, since that would be to crush the 
 Psyche and mar relationship ; as clutching at butter- 
 flies destroys their glory and reduces the winged 
 creatures to a modicum of dust. Thou canst be 
 truly the possession of my soul only so far as both 
 souls are the world's and God's. We do not 
 possess each other, but both are possessed by 
 Living Principles, and, side by side, aspire. 
 
 Hush! Behold! In silence — in calm — 
 
 Majestically sweet — 
 Stepping adown the vista of years 
 
 The soul of a friend to meet, — 
 
LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 Slow pacing — no haste — no storm 
 
 Of hurtling elements attending ; 
 But stately, the soul cometh — step by step 
 
 With sure purpose tending 
 To the long fore-ordained moment of meeting, 
 To the sweet glad surprise and the greeting — 
 Henceforth to pace the long path together, — 
 Shoulder to shoulder, — more than comrade or brother ! 
 
 My Friend, — 
 
 It is the Christmas season and I would greet 
 thee. What is most fitting, — that I should bring 
 thee a gift or give thy portion to the needy ? Is it 
 thy birthday I would celebrate or the dawn upon 
 the world of that life which is in the Christ ? Let 
 us ask ourselves what it is we would commemorate, 
 and what is fitting. Thou art my friend in the 
 inner ways of peace and sacred calm. Our friend- 
 ship is one of the sacraments. Shall I mingle with 
 the grasping, clutching crowd, and mar the sacred 
 rite of gift-bestowing by barter and vexation of 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 5 
 
 spirit ? Will not a flower tell thee as well the 
 story of my sympathy with thee in the sacred joy 
 of this gift to the world of the Christ-spirit? Will 
 not a flower be a living messenger, born out of the 
 heart of nature and teeming with speech of infinite 
 things ? Let me send thee an emblem of peace. 
 If I choose thee a gift, let it be symbolic of our 
 relationship on the inner planes of the life and love 
 universal, and let me go forth to the choosing in 
 quietness of spirit. Can any gift be worth so much 
 to thee as this same serenity of soul which I would 
 bring to thee unmarred ? Wilt thou not find a 
 blessing in it no material gift can hold ? Then 
 should my face shine and my hands be purified by 
 living water when I go forth in calm and without 
 haste, but with sure faith to seek the symbolic gift. 
 I shall be led to it. It waits. For I will not bring 
 thee, embodied in it, hurry and worry and disturb- 
 ance of spirit. However small the gift, it shall 
 have its word to utter from my soul to thine. 
 
LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 Friend, — 
 
 What our limited minds deem a great amount 
 of space lies between us, but my thought touches 
 you. We cannot part. 
 
 The Ideal is the Real. Thoughts are the great 
 and persistent Realities ever seeking to project 
 themselves on material planes. Behind every visi- 
 ble fact is a thought or a principle. I saw a 
 drunkard reeling along the street to-day and I 
 saw he was the visible sign, in crudest form, of all 
 intemperance, whether in appetites or in mental 
 proclivities. 
 
 Intemperance is lack of poise. The only 
 successful weapon against it is breadth of develop- 
 ment, symmetry of growth. One may never touch 
 wine or follow the path of vice, and yet be tempera- 
 mently intemperate. It expresses itself in word 
 or look. It may show itself in loud laughter or 
 coquettishness, in unreason and hysteria. 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 7 
 
 Meeting a grossly obese person in the street, I 
 may congratulate myself on my unlikeness to him ; 
 but am I sure that I am not as much a victim to 
 that bloated egoism of which he is the visible sign ? 
 I shudder at disease and deformity. Am I as 
 greatly moved and pained by those things which 
 disease and deformity symbolize ? The reality of 
 them is on spiritual planes. My darling sin is as 
 great an incubus as a malformed spine, and an 
 influence for evil is worse than infectious disease. 
 
 You write that you are impatient for results. 
 Impatience is a matter of our finite perceptions, 
 which overrate time and space. 
 
 How many ages, think you, did it take Nature 
 to make an eye ? The light went on shining 
 perhaps millions of years before these projections 
 of the brain were unveiled and rendered responsive 
 to its vibrations. Nature is not miserly of effort. 
 
8 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 She does not count the cost. It was the nature 
 and the business of the light to shine, to radiate 
 itself. The rest took care of itself. There was 
 time enough ! A million years more or less to 
 Nature is nothing. She is prodigal of time. So 
 long as the light went on with its province the eye 
 could be relied upon to appear upon the scene, 
 in the fulness of times. It was coming; it was 
 nearing; it was at hand long before it was per- 
 fected in all its beauty and power, — the jewel set 
 in the forehead ! 
 
 So it is with Truth. It radiates age after age 
 till the soul of man grows more and more vibrant 
 to it. No haste, no visible result ; yet the dull, 
 cloddish veil is gradually becoming thinner. The 
 soul is destined to look forth, resplendent, reflecting 
 the Light of Truth. 
 
 " Say not : I never throw to fool or clown 
 
 My goodly pearls ; for swine I ne'er amassed them. 
 Say rather: Are these pearls which I cast down, 
 And are those always swine to whom I cast them ? " 
 
I'NKXOWN KRIKNI). 
 
 The soul Hashes across the plane of material 
 life in a brief span, as a mirror held to the sunlight 
 darts a ray. We must hold ourselves sunward and 
 — leave the rest to eternal laws. 
 
 Our dull and seemingly profitless occupations 
 are as a background upon which to paint acts of 
 service. 
 
 My Friend of Many Earthly Years and for the Here- 
 after, — 
 
 To-day I write from " my little white chamber, 
 whose name is Peace," a church chime playing 
 outside. 
 
 We cannot imagine what a charm and what 
 bright helpfulness we should find in those with 
 whom we are daily associated in the family, if we 
 would withdraw from them at times. 
 
IO LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 Relationships have their orbital laws and should 
 hold to orderly times and seasons of near approach. 
 Inharmony often comes from too frequent meetings, 
 the leaven grows bitter. 
 
 People would return to us renewed, bringing and 
 receiving blessing from the meeting, if we suffered 
 them to withdraw from too intimate association. 
 
 When the importance of the psychic forces is 
 recognized it will be enough to say to a friend, 
 " I have need of withdrawal for a time," to have our 
 need respected without complaint, as much as a 
 need for food. Those forces are as easily crushed 
 as the down on a butterfly's wing, and to obtrude 
 presence upon another in the exactingness of affec- 
 tion or of personal need is to act brutally to the 
 delicate unfoldings of the spiritual nature. 
 
 So much of the inharmony of daily life would 
 become adjusted if people would practice this 
 withdrawal. 
 
 We need to be alone at times for the soul to 
 find itself amid the roar of the tempests of life. 
 
UNKNOWN KRIKND. I I 
 
 Be not too much in each other's presence, and 
 inharmonious vibrations will often sink to rest, and 
 a great calm fall upon the spirit, ft will be one 
 of the greatest benefits of greater wealth and higher 
 civilization that each human being will be able 
 to have a chamber into which to withdraw when 
 there is need to regain composure and strength ; and 
 such need should come to be respected by those 
 deeming themselves our nearest and dearest. 
 
 Beloved, — 
 
 Dare I touch with the crudities of language 
 thy great and mysterious joy in the little guest 
 newly come to thy fireside ? I behold thee look 
 in its eyes, with questioning longing, seeking to 
 know what manner of soul this is which thy nature 
 hath beckoned out of the empyrean and drawn 
 within the portals of material life, assuming the 
 great responsibility of its training. I know thy 
 
12 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 thought. Thou hast given the child a form and 
 an exterior life, but its real life as a soul thou hast 
 not given it. That is hid with infinite life-princi- 
 ples. Thou owest to that soul great loyalty. 
 
 What patience, what withholding of thine own 
 ideals, waiting the child's slower pace, will be 
 exacted of thee ! It must be that thy child will 
 learn sweetness and generosity from thy dear ways. 
 She must learn that thy loyal friendship for her 
 may be trusted, and that mother-love in thee will 
 not be suffered to grow exacting and arbitrary. 
 Thou wilt never act as if she were thy possession. 
 Thou knowest that she belongs to her creator, not to 
 thee. Thou wilt beware of the tyranny of that little 
 word " my " which is at the root of so many errors. 
 The Ego says, "My child/' "/gave it life." Did 
 you ? Is life then a thing in your gift ? You were 
 its channel, but the life cometh from afar. 
 
 As the cares for her helpless years cease, and 
 she becomes a woman, with her own tastes and 
 interests, thou wilt be strong to make the crowning 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 1 3 
 
 sacrifice of motherhood, if need be, in seeing her 
 path lead away from thine by the law of her 
 growth. Yet will both of you seek to rejoice in 
 whatsoever pleasures the other, and each will pro- 
 mote the wishes of the other, each preserving her 
 individual freedom as a dower not to be lightly 
 laid down. Thou wilt consecrate thy child to the 
 uses for which she is best adapted, for thou holdest 
 her in trust. And thou shalt not greatly lose. 
 The joyous and willing service of a free nature 
 shall be thine from her. Her reverent love will 
 be the greater for thy exacting nothing. Thou 
 shalt not be foolishly indulgent, but shalt teach 
 her to confer with thee as to her best good, and as 
 to the powers which are hers ; yet beware, in middle 
 life, lest thy virtues trip thee and make thee inflex- 
 ible of judgment. 
 
 Bigotry is not alone a matter of religion. It may 
 enter into all our methods in daily life. It is the 
 danger which the crystallized character encounters 
 at the high noon of life — that it becomes difficult 
 
14 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 to yield its tried methods or judgments to newer 
 ways. Thou wilt hold thine in readiness to help, 
 and yet with open mind and entire spiritual hospi- 
 tality spread wide thy doors to the trial of the 
 new ways of a new generation. For no teacher 
 is unanswerable but experience. The young often 
 hear words of advice as if in a dream. Those 
 words have no reality to them until experience 
 drives them in on the consciousness. 
 
 I have often felt how insidious is the approach 
 of the selfish exactions of age. So much has to 
 be said of the irreverence of youth, we forget the 
 other side, and that in some homes the children 
 attain middle life without being accorded the respect 
 to their individual tastes which is their just due. 
 
 Unless a son or a daughter marries and goes 
 from home, it often happens that in the mind of the 
 parent he or she remains perpetually a child, from 
 whom obedience is exacted, and in whom self- 
 defence is accounted irreverence and undutifulness. 
 A son shakes himself free of much of this and 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. I 5 
 
 asserts his manhood. It falls harder on the 
 daughter, who often sacrifices herself in a mistaken 
 sense of duty till health and almost reason give 
 way and the life is a waste place. But that is not 
 a true friendship between mother and child where 
 just proportions are thus lost and either nature 
 encroaches upon the other. I know thy thought 
 and mine are not at variance in this. Thou wilt, 
 in after years, appeal to the womanly strength 
 of thy child to live out truly her own life — not 
 thine. Thou wilt seek to make her self-reliant, and 
 thou wilt be watchful in thyself of the encroaching 
 selfishness of age. So shalt thou never know age, 
 dear heart, but renew and enlarge thy life in her 
 younger life and fresh interests. She will bring 
 thee immortality here on the earth, and in laying 
 down thy life thou shalt find it. 
 
 I saw a child in the street balancing a barrel 
 on her head. Her uplifted arms seemed stretched 
 
1 6 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 on an invisible cross. She is unconscious that her 
 life has any such verisimilitude. She knows not 
 that it has power to dignify by its symbolism her 
 sordid lot. She goes to Sunday School and hears 
 that a Saviour loved her and died for her ; but the 
 fact has no reality to her. It has no connection 
 in her mind with the barrel, under whose weight 
 she staggers along. How can I put her in touch 
 with that great divine and eternal fact of a Christ- 
 principle unless I manifest it to her by my helpful- 
 ness ? Evidently it should reach her in this nine- 
 teenth century through its development into the 
 altruistic spirit of humanity, I follow her home. 
 She displays her acquisition of the barrel with as 
 beneficent a spirit as I could put into my share of 
 a Christmas festival for her kind. She is evidently 
 her mother's righthand man. She comforts the 
 children and scrimps her own supper for theirs. 
 With great glee she breaks up the barrel, assuring 
 her mother of more from the same source ; she 
 displays hope, courage, faith ; she emanates the 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. I 7 
 
 very Christ-principle I would have revealed to 
 her. She has it already in fulness. It is she who 
 teaches me to make of every occasion an oppor- 
 tunity for helpfulness and cheer. 
 
 There is E— — for twenty years an invalid, 
 debarred from the privilege of helping her parents 
 in their old age. She was wise in season, how- 
 ever, and has bestowed upon them all these years 
 the gifts in her possession for them — patience 
 and courage and a sunny temper. Ah, if we 
 might all realize that these are more valuable 
 gifts to our dear ones than all earthly goods ! If 
 we might always sound a sweet note ! Then, at 
 least, there would be so much gained : so much 
 that is really ours to give and theirs to receive. 
 
 You cannot hit upon any truth that the " wise 
 of eld " did not know it and reveal it. It is the 
 ears that are deaf. The truth was always sound- 
 
1 8 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 ing loud enough. "In the beginning was the Word." 
 There has been perpetual witnessing to the truth 
 in all nations and all times. Strange — strange 
 we do not hear and know. I must believe that 
 the inmost soul does know what the mind does 
 not record nor the consciousness note. How it 
 would dignify life if we did know all that is 
 hidden in the struggle and the endurance ; and, 
 on the other hand, how shocked we should be to 
 behold all the lack behind the hasty word and 
 careless act. So many things would be impossi- 
 ble to us were we more aware of God; that is, 
 more conscious of our being co-workers with Infi- 
 nite Law and Infinite Love. 
 
 When I hear people questioning if the miracles 
 were actually performed, I feel that they stand on 
 the plane of the sense-life, and are enslaved by 
 mere phenomena, — by those external things which 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 1 9 
 
 have no reality in themselves, and are only effects 
 produced within ourselves. I feel that they are 
 down in dim cellars under the House of Life, 
 groping vainly amid cobwebs and rubbish. The 
 Earth-smell is in their nostrils. The Earth-damps 
 threaten them. In dark corners hideous but unreal 
 forms seem to menace them. They are full of fears. 
 Come up higher, friends, to the plane of spiritual 
 perceptions. Listen to the speech of symbols old 
 as time and unchanging through eternities ! 
 
 The vital question is, what miracles are perform- 
 ing here and now in thy spiritual kingdom. Is the 
 Christ-Principle within thee even now performing 
 miracles ? Does it turn life's water into wine, — 
 symbol of strength and courage and of joy ? 
 Through its power do you walk upon the waves of 
 discord and turbulence born of the sense-life, and 
 of the grasping greed of the Ego ? Is the multitude 
 nourished to-day, as then, by an apparent modicum 
 of truth, — a paltry five loaves and five fishes ? 
 Can you offer the world your single word in humble 
 
2 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 faith that it will be multiplied, and that its power to 
 nourish is inestimable ? Then have you believed in 
 and lived out the miracle of the loaves and fishes ; 
 for you have gone back of the symbol to the great 
 reality embodied in it, which is a million-fold more 
 in its world-wide and age-long applications than the 
 material and visible fact could be, and which reveals 
 a great spiritual Law in which and by which 
 universes may abide throughout eternities. For to 
 such Law there is no shadow of turning. Stand 
 here in the light of the Christ-Principle and thy 
 blindness will receive sight, and thy halting feet 
 walk forward. Resurrection from the grave of Self 
 and of the sense-life ; renewal from the inharmonies 
 that produce disease ; emergence from the tomb 
 into the garden of God, the realm of divine laws, — 
 these will be no far-away miracles of a past age, 
 dim in the mists of history, but a matter of vital 
 helpfulness to-day, in all that we do — an Emmanuel, 
 — God with us — that our joy may be full. 
 
 Behind every act and every event is that 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 2 1 
 
 which it symbolizes, — some universal and eternal 
 principle. 
 
 u Know of a truth that only the Time-Shadows 
 perish or are perishable." Time and space, both 
 a matter of our limitations in material life, blind us 
 as to realities. Yesterday, perhaps, I held the child 
 in my arms ; to-day he has vanished. Am I there- 
 fore childless ? What has in reality happened ? 
 A soul was drawn by mine to expression on the 
 material plane. He came over my threshold and 
 stood in my presence as if to make known to me 
 that he existed and that his destiny was linked with 
 mine. A mysterious tie has been consummated 
 for future incarnations, or has been repeated or 
 emphasized out of the past. Who can say ? How 
 intimately has this soul approached the mother of 
 its outward form ! How it has throbbed with her 
 heart-beats and responded to all her life-currents 
 and been permeated with her spiritual conditions ! 
 
22 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 How close the bond ! Surely it cannot, in the 
 economy of nature, have been for nothing. Surely 
 law shall not govern the emergence of the butterfly 
 and leave the emergence of a soul to chance ! The 
 reason for his withdrawal we may not know, but 
 the fact remains that this Soul approached and 
 became visible, thereby making known to the 
 mother the fact of his existence. She may always 
 know now — for has she not seen him ? Did he not 
 come within the veil wherein she is shrouded ; and 
 when its folds drop away from her, shall she not 
 behold the being who for a brief space assumed 
 sonship toward her, that she through him should 
 know the bliss and the sacred sorrow of mother- 
 hood, and that he through her should attain to holy 
 knowledge of womanhood and of the mystery of 
 birth ? Divine mystery of the Church of old, for- 
 ever new, forever re-enacted wherever there is 
 spiritual motherhood and spiritual sonship ! 
 
 What impress does this Soul take hence with 
 him concerning womanhood and birth ? What ten- 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 23 
 
 derness may grow in him from this brief sojourn 
 close to the heart of woman, the heart of joyful 
 sacrifice ! Unmarred by earth-life and its misunder- 
 standings, the mother-soul calls to him, naming 
 him, " Son of my Soul ! " 
 
 Remember St. Theresa's saying, when reduced 
 to two pence, " Theresa is nothing and two pence 
 not much ; but Theresa, two pence and God are 
 all things ! " 
 
 I feel that I need to keep in mind the true 
 value of things. What is worth so much to me 
 as serenity of spirit ? How many things about 
 which I grow disquieted will seem of little value 
 by to-morrow even, and surely I would not lay my 
 tranquillity on the altar of false gods, — mere doll- 
 idols — trifles of the fancy or of the selfwill ! 
 
24 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 To-day I suffer pain. Do I not know of aught 
 that can help? Need I suffer? I have heard of 
 the wounded dog lying down in the stream till all 
 fever left his wounds and healing began. Is it not 
 given to me to know of the streams of renewal 
 ever waiting, ever flowing through all natures ? 
 Let me become conscious only of these rivers of 
 peace. Rivers and rivers with bounding tides, — 
 flowing — flowing ! Let me lie down in their chan- 
 nels and surrender my wounds in faith, and let the 
 waters of healing bear away my pain, — far away 
 where the strong tide of infinity shall engulf them 
 and sweep them out of existence. 
 
 Let me believe in the streams of renewal ! Let 
 me invite the rivers of peace ! 
 
 It is much to be regretted that we so often light 
 our lamp and then fail to carry it into the dark 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 25 
 
 corners of our life, and so miss of its needed illu- 
 mination upon thought and act. 
 
 This is as truly hiding the light under a bushel 
 as in the usual interpretation of it. To-day I per- 
 ceive a truth, label it, pigeon-hole it, and, alas ! go 
 away and leave it, when I should take it with me 
 into the very next strain and stress at the burden 
 of life. The very next perplexity or fret calls for 
 it, and I have left it set away in some corner and 
 gone forth without it into the dark places and 
 paths full of stumbling blocks. 
 
 Theoretically we accept much which we forget 
 to apply to the moment's need. We defraud our- 
 selves thus of our birthright in truths which we 
 are able to perceive in high moments, and which 
 are meant for the low moments as well. Where 
 should we take our lamp if not into the cellars ? 
 
 Are the pomps and vanities vexing thee ? Hast 
 thou ungratifled desires ? Ask thyself in what part 
 
26 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 of thee these desires are, if thou wouldst know if 
 they are vital to thee. Are they of thy soul ? 
 Would these things feed it ? 
 
 Mistake not a cultivated artistic sense for the 
 soul of thee ! Like a bright intelligence, it may 
 be the tool or servant of the soul, but it is quite 
 another thing in itself. The soul has quite other 
 concerns. The sign of the soul is most of all a 
 consecrated will. 
 
 And what is the test of character? Most of 
 all — self-control; but fundamentally, hope, faith, 
 courage, humility, patience. A glitter of intel- 
 lectual fireworks is not the sun of righteousness 
 (right living). 
 
 The test of the intelligence is good judgment 
 broadly applied. 
 
 The test of goodness is the power of self- 
 sacrifice. 
 
 1894 — The year of our Lord 1894! How 
 heedlessly we write it ! The eighteen hundred and 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEXU. 27 
 
 ninety-fourth year of the slow growth of the spirit 
 of love and service. Far more than that. For 
 thousands of years the race has been creeping for- 
 ward towards its lost Eden of purity and peace. 
 
 One wonders what future event, or event now 
 present with us, will seem important enough to 
 future generations to change our present reckoning 
 and to date time from it. It would seem that as 
 time goes on and new meaning is seen in the words, 
 we should write " in the year of our Lord " with 
 ever-increasing tenderness. 
 
 When the prodigal returned, he said, "Father. 
 I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight.'* 
 Was it that the chief of his sinning, to his repentant 
 vision, was against heaven, against the moral law, 
 against the filial principle ? Was it outraged son- 
 ship and fatherhood which cried aloud on some 
 interior plane for rehabilitation ? Was this far more 
 
2 8 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 than the personal wrong ? When we wander afar 
 and feed on husks, do we, perhaps, argue that the 
 husks are green and life-sustaining ? Do we need 
 to " receive our sight " before we know them to be 
 only husks, and not the principle from which cometh 
 the bread of life ? 
 
 The Beast in human nature is tamed in those 
 parts of the world called civilized, inasmuch as we 
 are no longer cannibals; but he is not eliminated. 
 Wherever there is the desire to get something for 
 nothing, — wherever the weak is pushed to the 
 wall by the unscrupulous in the scramble for pos- 
 session, there is the reign, not of the Angel, nor 
 even of the Human, but of the Beast of Prey in its 
 rapaciousness ; nevertheless, as, ages and dynasties, 
 civilizations and countless human histories agone, 
 the singer of old lifted up his face to the heavens 
 and cried, " Though I make my bed in hell, behold, 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 29 
 
 Thou art there!*' so to-day we may lie down in 
 selfishness and wrong, but behold, the All-Divine is 
 in the midst of us ! Appeal to it in the waste 
 places, in the centres of fraud and greed, and 
 behold, it is there ! It awakens — responds \ 
 Believe in it ! Appeal to it ! 
 
 To-day thou shalt discover lack in thy brother 
 of integrity or of high moral standards ; but beware 
 of self-righteousness. To-morrow thou shalt thyself 
 disappoint a friend, or fail in helpfulness or in deep 
 spiritual insight. 
 
 Thou shalt fail even as thy brother failed unless 
 thou hast beheld his fault only with love and sor- 
 row at his short-coming. 
 
 The Master's rebuke is symbolic — " Before the 
 cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice." Swift is 
 the coming of this moral Nemesis. 
 
30 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 Be as little children holding up their cups to the 
 fountains. Wait not for a vase or chalice of silver. 
 Take thy common, every-day cup of coarse ware 
 and hasten. Hasten, O children ! lest ye miss of 
 something precious. I tell you this is no poetic 
 fancy. It is a living reality. 
 
 Where, where are those fountains, do you ask, 
 and what is my cup ? 
 
 The road lies through some act of service ; 
 the fountains stream on every side ; thy cup is 
 thine open soul just as it is to-day, obscured by 
 perplexities and vexed by trivialities. Drink, and 
 see life with new eyes. Drink, and the trivial 
 things will fall away from thee. The great realities 
 of love, faith, hope, courage, humility, and pa- 
 tient service will obliterate the petty grievances 
 of life. 
 
 Your thirst amid the desert, O little children of 
 the Father ! is greater than ye know. Lift up your 
 hearts as chalices to the descending ray. 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 3 I 
 
 It is precisely when you feel done with the 
 world, and something within turns with homesick 
 longing towards a more perfect state, that it is 
 required of you to remain in the world, and that 
 you are making ready to best serve it in singleness 
 of purpose. Then is the eye single and the whole 
 body full of light. 
 
 Say not before thy last hour, " I have done with 
 earth." It must come to thee sometime to be a 
 co-worker with the Almighty, and it might as well 
 be on this needy planet as in any of His worlds. 
 
 Thou art ordered to thy post here. Fail not, 
 then, in obedience, though the required service be 
 but patient waiting, gaining " sweetness and light." 
 
 To-day I think of a broad, sunlit river, reflecting 
 the heavens in its bosom, and the beauty of the 
 earth along its borders where the foliage stoops to 
 
32 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 behold its own loveliness. This river has depths 
 and it has gloomy pools too deep for the sunshine 
 to irradiate or warm. But in the main it is broad 
 and sunny, and in places the sedges come to the 
 surface and are gay with color. It seems to me 
 like a healthy human life, — never stagnant, always 
 pressing onward, always reflecting the light, purify- 
 ing itself through its activity, its dark and stagnant 
 pools as few as may be. It is an emblem of buoy- 
 ant courage and of serene purpose. It bears its 
 way onward to the great sea. It is fed from above 
 and from the hidden springs and from all sides, and 
 it carries blessing and refreshing. 
 
 Think, my friend, as you approach old age, that 
 the serene courage of age is needed by the younger 
 lives in their perplexities. The time need never 
 come when you cannot speak the word of cheer, and 
 the word of the old, backed by experience, carries 
 weight. It is when endeavor for personal ends is 
 over that we have time and thought and vitality for 
 those still in the struggle. 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 33 
 
 The critical sense, with those who possess it in 
 any marked degree, is apt to be overdone, especi- 
 ally in young people. A hypercritical, cynical 
 young person is a monstrosity. The aptness for 
 detail in woman makes her prone to this fault. 
 Few people have attained the grace to feel sorrow 
 at the faults of others as at blemishes on fairest 
 statuary. We do not keep in mind a fair ideal 
 of what each might be. If we did so, shortcomings 
 would affect us more deeply, and our speech would 
 be less superficial and we less glib in criticizing. 
 
 Ah! how greatly do we need that constant 
 sense of being children of the Almighty, — of being 
 allied to the Over-Soul, — which can make us go 
 singing in the desert of life like the Israelites of 
 old! 
 
34 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 Do not, from the fear of being accused of incon- 
 sistency, suppress the expression of the heavenly 
 part of yourself. No one can live their utmost 
 ideal, but the truth is no less truth for our unfaith- 
 fulness to it. 
 
 Imagine a spiritual existence in higher spheres 
 where there is never any occasion for speaking 
 about the weather, the health, dress, trade, or 
 domestic problems ; where the communication is 
 eye to eye of love, helpfulness, and high purpose. 
 Does it not make our human speech seem a mere 
 babblement, the chattering of monkeys ? Has not 
 the noble power been terribly prostituted to low 
 ends ? In higher spheres we may not speak until 
 we have somewhat vital to communicate, 
 
 How is it with thee, dear " spirit-in-prison ? " For 
 thou hast looked out of window at me and I have 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 35 
 
 beheld thine inner being. Thou art as the spirit 
 of a child, although thy earthly years are many and 
 thy wisdom great. As a child's were thine eyes in 
 their trustful appeal, and like a child thou knowest 
 naught of the mysteries, save in some dim uncon- 
 scious way, as by almost forgotten memories of 
 some pre-existent state. Often, in thy presence, has 
 thine angel, who beholdest the face of the Father, 
 seemed near, yearning to shield thee from pain 
 and trouble yet impotent to do so. Often hath he 
 seemed to fold wings of peace and blessing about 
 thy head. Often have I felt the exquisite tender- 
 ness of his longing as I left thee for the night. I 
 seemed to leave thee in good keeping. May wings 
 of peace and comfort upbear thee through whatso- 
 ever ordeal thou mayst have to endure. Come up, 
 dear spirit, and know all the sorrows of earth for 
 what they are, and triumph over pain as it is thy 
 birthright to do. 
 
36 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 My friend, — 
 
 I rejoice in thee in all ways, but most of all 
 does that which thou art comfort the soul of me 
 for this sojourn on earth, among the shadows and 
 half lights. Yet should I not need such comforting 
 did I sufficiently regard this earth as a " field white 
 unto the harvest" wherein should be gathered fruits 
 unto the Master by willing and eager servants. 
 
 The dignity of decay and death is in our will- 
 ingness to lay down the body as a worn-out tool, 
 or a tool no longer serving the soul's purpose where 
 it goeth. 
 
 We read, " Be not overcome of evil, but over- 
 come evil with good," yet I think we fail to see 
 the many ways in which we allow evil to overcome 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 37 
 
 us. You tell me that C — antagonizes you by her 
 
 narrowness and cant, while another who was no 
 sectarian has given you fairer ideals and often 
 compelled you to fairer living. But if you allow 
 
 C to arouse a mischievous spirit in you, does 
 
 not the evil of her ignorant egotism overcome the 
 " sweetness and light " in you ? Surely you hold 
 your ideals too dear to let them suffer eclipse from 
 so paltry a cause. Surely any petty antagonism 
 must vanish in your pity that she is unable to 
 make the path she loves attractive to you, and that 
 ignorance compels her to make the lovely unlovely, 
 like the princess in the story from whose lips dropt 
 a toad when she would fain have dropt a pearl. 
 
 How can you render fair to her the more liberal 
 way ? Can you not let her see that the " sweetness 
 and light " of the Christ-spirit may not need the 
 check-rein of outward observances which we impose 
 on the lawless and turbulent? We cannot afford 
 to do without the rigid letter of the commandments 
 till we are filled with their spirit of just dealing 
 
38 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 and a love for orderly conduct. Then it is that 
 the mere letter killeth. Then alone is " the Sabbath 
 made for us " since all our days are Lord's days, — 
 holy days, — and all our living stately as a psalm, 
 and all the commandments understood and kept in 
 a broader and deeper and by no means more lax 
 way than the letter of the law can enjoin. We 
 demand of ourselves not less, but other and more 
 and better. Love goes further than obedience. 
 
 I suppose in an advanced state of altruism the 
 eighth commandment would be done away with, 
 and where there was no mine and thine each would 
 take freely from all for the good of any one. There 
 may be an exact honesty which is close upon nig- 
 gardliness, though it be a phase on the upward 
 road many have not yet reached. He who is 
 comfortable in the belief that he breaks no com- 
 mandment may break all in his incapacity to appre- 
 hend the spirit of any ; may break the " new 
 commandment " " that ye love one another " most 
 of all ; may be incapable of living any one day in 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 39 
 
 a way worthy of being the Lord's day, a Sabbath 
 of peace and love ; may overreach and defraud in 
 all business relations ; may be no honor to his 
 parents ; may not know the first letter of the 
 alphabet of that spiritual union for high purpose 
 which alone is not adultery. 
 
 It is written, " I come not to destroy the law, 
 but to fulfil," and "not one jot or tittle shall pass 
 away until all be fulfilled." That is, filled full with 
 that spirit which underlies all its commands, — the 
 spirit of justice and of loving service and of lofty 
 dedication, which alone makes for spiritual at- 
 one-ment with Most High Truth, and which writes 
 the law in our hearts, making us to live it with far- 
 reaching application. 
 
 We often say in excuse for ourselves, " It is 
 my temperament," as if that settled it beyond cavil. 
 Have we, then, surrendered unconditionally to tem- 
 perament ? Do we own the temperament or does 
 
40 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 the temperament own us ? Who are we ? What 
 is it that sits on a throne within and views the 
 character and temperament and inheritance, and 
 lets the sceptre fall from the nerveless hand and 
 droops and drivels and whines ? 
 
 " It is my nature " I say, and forget my nature 
 is twofold, — human and divine. Have I inherited 
 only on the animal side ? Then 't is time I cried 
 aloud unto the heavens for the rest of my heri- 
 tage ! Or have I perhaps sold it for a mess of 
 pottage ? 
 
 You say that you like not so much theorizing 
 about another life, since this one chiefly concerns us, 
 and you doubt if we ever have anything more than 
 there is here. 
 
 This is, in truth, a wonderful life and world, — 
 perhaps the epitome of infinite lives and worlds, — 
 but are you quite sure your eyes are open to 
 behold, and your heart open to live all there is in 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 41 
 
 and behind this ? Know you all its deep signifi- 
 cance? Is there naught in it but that which is 
 perishable ? What means this age-long struggle of 
 somewhat to utter itself on the planes of matter 
 and of thought? Truly there is more in this life 
 than we can compass. 
 
 When will the churches become teachers of 
 applied ethics ? It is the greatest need of society. 
 All of us may intellectually perceive what is just 
 and true, but it is another step to feel and love 
 moral beauty, and still another to apply the highest 
 moral law to all our acts. We do not do the best 
 we know. We take our ease in the second best as 
 good enough and more comfortable. It would not 
 be so comfortable did we truly love the best. 
 
 We sit in sorrow because ignorant of the light. 
 In sorrow we reap the harvest of narrow, self- 
 centred lives. 
 
42 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 Thou who layest flowers on graves, lay rather 
 the bloom and sweetness of noble acts and large 
 generosities on the altar of thy love for the invisible 
 ones. Thou who mournest in thy love for the lost, 
 know that they are not lost, but one with thee if 
 thou lovest their best good and their swift growth 
 in new worlds, and thou passest on with them and 
 one with them from glory to glory in the character 
 growth which may now be theirs. 
 
 Ah ! it is so strange and so pitiful how little we 
 make these things the realities of daily life ! A 
 parent is gone, — if a nature of large purposes, 
 eager to light up this dark world with the rays of 
 truth and helpfulness, do the children seek to 
 apprehend his present state and purposes, and walk 
 hand in hand with him still, the instruments of the 
 good which his heart and soul were eager to do ? 
 Glorious legacy from parent to child, over which the 
 grave can have no victory ! Or, if the purposes 
 were less world-wide, at least thou canst be daugh- 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 43 
 
 terly to some heart for thy mother's sake, perchance 
 because thou wert wont to fail in the old time, and 
 her motherhood shall still be comforted by thine act. 
 And if thy heritage were not of this exception- 
 ally high sort, but the common one of a parent's 
 faithful care, or even less than that, — even a heri- 
 tage of weakness and vice, — if thou hast any sorrow 
 and love and forgiveness in thy heart, help the now 
 repentant and remorseful spirit to higher ground, 
 and make the results of his short-comings, which he 
 must now contemplate with such sorrow, as little as 
 may be by consecrating thine own life to highest 
 uses. This would be a true vicarious atonement. 
 Not only what the dear Invisible One would have 
 done, but what his glorified and perfected self 
 would do, — that seek ye to apprehend and fulfil, 
 and so become joined to him eternally in highest 
 and most enduring purposes. So shall time and 
 space be outdone and one world hold you both, 
 and each shall be angel and messenger of light to 
 the other. 
 
44 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 Eternal Principles cannot desert us. We exist 
 in and by them. If I become unable to grasp the 
 idea of them, if they seem too universal and infinite 
 for my little intelligence to mirror, still do they grasp 
 me and enfold me, and the revelation of them to me 
 will be in some human and simple guise. 
 
 Never can we actually be " without God in the 
 world," though we seem so, and go groping for 
 anchorage. A plummet line " stronger than iron 
 cables are " goes down into the depths of uncon- 
 scious life and feeling and finds the Infinite 
 Anchorage ; and when we stretch away from it and 
 the line grows taut almost to breaking, our inmost 
 nature may thrill in some unexpected moment in 
 answer to it. 
 
 We take our feeble lanterns and go forth in the 
 darkness into the harvest fields. The chill winds 
 from the night of the far past blow mournfully 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 45 
 
 about us, and great is our travail of spirit that the 
 darkness only grows more visible and our light can 
 penetrate so little way and so few have eyes to 
 behold it. And just as we most despair, and grope 
 painfully with eyes turned earthward, thinking we 
 have all the Master's work to do, lo ! behind us, in 
 the east, the Dawn is striding up the sky ! Not one 
 ray alone, but a universe full. Thus cometh the 
 Light in the fulness of times. And such times are 
 these, and the Dawn is breaking on many a harvest 
 field, and eyes behold, which, until now, have been 
 holden. 
 
 Half the battle is won when one acquiesces in 
 that which is required of him. He lifts then with 
 the powers that be, and has mighty helpers. Recog- 
 nize thy task as the next thing for thee and as that 
 which is given thee to do here and now. 
 
 Yesterday I wrote you, " So I plod on." What 
 has a creature to do with ''plodding" that can 
 
46 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 spread its wings, even though they do not bear him 
 far above the earth ? I wrote it, however, out of 
 my patience, and there are times when we fall back 
 on patience and endurance. Yet if we saw as we 
 should see, perhaps there would be no call for 
 patience, but only for exaltation. 
 
 First we come to be done with accumulating 
 things, and afterwards done with the effort to accum- 
 mulate facts. In the natural evolution of man, 
 after he has striven and won and made use of wealth, 
 absorbing its resulting civilization, the chastened 
 and blossoming spiritual nature prompts him to 
 return to simplicity of outer life, while the attained 
 complexity of living is shifted to the inner processes. 
 He wearies of endeavor after those things which 
 no longer stimulate or delight eye and ear, and the 
 spirit retires to digest and to form those conclusions 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 47 
 
 which constitute wisdom. Then comes another 
 order of things. 
 
 How beautiful to find a spot away from the 
 flurry of life, but what a mistake to carry flurry into 
 such holy places. Be silent and grow calm. " Why 
 so hot, little man ? " 
 
 I am convinced we focus evil and attract it to 
 us, and assist it to spread by mental emanations by 
 thinking much of it even in condemnation. u He 
 remembers our sins no more." A perfect being sees 
 not sin. He is beyond receiving mental contagion 
 from it. His pure and holy emanations drive it 
 afar before them and finally permeate the evil with 
 good. Too much study of evil, too frequent dwell- 
 ing on its details, must blur our angelhood. 
 
 '• Verily thou art an angel of Heaven fallen in 
 the mire of matter, although thou dost not recog- 
 nize thyself." 
 
48 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 What wise and shining ones we may have to 
 walk with us daily in all earth's dreary furrows, in 
 all its lanes and by-ways of limitation, if we will 
 only look up and invite them. Their power to 
 approach has its law, and our invitation may be 
 necessary. Surely we can make of ourselves mag- 
 nets to draw such. We may address them and 
 stand receptive to them " without ceasing," and so 
 be helped. 
 
 Once in my youth my religious experience 
 received a shock from the remark made to me that 
 prayer was self-magnetism. For years the partial 
 truth of this rose up before me when I would have 
 prayed. Only lately can I answer serenely, " What 
 then ? Be it so. What is self-magnetism but the 
 placing one's self within the pale of a great, divine 
 law, and letting it play freely through the spiritual 
 nature ? " To magnetize is to polarize, to become 
 negative and receptive to the great currents of Deity 
 that electrify, revivify, and permeate the soul with 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 49 
 
 new potencies. The negative pole of our being 
 should be Godward to receive all ; the positive pole 
 manward and earthward to overcome evil with good. 
 Evil is as a cloud that wreathes a man about. 
 He — the Soul — is within it. Summon him forth! 
 Call to the Soul, to the divine ideal of him which is 
 in the process of proclaiming itself in his mortal 
 life. Cease to dwell on his sins ; for thoughts are 
 entities and constitute the permanent element of 
 things, and you wish to make the angel in him per- 
 manent, and not the demon which denies the good 
 in him. 
 
 The poet saith : — 
 
 " Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 
 We Sinais climb, and know it not." 
 
 and the artist paints " The Golden Stair," with 
 angels ascending and descending. But the real 
 " golden stair " is some dingy, dark, and dirty stair- 
 case, where the careworn work-girl toileth upward, 
 
50 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 all unwitting if angel helpers walk beside, and 
 knowing not the way lies from glory to glory. The 
 Mount of our Transfiguration is set about by clouds. 
 Broken spirited we walk in the mists and deem it 
 the Valley of Humiliation, while the Soul within us 
 mounts. 
 
 One of the most hopeful signs for the future 
 lies in the fact, that we have a religion among us 
 which, with all its faults, yet takes account of the 
 Woman in Deity, and "thanks God and Mother 
 Mary " for its blessings ; thus perpetually holding 
 up the divinity of womanhood and motherhood, and 
 their potency to save and uplift. 
 
 He who has many treasures has many duties, 
 and he who has many duties has many treasures ; 
 and if our duties drive us and are more th^n we can 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 5 I 
 
 do, it is that our hands are overfull of treasures, 
 and we must let some slip. So we are blessed even 
 in the work exacted of us. 
 
 Take heed, little children of the Light, to live 
 each day as if it were your last day, and speak or 
 write no word you would long to recall were the 
 power to recall it gone forever. And whatsoever 
 task is set you to do, do it cheerfully, that your 
 memory of it may be sweet. For if a thing must 
 be done, we shall like to remember that we did it 
 with a whole heart and ungrudgingly. Since that 
 which is done grudgingly availeth little and is not 
 the deed of the inner man at all ; and that which 
 is done heartily groweth light in the doing. 
 
 Most of us feel, the higher we really climb, that 
 the results are as nothing. We weary of the strenu- 
 
52 LETTERS FROM AN 
 
 ous effort towards the heights. But any descent is 
 quickly seen. Any backward turn of the wheels 
 brings wreck. What we are really doing on the 
 steep slopes of life is to prop the wheels of the 
 spiritual chariots of victory so that, if they do not 
 ascend higher just yet, they shall not, at least, fall 
 back and begin any swift descent. So stand fast 
 in all faithfulness and oppose yourself to the all 
 too strong downward tendencies. 
 
 Instead of shrinking back from life's ordeals we 
 should welcome them as opportunities long-desired, 
 to prove our faithfulness, to recite our lesson once 
 again, this time more perfectly, to expiate, perhaps, 
 some long past faithlessness. How eagerly we 
 should then go about our tasks ; how purposeful 
 would life become. 
 
UNKNOWN FRIEND. 
 
 53 
 
 My Little Soldiei', — 
 
 Staunch and faithful, ever with face to the 
 foe ! Think not when heavy tasks are laid on you 
 that it is a misfortune, but rather high honor that 
 you are thus singled out to lead or teach. Be not 
 discouraged though you see no results. Waive the 
 flashing sword of Truth. The trend of the ages 
 is behind you, and time but an illusion of human 
 consciousness. 
 
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