Page:An Epistle to Posterity.djvu/36

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EARLY RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES
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mirable, loving man, Abbot Livermore. He belonged to that ministerial family whom Dr. Bellows called "the Abbots with one t."

Would that any convent had enjoyed such an abhot! Keene, under that Christ-like influence, and that of his follower, the Rev. William O. White, was a community to be envied. Spiritualism, Second-Adventism, and Mormonism devastated our neighboring towns, but no such delusions troubled the peace of those congregations comitted to their charge — these enlightened men; and they brought to us that wonderful body of thinkers, Waterston, Dr. Lowell, Dr. Parkman, James Freeman Clarke, Rev. C. A. Bartol, the saintly W. B. O. Peabody of Springfield, Dr. Gannett, Dr. Bellows (destined to be one of the best friends of my later life); later on, Edward Everett Hale, several Channings, and Dr. Lothrop, the polished Wilberforce of the Unitarian Church. These men were scholars and elegant men of the world. Dr. Huntington, now Bishop of Central New York, was one of them, and, like him, many of the Unitarians of that day became Episcopalians of this day. It was perhaps a halting-place for the soul, freed from the terrible chains of Calvinism, upward and on to a more "reasonable faith." It needed, perhaps, for its ultimate development, the liberal creed and the wonderful prayer-book of the Episcopal Church.

Some letters written about this time have turned up in an old desk and have helped my recollections. As they may amuse the reader, I print them, mistakes and all:

"Boston, Nov. 184—.

"Dear Mother, — I am finding my place in Mr. Emerson's school. I thought I never should, and I cried three nights pretty hard. He made me take up the Latin grammar and learn it all by heart from be-