the little flowers that are waiting so patiently to peep out into the sunshine. I am writing with a vase of violets and anemones before me, the first that have gladdened my eyes this season. The peach and the cherry trees are loaded with their pretty pink and white blossoms, and the apple is just bursting its buds, giving us one breath of delicious fragrance.

Among the handsome buildings I would mention the Arcade, the Railroad Depot, remarkably unique and novel in its architecture, the Athenæum, the High School, and the Roger Williams Church, with its pretty grassy lawn surrounding it, with foot-paths winding around it, which after all gives the beauty to the spot. The church itself, I cannot remember now that it is out of my sight, as being peculiar in its structure, or possessing more beauty than many other places of worship. The college buildings are finely situated, combining the advantages of fresh air, freedom from noise, and an extensive view of the city and surroundings, lying at its feet.

I walked to the Athenæum one afternoon with my friend Mrs. B—, and must tell you of the delightful interview we held with the great geniuses who occupy this building. It is a large spacious hall, with little cozy recesses on either side, each nook being appropriated to some distinct class of authors.

A sort of magnetic influence drew me first to the snug retreat of Scott, Dickens, Bulwer, &c. Here I received a warm welcome. A lively, happy group I found them; almost bursting their leathers with fun and frolic, with now and then a grave shake of the head from an occasional one, who has so long groped through the dark windings of sin and crime, that the very air they breathe is thick with vapors, and damp and gloomy with mists. Scott with his bright dressing gown and slippers sat with his friends around him in pleasant converse, looking indeed like the being who could throw around the purity of Jennie Deans, the saintly robe of his own imaginings.

I noticed Miss Edgeworth in close conversation with Harriet Martineau, casting now and then a sly glance at their literary gentlemen friends, no doubt discussing the propriety of a matrimonial alliance. I need not tell you how glad I was to meet our own beloved Hawthorne, and Washington Irving, with his array of goblins and hobgoblins, and fairy spirits dancing around him, lighting on his shoulder, kissing their bony hands to him, and shaking their grisly locks with laughter and jollity. Installed in

her quiet model "home," was Miss Bremer, with a family circle around her, among which I recognized the "President's daughters," "Nina," "Helena," and other pets. I longed to speak to her, to tell her what a pleasant light she had thrown around our American firesides, but I feared to intrude into that charmed circle.

From here we slid quietly into the "poets' corner." Oh what an intellectual soiree! what a crushing, overpowering weight of intellect! what a melody of song!

Here was Shakspeare, noble Shakspeare, surrounded by a throng of geniuses all striving to seize his pen, that they might fashion their own quills after this inimitable model, which has penned such wonderful revelations of philosophy, religion and human nature. Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, sat looking into each other's eyes, drawing inspiration therefrom, to give to the world the united efforts of their great natures. I was amused to see Festus standing on a high stool, swinging his cap, and screaming to the top of his lungs of "Lucifer," and the "fallen angels;" while Milton sat gazing composedly at him, twirling his spectacles, and striving to suppress the smile that was twitching the corners of his mouth.

My attention was called away from this ludicrous scene, by the sound of soft music, that stole upon my ear from a remote corner of the library, which I knew from its exquisite melody. could be no other than Keats. Ah, I saw him when the inspiration was on him, when his harp was strung to the harmony of his own beautiful imaginings. I did not see those heartless critics, sticking their sharp elbows into his wounded side, probing his very heart till the warm blood flowed his life away, a poor victim to the abuse of an unappreciating world.

But I must not linger longer in this pleasant society. We had given so much time to the poets and novelist, that we had no leisure to glance at the historians, philosophers, divines, &c., neither should I, dear Mary, give you a just account of my visit, were I to fill my letter and omit to speak of the delightful intercourse enjoyed with my friend in her own dwelling, which is made so pleasant a place to her family and so hospitable a home to her visitors.

I cannot tell you how intensely I have enjoyed reading with her, hers and our favorite poet Tenneyson. We could not resist the temptation to read together "In Memoriam." Much as I admired it before, I see new attractions in it on each perusal. Reading it too, with an appreci

nor female in Christ Jesus," and that a divine truth, given for human salvation, addresses itself to all classes and conditions of minds,masculine and feminine, educated and undisciplined. We say we write now specially to Woman, because we want to pursue such a method and to preserve such a spirit in discussing the merits of Universalism, as will make our work more acceptable and useful to her than would probably be the case did we not make her prominent to our sight as the reader of our thoughts.

It has been well said, that "in the purity of female feelings we may have a security that any system that recommends itself to woman, must have a fair semblance of goodness as it appears in their eyes." On the basis of this thought it may be said, that Universalism has not even a semblance of goodness, for when it is first preached in any place, few or no women are found amid the audience. In answer to this, we can but remark, that where Universalism has not been preached, the aspect given to it, for woman to behold, is by no means a fair one. It is associated with every thing vile and mean. It is regarded as destructive of piety and order and decency. It is supposed to be only covert infidelity, using the Savior's name only as some honorable term for a poisonous thing. It is avoided as moral contagion; and we have known cases where one woman only attended the first meeting held by a Universalist in her town, and was deemed an awful sinner for venturing so near to danger. A cry is set up against the Angel of the Lord, as though he were a Messenger of Satan, and regarding him in this light, it is to the honor of woman that she feels impelled to keep afar from what can only be regarded as the Council of Evil. But when the ministry of Universalism has become extended in any place, and it is understood in its true character, then we find our religion vindicated by the predominance of women among its advocates. It alone can give rest to Woman's affections. It alone has harmony with her beautiful sympathies, and lifts to the highest heaven of rapture the exultant hopes of a soul that through its own inexhaustible love has learned of the love of Him whose "compassions fail not."

And here let us say a word of that class of feminine minds that most readily become interested in Universalism. They are not of those who lean on the word of a minister as though he were God's mouth-piece-the living oraclethe Mediator. They are not of those who feed VOL. XX. 5

their zeal only by an incessant round of religious meetings and exercises, making forms religion and religion forms. They do not identify the preacher with his preaching, and because of the honesty and goodness of the one, conclude that the other must be sound and scriptural. But they are of the class who have been awakened to think deeply and solemnly on religious doctrines. They have met evasion when the most pungent questions in theology were propounded, and they have felt that annihilation must come to the best sympathies of their nature before they could be fitted to find happiness in the heaven which the dominant church pictures. They have been repulsed by the barbarous spirit of the popular pulpit, and have felt that they could not love the God described to them there, and ought not to love him if they could. They have carried the beautiful ministry of nature, and even more beautiful ministry of their own sympathies and affections, with them into the retreat of prayer, and bending over the Scriptures they have felt the motions of a spirit prophetic of better things than the Church gives them from the Oracles of God, by its narrow interpretations. The language of universality, where the Divine Purpose in Christ is treated by the sacred writers, tells of grace mightier in its final victories than the learned in creeds and logic and metaphysics have ever dreamed of. They take what seems a small discovery and go on thinking and praying, praying and thinking, and lo! Christianity becomes the full answer to their affections, because it proclaims Jesus as "the Savior of the World." The process of reasoning, as Scripture facts are apprehended and arranged in the Divine Order, as fully demonstrates to their moral being the truth of the Salvation of our undivided race, as any scientific truth is demonstrated to the intellect of the philosopher. The rapture of the astronomer, in announcing his great discovery, is but a faint picture of that celestial joy which comes with the conviction that no soul created by the Almighty will ever find its immortality a'curse. How nobly did Kepler write of his discovery: "It is now eighteen months since I got the first glimpse of light, three months since the dawn, very few days since the unveiled sun, most admirable to gaze on, burst upon me. Nothing holds me; I will indulge in my sacred fury; I will triumph over mankind by the honest confession, that I have stolen the golden vases of the Egyptians to build up a tabernacle for my God, far from the confines of Egypt. If you forgive me, I rejoice;

if you are angry. I can tear it: the die je pust the book is written to DE TELÉ A IDer now or bi posterity." There a womeling note and grant in tule. The rapture is natural; but as the sUL. that gains the true insight into the more revestial trutus-the truths of revelation, shal know a rapture that wakes griber feelings and gives an earnest of beares,y Lesesses.

Believing this, why should we not be pesled to labor for the advocacy and spread of tress? We are told. If Universaliem be true, there is no danger; why trouble yourself about it? o mockery of ingenuousness! If our Father be belied, it matters but little that we know and reject the falsity! Truth is nothing; what we imagine to be safety or danger is every thing! But bearken, ye who have understandings to be used in matters of religion as well as in daily toils, A falsity believed has the same effect as thon gå it were a truth. Let me iustrate this idea by a reference to a fact in our Savior's history.

Jesus was hurried from the Cross to the burial, and, therefore, the common rites of affection could not be attended to. At early dawn Mary went forth with spices to the tomb where she supposed the dead body of Jesus still lay. As she entered the garden of the sepulchre, the shadows were dense about her pathway, and "it was yet dark." She found the tomb, and she found it empty. But one idea then took possession of her mind, and that was, The enemies of Jesus had taken his body away from the rocky tomb and had hidden it. Mary wept. A voice addressed her, "Woman, why weepest thou?" She replied, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him." She turned to hide her tears, and saw a person whom she supposed to be,-probably from the clothes worn, -the gardener. The same question was asked her, with another, "Whom seekest thou?" She, under the impression that she was addressed only by the gardener, answered, "Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away." Tears again flowed like rain. There, look on Mary. She is now under the influence of an error. She believes Jesus to be dead, and that his body has been disentombed and hidden. Love is deprived of performing the little acts of regard for the tabernacle that so late had a holy guest; and to her mind insult to the dead has been added to cruelty to the living. She weeps, and well may she weep. It is human nature to be thus affected under such circumstances. It is a tribute to the departed. It is the soul's sorrow for, as

But al the sorrow was occasioned by receiv 175 ST. PETIT ET 6 -1 Wrong inference. The Tart The before zen, but she saw it not. She was then of zone #20 seeing, see not." But as she turned to hide the ungovernable sorrow of her soul a rose, whose tone was unlike any other sound in the universe, pronounced her Dime, Mary, and she started as with an electric sbork, and fell at the feet of Him she then knew to be her msen, living Lord! What a change for Mary! Now, she weeps for joy. Rapture illuLicates her terms, and the radiance of heaven gures beauty to ter features, as the increase of the morn foods the garden with glory. Wilt thou, render, have the sorrow or joy of Mary? As thou rejectest or receivest the Truth of Universalism, so will the answer of thy deepest experience be. No conception of the Gospel can give such blessedness as the true one. They who are of faith are blessed with faithful Abrabam; they now may be as he was when he saw the Messiah's day and was glad, and was called the friend of Gol,—

"That God which ever lives and loves,-
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,

To which the whole creation moves."

In offering a plea for Universalism, we only ask that our form of Christianity be considered. We do not present it as a substitute for the Bible, for it is an interpretation of the Bible; and we cannot admit that any person has faith in what he professes to believe, who refuses to examine any other form of doctrine. When the Apostle wrote, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good," the latter exhortation implied that obedience to the former would bring some filse things before the mind. But we find that the greatest obstacle in the way of Christian advancement in truth, is the unwillingness, the refusal to "prove all things." We were lately told of a minister, in one of our cities, who declared, from his pulpit, that he would not examine Universalism; he was fixed upon that; he would have nothing to do with it; he would not look at it. And who can admire such a stand! What littleness has such a soul! It were not too much to venture were we to say, We have no confi

dence in the soundness of such a man's faith in what he professes to believe. He may be like him of old, who asserted an astronomical error, and was asked to look through a telescope to behold the demonstration of his error, but replied, "I will NOT look." Let not such persons talk against a papal claim to infallibility; for theirs is but the poorest imitation of the same presumption.

We love Universalism because it makes us free to travel any where in the world of thought or ideas. No theory of human salvation do we dread to examine. Every thought of a serious, God-fearing, and philanthropic soul, is to us worthy of study. Infidelity has served the truth by sifting the weak from the strong arguments used in its support; by turning every possible phase of Christianity to the light, and calling the earnest believer to set up the ever-opening evidences of the divine origin of the Gospel. Gazing, in our study, on a thousand books, we behold many in which the energy of the writer is given against our faith. History and Biography, Science and Philosophy, Travels and Fictions, Sermons, Essays and Poetry, all present a force against Universalism. It pervades English literature; it infects scholarship in its dealings with language and philosophy; and whoso reads freely in all departments of literature, as represented in all the "Reviews," must meet the force against Universalism, just as truly as you must take the fog and the mist with the air you breathe in your walk when the wind is "due east." It is a joy that we can have this freedom of commerce with all thought, and that we can "take the air" that feeds life, and yet resist the infectious miasma by a good vitality, wondering how they live who, like Ephraim of old, "feed on the east wind." An English writer in speaking of what he calls "The Literary Universalist," utters some thoughts that apply well to the Biblical Universalist in reference to his freedom to read and study all forms of theology, to "prove all things," that he may "hold fast that which is good." He says:

"A Universalist, in one high bibliographical respect, may be said to be the only true reader; for he is the only reader on whom no writing is lost. Too many people approve no books but such as are representatives of some opinion or passion of their own. They read not to have human nature reflected on them, and so be taught to know and to love every thing; but to be reflected themselves, as in a socket mirror, and so interchange admiring looks with their own nar

row cast of countenance. The Universalist alone puts up with difference of opinion, by reason of his own very difference; because his difference is a right claimed by him in the spirit of universal allowance, and not a privilege arrogated by conceit. He loves poetry and prose, fiction and matter of fact, seriousness and mirth, because he is a thorough human being, and contains portions of all the faculties to which they appeal."

It is in the spirit of this thought, that we invite attention to what may be given us to say in behalf of what is, to us, the "most holy faith." We discover that of all the causes of unhappiness, there is none so great as that view of God which dictates a belief in the eternity of sin and misery, and our labor shall be to pour into other minds the light that has been the joy of our being. We are not blind to any form of evil; we see the sinfulness of man, the misery of wrong doing, but we believe in God, in the perfection of his creative purpose, and the universal and complete harmony to which all things tend. We know the strength of human passion, the ignorance, brutality, and iniquity, that defiles the glory of man, but our hope is still in God: