To Mr. Ellis Gray Loring.
New York, May 27, 1841.
Dearest friend,--Blessings on you for your cheering letter.
I trust it expresses the general anti-slavery sentiment.
I am afraid many will think me not gritty enough.
The editing is much more irksome than I supposed.
The type is fine, and that large sheet swallows an incredible amount of matter.
The cry still is, as C. says, “More!
More!”
An anti-slavery editor is a sort of black sheep among the fraternity, and I have no courtesies from booksellers. ---assists me by getting books out of club libraries, etc.; but still my range for extracts is very limited.
The first familiar face I met here was Mr. B- . He is preaching New Church doctrines with great effect.
Is it not strange that I can neither get in nor out of the New Church?
Let me go where I will, it keeps an outward hold upon me, more or less weak on one side, while reforms grapple me closely on the other.
I feel that they are opposite, nay, discordant.
My affections and imagination cling to one with a love that will not be divorced; my reason and conscience keep
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fast hold of the other, and will not be loosened.
Here is the battle of free — will and necessity with a vengeance!
What shall I do?
The temptation is to quit reforms, but that is of the devil; for there is clearly more work for me to do in that field.
I suppose I must go on casting a loving, longing look toward the star-keeping clouds of mysticism, which look down so mysterious and still into my heart, “and make it also great,” while with busy hands I row the boat of practical endeavor.
I would I were at one with myself.
A Quaker, whose brother has joined the New Church, brings a message to me. That very brother is an admonition ; for he used to be a warm anti-slavery and peace man, and the church influence has made him abjure both..You are right in supposing that abolition principles and non-resistance seem to me identical; rather that the former is a mere unit of the latter. I never saw any truth more clearly; insomuch that it seems strange to me that any comprehensive mind can embrace one and not the other.
