ng letter, written with his own
hand,--written but a few weeks before his death.
This letter has never been read in public and has
never been in print.

NEW YORK, May 18, 1878.

MY DEAR SIR,

I cannot be present at the meeting called to
organize the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific
Circle, but I am glad that such a movement is on
foot, and wish it the fullest success. There is an
attempt to make science, or a knowledge of the
laws of the material universe, an ally of the
school which denies a separate spiritual existence
and a future life; in short, to borrow of science
weapons to be used against Christianity. The
friends of religion, therefore, confident that one
truth never contradicts another, are doing wisely
when they seek to accustom the people at large to
think and to weigh evidence as well as to believe.
By giving a portion of their time to a vigorous
training of the intellect, and a study of the best
books, men gain the power to deal satisfactorily
with questions with which the mind might otherwise
have become bewildered. It is true that there is
no branch of human knowledge so important as that
which teaches the duties that we owe to God and to
each other, and that there is no law of the
universe, sublime and wonderful as it may be, so
worthy of being made fully known as the law of
love, which makes him who obeys it a blessing to
his species, and the universal observance of which
would put an end to a large proportion of the
evils which affect mankind. Yet is a knowledge of
the results of science, and such of its processes
as lie most open to the popular mind, important
for the purpose of showing the different spheres
occupied by science and religion, and preventing
the inquirer from mistaking their divergence from
each other for opposition.

I perceive this important advantage in the
proposed organization, namely, that those who
engage in it will mutually encourage each other.
It will give the members a common pursuit, which
always begets a feeling of