n early boyhood], but, every now and then, those expressions
which have become almost meaningless in the mouths of the great majority
of those who use them strike me very much when used by thinking people.

Unless death produces in us an immediate accession of goodness (which, I
think, in those who have labored faithfully to be good here, and are
therefore prepared and ready for more goodness, it may), I cannot
conceive that it should produce greater nearness to God.

Place, time, life, death, earth, heaven, are divisions and distinctions
that we make, like the imaginary lines we trace upon the surface of the
globe. But goodness, surely, is nearness to God, and _only_ goodness;
and though I suppose those good servants of His who have striven to do
His will while in this life are positively nearer to Him after death, I
think it is because, in laying down the sins of infirmity that
inevitably lodge in their mortal bodies, they really are thus much
better after death.

I do not think this is the case with those who have not striven after
excellence, which a young child can hardly be supposed to have done;
because if there is one thing I believe in, it is that there is work to
do for every soul called into conscious existence.... If Dorothy were to
die, I should believe she had gone nearer to God. His care and love for
us is, I verily believe, the nearest of all things to us; but I think
our _conscious_ nearness to Him depends upon how we do His will--_i.e._
how we _strive_ to do it.

I do not speak of Christ in this discussion, because, you know, I think
it was God's will, but man's nature, that He came to show us, and to
teach; and this part of the subject would involve me in more than I have
space to write: but we will speak of this hereafter.

Is it not strange that Charles Greville and you should both be writing
to me just now upon this same subject, of life after death?

I have been walking to-day and yesterday in the Botanical Garden
here.... The place is full of the saddest and tenderest recollections to
me; it is full, too, of innumerable witnesses of God's mercy and wisdom;
plants and flowers from every climate, and the annual resurrection of
the earth is already begun among them. I am very unwell to-day, but I
was well yesterday, and this seems to be now the sort of life-tenure I
may expect:--so be it.

God bless you, dear.

I am ever yours,