original, too, and ought to
have a wider flow than through the pages of the "Examiner." It ought to
be read not by two thousand, but by two million persons. I wish there
were a popular organ, like the "Ledger" (in circulation), for the
diffusion of the best thoughts, where the best minds among us could
speak of the country to the country, for never was there a people that
more needed to be wisely spoken to. And you are especially fitted to
speak to it. Your conservative position in our Unitarian body, however
it may fare among us, would help you with the people.

As to your position, I don't know but I am as conservative as you are.
That is, I don't know but I believe in the miracles as much as you do.
The difference between us is, that I do not feel the miraculous to be so
essential a part of Christianity. Yet I see and feel the force of what
you say about it. And the argument is [305] put in that article of yours
with great weight and power. For myself, I cannot help feeling that at
length the authority of Jesus will be established on clearer, higher,
more indisputable and impregnable grounds than any historic, miraculous
facts.

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.

ST. DAVID'S, Jan. 26, 1869.

. . . I AM thankful, every day of my life, that I have my own roof over
me, and can keep it from crumbling to the ground. Do not be proud, Sir,
when you read this, nor look down from your lordliness,--of owning a
dozen houses, and three of them your own to live in,--down, I say, upon
my humble gratitude. Can it be, by the bye, that Cicero had fourteen
villas? I am sure Middleton says so. I should think they must have been
fourteen of what Buckminster, in a sermon, called "bundles of cares and
heaps of vexations."

. . . I read a letter of Cicero's to his friend Valerius, this morning,
in which he urges him to come and see him, saying that he wants to have
a pleasant time with him,--tecum jocari,-and says, "When you come this
way, don't go down to your Apulia,"--to wit, Cummington. Nam si illo
veneris, tanquam Ulysses, cognosces tuorum neminem. Now don't quote
Homer to me when you answer, for I am nearly overwhelmed with my own
learning.

I wish you could have seen the world here for the last three weeks.
Never was such a splendid winter season. I think it 's something great
and inspiring to see the whole broad, bright, white, crystal world, and
the whole [306] horizon round, instead of looking upon brick houses. But
you wil