One told
me he was two years in chaotic darkness, without an inch of firm
ground to stand upon, watching for the dayspring from on high, and
after this long probation it shone upon his path, and he has walked
by its light for years. Do not fear or regret your isolation from
men, your difference from all around you. It is often necessary to
the enlargement of the soul that it should thus dwell alone for a
season, and when the mystical union of God and man shall be
completely developed, and you feel yourself newly born a child of
light, one of the sons of God, you will also feel new ties to your
fellow men; you will love them all in God, and each will be to you
whatever their state will permit them to be.
"It is very interesting to me to see, as I do, all around me
here, the essential doctrines of the Quakers revived, modified,
stript of all that puritanism and sectarianism had heaped upon them,
and made the foundation of an intellectual philosophy, that is
illuminating the finest minds and reaches the wants of the least
cultivated. The more I reflect upon the Quakers, the more I admire
the early ones, and am surprised at their being so far in advance of
their age, but they have educated the world till it is now able to go
beyond those teachers.
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