Julia Ward Howe

"I ca

These were the days when it was possible for a minister of a Christian church, hearing of Parker's dangerous illness, to pray that God might remove him from the earth. To her, it seemed that "truly, he talked with God, and took us with him into the divine presence."

Parker could play as well as preach; she loved to "make fun" with him. Witness her "Philosoph-Master and Poet-Aster" in "Passion Flowers." Parker's own powers of merrymaking appear in his Latin epitaph on "the Doctor" (who survived him by many years), which is printed in the "Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe."

She used in later years to shake her head as she recalled a naughty mot of hers apropos of Parker's preaching: "I would rather," she said, "hear Theodore Parker preach than go to the theatre; I would rather go to the theatre than go to a party; I would rather go to a party than stay at home!"

A letter to her sister A

Sunday evening, December 8, 1844.

Dear A

Do not let the Bishop or Uncle or any one frighten you into any concessions—tell them, and all others that, even if you agree with them in doctrine, you think their notion of a religious life narrow, false, superficial. You owe it to truth, to them, to yourself, to say so. I think perfect and fearless frankness one of our highest duties to man as well as to God. Only see how one half the world pragmatically sets its foot down, and says to the other half, "Be converted, my opinion is truth! I must be right and you must be wrong,"—while the other half timidly falters a reluctant acquiescence, or scarce audible expression of doubt, and continues troubled and afraid and discontented with itself and others. Let me never think of you as in this ignominious position, dear A

The benedictions of the Sermon on the Mount are very simple—no raptures, no ecstasies are promised. Blessed are all that seek the good of others and the knowledge of truth—blessed, simply that in so doing they obey the law of God, imitate His character, and coming nearer and nearer to Him shall find Him more and more in their hearts. One word about Unitarians. It is very wrong to say that they reject the Bible, simply because they interpret it in a different ma

During the years between 1843 and 1859, her life was from time to time shadowed by the approach of a great joy. Before the birth of each successive child she was oppressed by a deep and persistent melancholy. Present and future alike seemed dark to her; she wept for herself, but still more for the hapless infant which must come to birth in so sorrowful a world. With the birth of the child the cloud lifted and vanished. Sunshine and joy—and the baby—filled the world; the mother sang, laughed, and made merry.

In her letters to her sisters, and later in her journals, both these moods are abundantly evident. At first, these letters are full of the bustle of arrival and of settling in the Institution.

"I received the silver.... The soup-ladle is my delight, and I could almost take the dear old coffee-pot to bed with me.... But here is the most important thing.

"My tragedy is left behind!... My house ... in great confusion, carpets not down, curtains not up, the devil to pay, and not a sofa to ask him to sit down upon...."

She now felt sadly the need of training in matters which her girlhood had despised. (She could describe every room in her father's house save one—the kitchen!) The Doctor liked to give weekly di

Speaking of the di

Everything in the new life interested her, even the most prosaic details. She writes to her sister Louisa:

"Our house has been enlivened of late by two delightful visits. The first was from the soap-fat merchant, who gave me thirty-four pounds of good soap for my grease. I was quite beside myself with joy, capered about in the most enthusiastic ma

Much as the Doctor loved the Perkins Institution, he longed for a home of his own, and in the spring of 1845 he found a place entirely to his mind.