MY DEAR FRIEND,--. . . It is the audible, the uttered prayer, to which I feel myself unequal. The awfulness of prayer to me inclines me more and more to make it silent, speechless. It is so overwhelming, that I am losing all fluency, all free utterance. What it is fit for a creature to say to the Infinite One--to that uncomprehended Infinitude of Being--makes me hesitate. My mind addressing a fellow mind is easy; and yet addressing the highest mind in the world would cause me anxiety. I should feel that my thoughts were too poor to express to him. But my mind addressing itself, its [304] thought and feeling, to the Infinite, Infinite Mind,--I faint beneath it. It is higher than heaven; what can I do? I am often moved to say with Abraham, "Lo! now I, who am but dust, have taken upon me to speak unto God. Oh! let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak." And indeed, so much praying,-this imploring the love and care of the Infinite Providence and Love, of which the universe is the boundless and perpetual evolution,--can that be right and fit? I often recall what Mrs. Dwight, of Stockbridge, said of the public devotions of old Dr. West,--one of the most saintly beings I ever knew,--that she had observed that they consisted less and less of prayers, and more and more of thanksgivings. Last evening my wife read to us your article on the Mission of America. It is a grand, full stream of thought, and 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.