"I have two refreshments to chronicle,--one is Irving's 'Becket,' and not the stock-still, curiously inefficient play, but just Irving's 'Becket,' otherwise 'St. Thomas of Canterbury,' a flash and a breath from Heaven. Where does that actor get his gift of everything spiritual and supernatural? His charm to me is that he has great moral power,--either inherent from the noble mind ... or else acquired by art so subtle that I never got hold of the like.... Surely, not everybody can see so into a character ... and measure its astonishing depth in humanity and divinity." _Archdeacon Wilberforce to Mrs. Moulton_ "DEAR MRS. CHANDLER-MOULTON: Thank you for your letter. On page 237, of the book I send you, I have answered your question 'Why cannot God make people good in the first instance.' Because even God can only make things by means of the process by which they become what they are. God could not make a hundred-year-old tree in your garden in one minute. He cannot make a moral being except through the processes by means of which a moral being becomes what he is. What does Walt Whitman say? "Our life is closed, our life begins. And again: "In the divine ship, the World hasting Time and Space, All People of the globe together sail, sail the same voyage, are bound for the same destination...." _Miss Robbins to Mrs. Moulton_ 96 MT. VERNON ST., January 23, 1906. MY DEAR MRS. MOULTON: This little note from Dean Hodges belongs to you rather than to me. If you had never written anything else all your life but this beautiful "Help Thou Mine Unbelief," you have done something worth living for, something truly great. And now to explain a little. I was glad to meet Dean Hodges at your house, and I asked him if among your poems he knew this one that I so prized. I told him that I had shown it to Dr. Momerie, who murmured, after reading it: "It is finer, it is, than 'Lead, Kindly Light.'" Dr. Momerie then went on to say there were only half a dozen good hymns, and that this was one of them. As Dean Hodges did not know the poem, I offered to copy it for him, as I have done for several people before, and now this is his reply. Such praise from such a man is praise indeed! I had such an interesting time at your house, meeting such interesting people, but what I wanted most was a _tête-à-tête_ with my interesting hostess. I always want to know you better. Believe me, dear Mrs. Moulton, Always yours, JULIA ROBBINS. _Dean Hodges to Miss Robbins_ [_Enclosed_] THE DEANERY, CAMBRIDGE, January 22, 1906.