I am much interested in what you write of the word “eternal.” It was on the meaning of that word that my first divergence from the Calvinistic theories occurred, many years ago. I read F. D. Maurice much, and still do so. His rendering of the word “eternal” was, you know, considered heresy in his own church. Now, the exception is, in this region, to hear it preached in any other sense. I think it first implies the _character_ of the life, but also its _duration_. It is only the real that can last, and grow better and better forever, as being a progress into the infinite life of God. It is death to refuse to receive this life; I cannot think that any soul will forever refuse, though the freedom of the human will makes it a possibility. I look upon this life on earth as but a beginning, rather an education than a probation--and yet that also, as every hour of our life is a trial of our fitness for the next hour. One thing I have liked in the Episcopal Church since I knew it and have been in it, is that they preach this practical, spiritual life so much more than systems and doctrines. The Christian year is a repeated following of the story and the spirit of Christ’s life, and everybody can understand it. Nobody can hold the Apostles Creed, and not believe in the oneness of the Son and Father, and that is the pivotal truth of Christianity. More and more I see the failures in my past life, through not entering into this central truth in a more living way. I thank you for the kind things you say of my poems and books. There is no one whose approval I value more deeply. Sometimes I wish I had more years before me, for I feel as if I were just beginning to see clearly, and I am more and more interested in this human life of ours. Yet how little any of us can do to relieve its burdens. How hopeless its evils and sins sometime look! I have just read “David Grieve.” It is far from being a cheerful book, though powerfully written. It is, however, an improvement upon “Robert Elsmere,” which seemed to me wordily weak. I have seen Emily Dickinson’s poems, and enjoy their queer gleaming and shadowy incoherences. It does not seem as if her mind could have been fairly balanced. But her love of nature redeems many faults. That poem in the “Christian Union,” “The Immortal Now,” must have been printed early in the year 1890, I think. Possibly in 1889, but I believe I wrote it in the winter of 1889-90. If I can find a duplicate, I will send it to you. I have a half-project of collecting my religious poems by themselves, for next Christmas. What would you think of it? Always affectionately yours, LUCY LARCOM. The following letter was written to Bishop Brooks a few days before his death, and was found on his desk, while his body still lay in his home, the soul having gone to be “near the Master and Friend.” TO PHILLIPS BROOKS.