H. and his look and
discourses, however long afterward--for my parents' sake--and the dear
Friends too! And the following is what has at last but all come out of
it--the feeling and intention never forgotten yet!
There is a sort of nature of persons I have compared to little rills
of water, fresh, from perennial springs--(and the comparison is
indeed an appropriate one)--persons not so very plenty, yet some few
certainly of them running over the surface and area of humanity, all
times, all lands. It is a specimen of this class I would now present.
I would sum up in E.H., and make his case stand for the class, the
sort, in all ages, all lands, sparse, not numerous, yet enough to
irrigate the soil--enough to prove the inherent moral stock and
irrepressible devotional aspirations growing indigenously of
themselves, always advancing, and never utterly gone under or lost.
Always E.H. gives the service of pointing to the fountain of all naked
theology, all religion, all worship, all the truth to which you are
possibly eligible--namely in _yourself_ and your inherent relations.
Others talk of Bibles, saints, churches, exhortations, vicarious
atonements--the canons outside of yourself and apart from man--E.H.
to the religion inside of man's very own nature. This he incessantly
labors to kindle, nourish, educate, bring forward and strengthen. He
is the most _democratic_ of the religionists--the prophets.
I have no doubt that both the curious fate and death of his four sons,
and the facts (and dwelling on them) of George Fox's strange early
life, and permanent "conversion," had much to do with the peculiar and
sombre ministry and style of E.
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