Today was the National Fast and Mother and I went over to
Brooklyn to hear Mr. Beecher, but behold! when we reached the Church we found
it shut and the sexton said that Mr. Beecher would not preach today, as he had
said all he had to say on the state of the country, and didn't know what to
preach about. His daughter Hattie was married last evening.
After the disappointment, “ma chere mere” and I betook
ourselves to Mr. Chapin's1 where we heard a splendid sermon. One
thing he said particularly pleased me. Speaking of the Nation, he said: “God
Almighty doesn't thresh chaff; it's wheat he takes the trouble with.” It was so
true and exactly what I had thought myself that the Lord would not give us so
much suffering if it were not to purify us in the end.
_______________
1 Rev. Edwin Hubbell Chapin, 1814-1880, minister
of Universalist Church, Fifth Avenue.
SOURCE: William Rhinelander Stewart, The
Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, p. 20
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