Saturday, March 14, 2015

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Josephine Shaw, June 10, 1863

You know I believe Heaven is here, everywhere, if we could only see God, and that, as a future state, it is not to be much dwelt upon, only enough to make one content with death as a change not infinitely different from sleep, — that prayer is not an asking, but a thanking mood, — that this world and all that is in it being created for the glory of God (and for what other end can such a fearful and wonderful "nature" be designed ?), we especially ought to glorify him by being thankful and seeing his glory everywhere. Just how we are to show our thankfulness is a more searching question; I think not by depreciating this world to exalt another, perhaps by “bene vivere, perhaps by “loving well both man and bird and beast,” — probably by one person in one way, by another in another.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 255-6

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