Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/171

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THE RANDALL FAMILY 163

flowers, for they, like children, survive those who have educated them. You also, I suppose, have a garden, and perhaps raise your own peas and beans, I have put by a few of Anna's larger engravings, and so forth, as keep- sakes for her friends, and for you Hoogland's portrait in folio of Rev. Dr. Channing, but a different one if you pre- fer. I have seen more of Stanley since you left. We like each other, as I think, not a little, of which I fear not

you will be jealous. H has gone again to the wars,.

and, when he has grown lean again on husks among the swine of Virginia, he will be glad to sit down to a fatted calf in Massachusetts — perhaps may even return one. Stanley longs to go to the wars, but I hardly like he should do so, as his constitution is particularly liable to the low fevers of a camp. As to the loss of a year or so in college, that is something, but not so much. But I must end. My remembrances to your wife and sister. I am sorry you come not here this summer. I may yet be obliged to go to you.

Yours, dear friend,

J. W. Randall.

��Boston, March 13, 1863. Dear Frank,

In your last letter, now long unanswered, I observe you close with asking my mind on certain religious opinions which I am not competent to judge of. You know that I am of no sect, but am a universal protestant, very like what Bayle was. I quoted Mr. Clarke, not as agreeing with him, but with relation to the expression, "He who believeth in me shall be saved," with the implied commen- tary and fair inference that no others shall be. You ask if I think your theory foolish or unreasonable. I think

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