For an
hour or so after breakfast we sat in the ladies' parlor, we sewed, and
we told anecdotes. Whittier talked beautifully, almost always on the
future state and his confidence in it. Occasionally he touched upon
persons. He seems to have loved Lydia Maria Child greatly.
"When the cool of the morning was over, we went out upon the piazza, and
later on we went under the trees, where, it is said, Whittier spends
most of the time.
"There was little of the old-time theology in his views; his faith has
been always very firm. Mr. Cartland asked me one day if I really felt
there was any doubt of the immortality of the soul. I told him that on
the whole I believed it more than I doubted it, but I could not say that
I felt no doubt. Whittier asked me if there were no immortality if I
should be distressed by it, and I told him that I should be exceedingly
distressed; that it was the only thing that I craved. He said that
'annihilation was better for the wicked than everlasting punishment,'
and to that I assented. He said that he thought there might be persons
so depraved as not to be worth saving. I asked him if God made such.
Nobody seemed ready to reply. Besides myself there was another of the
party to whom a dying friend had promised to return, if possible, but
had not come.
"Whittier believed that they did sometimes come. He said that of all
whom he had lost, no one would be so welcome to him as Lydia Maria
Child.
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