Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

LETTERS. 217
and whose reverence was bestowed both on Jesus and
Buddha, because they recognized a tender self-sacrificing spirit in both! Those women are not degraded
by polygamy as we should be, simply because they
are not conscious of degradation. Some one said
very wisely, " How unlike in character is the nakedness of a courtesan and the nakedness of a savage!"
There are no gardens of the human soul anywhere so
neglected that God has not placed in them "flaming
cherubims that turn every way to guard the Tree of
Life."
Did Mrs. Leonowens's first book ever reach Siam?
If so, has she ever heard how it was received? I
judge that the young king's desire to emulate President Lincoln must have been in a good degree owing
to her influence, though she very modestly says nothing about it. What a blessing to be able to carry
light into dark corners of the world, and then see
from afar how the little candle spreads its rays!
Christian missionaries might have done much to
modify the laws and customs of all the world, if they
had only been less theological....
It sometimes seems rather hard that I should be so
entirely shut out from all intellectual intercourse, but
I don't know how to arrange it otherwise, consistently
with the discharge of my duty. It is not " eccentricity," as many people call it; it is owing to peculiar
circumstances not of my own creating, and which my
energy and caution are powerless to change. Nobody could understand it unless they had experienced
it. But I have many, many blessings; the chiefest
of which are the dear friends I have. God bless them
for illuminating and cheering my life as they have
done.