Memoirs of Anne C.L. Botta,: written by her friends. With selections from her correspondence and from her writings in prose and poetry.

anne C. Z. cotta
higher literature must aim at the realization of the ideal. As
yet there has been properly no Christian literature. The sublime
truths of the New Testament, the " Peace on earth and good-will
to men " that was sung by angel voices over the plains of Judea,
have wakened no echoes in Christendom; nor could they ever
in those countries where the divine rights of the many were
sacrificed to the one or to the few. A new theater, a new world,
was necessary to the development of those great truths, and
here, if ever, they must be realized. Every age has had its poets,
but the present age opens a new era in the history of the race;
political and religious freedom have been born, and they require
stronger nutriment than poetry: they demand philanthropy.
A nation has arisen and, as if by divine inspiration, declared the
fraternity and equality of man; and though the prophet has belied his utterance, that utterance has gone forth and cannot be
recalled. Christianity, truth, justice, demand its fulfilmentnot, indeed, as France demanded it, with the sword and the guillotine; but by a power mightier than they, by the omnipotent
spirit of love, of Christian love-that sees in God a common Father, and in his image recognizes a Brother. Our country has
been the first to declare these truths; she should be the first to
put them in practice. If it be true, as they have asserted who
have scanned closely the annals of the race, that each nation as it
rises from the bosom of the sea of time and like a mighty billow
rolls onward and breaks, has a mission to accomplish, an element
of humanity to develop, as the Greek nation developed the love
of beauty, the Romans the love of country,-the idea our country
is destined to realize must be the love of man. This mission she
is slowly, imperceptibly it may be, but it seems to us surely, accomplishing. And one proof of this is found in the fact that we
as a people much prefer the work that appeals merely to the love
of beauty, the work which addresses itself to the whole higher
nature, that deepens our reverence for God and man, removes us
from that insignificant center- self, around which we too often
revolve, unites us to the great brotherhood of men, and attracts
us to that sublime orbit whose center is God.
382