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"The good father of the family I spoke to you about let his children do as they wished to do, because he loved to have them free; but he let them know that he wished them to love each other and to do good; and if they obeyed his will they were happy; but if they did not love each other, or if they did any wrong, they were unhappy; and if one child did wrong it made the others unhappy too. So in the great world; God left men and women and children to do as they wish, and let them know that if they love one another and do good, they will be happy; but if they do wrong they will be unhappy, and make others unhappy likewise.

"I will try to tell you why people have pain sometimes, and are sick and die; but I cannot take so much time and paper now. But you must be sure that God loves you, and loves everybody, and wants you and everybody to be happy; and if you love everybody, and do them all the good you can, and try to make them happy, you will be very happy yourself, and will be much happier after your body dies than you are now.

"Dear little Laura, I love you very much. I want you to be happy and good. I want you to know many things; but you must be patient, and learn easy things first and hard ones afterwards. When you were a little baby you could not walk, and you learned first to creep on your hands and knees, and then to walk a little, and by and by you grew strong. Your mind is young and weak and cannot understand hard things; but by and by it will be stronger, and you will be able to understand hard things; and I and my wife will help Miss Swift to show you all about things that now you do not know. Be patient then, dear Laura; be obedient to your teacher, and to those older than you; love everybody, and do not be afraid.

"Good-bye. I shall come soon, and we will talk and be happy.

"Your true friend,
"DOCTOR."

My father's hopes in this matter were not to be realized. During his absence in Europe some of those immediately associated with Laura felt it their duty to instruct her in "revealed religion," and when my father returned he found her mind filled with Calvinistic doctrines. This was one of the great disappointments of his life.

In his Report for 1844, my father says:

"Great interest has been manifested on all sides to know the effect of religious instruction upon her mind, and not without good cause. I have always thought it desirable on many accounts to give her such ideas, and such only, on this and other important topics as she shall always be able to retain. It is painful to be forced to relinquish ideas which by long possession have become regarded as one's own -- as much a part of one's self as one's property or one's limbs. We defend our religious, political, and other opinions with a zeal not proportionate to their truth, but to the length of time and the closeness of intimacy with which we have associated them with ourselves: when we have never contemplated the possibility of their falsity, the refusal of others to admit them as true, and still more the attempt to destroy them, often excites a passion as would the protest of a draft, or an assault upon the person. Some men may preserve their elasticity of mind, and retain unimpaired their confidence in their last belief, after the abandonment of several creeds, especially if blessed with self-complacency; but all cannot do so; for if the soul have drifted from several anchors in the storm of infidelity, it will hardly rely even upon the best bower of faith, as perfectly sure and steadfast.

"It seems especially desirable that Laura should never be obliged to remodel her faith. There is a moral in the story of the boy who, when the microscope first revealed to him the minute and wondrous structure of one of his hairs, was surprised and pained at not finding the number upon it; he had believed literally that the hairs of his head were all 'numbered;' and being of a shy nature he would not ask any explanation, but allowed his faith in the Bible to be seriously impaired. Laura can never use a microscope, but she will by and by bring the magnifying power of mature judgment to bear upon all that she now takes unhesitatingly from others as literal truth; and I would that she might always find the number written upon everything on which she had been led to look for it.

"But I have given in former Reports some of my reasons for deferring this most important part of her education, and I need not now repeat them; suffice it to say that I wished to give her only such instruction about religion and God, as she was prepared to receive and understand, so that her moral and religious nature should be developed pari passu with her intellect. It was delightful for me to find that without any particular direction being given to it from without, her mind naturally tended towards the causes of things, and that after an acquaintance with the extent of human creative power, she preceived the necessity of superhuman power for the explanation of a thousand daily recurring phenomena. She could not indeed like the poor Indian, 'see God in clouds and hear Him in the wind,' but then He was manifest in the springing grass, the bursting flower, and the ripening fruit; the genial sun, the falling rain, the driving snow -- these, and countless other things which became known to her by her single sense, made her aware of a power transcending the power of man. It would have been more delightful still to lead her wondering mind to the perception of the higher attributes of God, as her capacity for such perception was unfolded, until, her moral nature being fully developed, she might have been as much impressed with love for His Almighty Power.