128 



And maidens in the far off twilights, 

 Singing my words to breeze and stream, 



Shall wonder if the old time Mary 

 Were real or the rhymer's dream. 



"Whittier is eminently a religious man, and his religion crops 

 out iu all his verse. Not that he is in any sense evangelical, 

 or even a believer in any creed, but in the sense that Socrates, 

 Buddha and Confucius were religious. His early Quaker pre- 

 cepts have never forsaken him, though in after life. 



"The Quaker garb hung loose — 



A compromise betwixt good fellow and recluse." 



"Born at a time when certain dogmas in regard to future 

 punishment were almost universally believed and preached, and 

 having lived through a remarkable transition state, until those 

 same dogmas are quite as universally discarded, having a keen 

 common sense that looked quite through the gist of things, an 

 extensive acquaintance with men of all phases of religious faith 

 — and no faith, a reading that brought a pretty thorough 

 knowledge of the religious systems of the ancients, including 

 those of the orientals, we find in his poems what might at first 

 seem very inconsistent — about equally strong declarations of 

 the agnostic and devout Christian ; for outspoken, strong and 

 vigorous as he is in his agnosticism, and scarce anything in the 

 English language can be stronger, he has always connected with 

 it some saving grace in the shape of a sweet and tender trust 

 in immortality. His want of knowledge is always supplemented 

 by a faith in God as a loving Father, a JO} t ous optimism that 

 embraces the world." 



Mr. Bartlett closed his essay with reference to Whittier's pa- 

 triotism and his Ideal of the New England Farmers' Home, 

 and expressed the wish that the poet may yet live many years 

 to enjoy his honors, and the sentiment that "long will Essex 

 County be proud of her most widely known and best loved son, 

 John G. AVhittier." 



