MANUSCRIPT: YUL. Pencil.

PUBLICATION: Smith Alumnae Quarterly, February (1954) 79.

Dickerman became pastor of the First Church, 13 June 1883. ED never saw Mrs. Dickerman. Her daughter Miss Elizabeth Dickerman, who possessed the letter, tells in the Quarterly how her mother received three items from ED: a poem "There are two Mays" (Poems 1955, page 110), this letter, and a note which from recollection she constructs as "The love of the grape - [signed] Catawba," sent with a glass of jelly. It may very possibly be that ED sent this letter in 1885, though probably not earlier, since an earlier acquaintance would have been too slight to warrant the "With Affection." It is placed here, in spite of ED's severe illness, because the tone fits this final spring during which on occasion she could communicate with eloquence.

Nicodemus's questions about the meaning of rebirth are answered by Jesus in the opening verses of the third chapter of John.