My dear Susan -

When you said with evident emphasis, that
you see something attractive in features of the Roman Cath-
olic Faith, or worship, it did not, at the moment, ^{appear [?]} expedient to
respond, when there was so much to be said & so little
time. But it seems to be right, if not due to you & to the others -
& perhaps myself, that I sh'd make some answer.

We are here in a very small corner of the Universe, and
we are in relation to the whole of it. It is plain that we
are so made as to be more or less conscious of belonging to a
world of unseen life, of scenes, realities, persons, beyond the reach
of the senses, in extent, interest, duration. Mankind has never been
satisfied without knowing something of that other life, & serious
people generally believe that they & those they love are to
go with it, or nearer ^{to it,} when they die. They do not really
doubt, or holistically or permanently doubt, that God, the Maker,
(for nothing made itself) cares for both these worlds of life,
the seen the unseen, & has a purpose for them. Noted, I do
not call that other "world" "supernatural". It is just
as natural as this one, more so perhaps. It is superhuman,
supermundane, superreal, but it is in the actual or
eternal order, as this is. God Himself is Natural.

At a time when He saw it to be needful to
show Himself more distinctly & fully to His children -
a time with wh. we have little or nothing to do - He brought
Himself into the most perfect union - the only perfect union -
with humanity, -into man, - by taking all that is human into
Himself in a living Person like other men, & going thro'
a perfect human experience, under the simplest conditions-

What is the object, the outcome, the purpose, the end?
character. A race of men & women beginning ^{to live} here,
by union with the Son of God & Son of Man, that
righteous life which is immortal & eternal: men
whose lives are patterned after the Perfect Man;
[?] women, married or unmarried, striving to live
above this world, or with other, after the 'Virgin' mother.
This building of character is slow work, hard work,
mostly obscure work. But what is better? It is
better than religious "opinons", dogmas, sentiment, prophesy, fame.

How was the divine regeneration of our
[?], this second birth of mankind, this mutual
interflow & inter-communion between the two
worlds, to be kept up, continued, carried forward?

This is the Church: - the Church of the new
Testament, the only church of the early centuries, as

So far I have said nothing of that particular Branch of
the Church on wh. you remarked. You said there is something true
& good in the Church of Rome. Certainly there is, as there is in every
Branch. It was a terrible calamity when, after six hundred
years of the Primitive System, the Division of the East & West
broke the unity, The political ambition of Roman Princes &
Captains turned the Simple Household of Christ into an
Enormous Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, quite alien fr. anything in
our Lord's word or example. In this vast combination of tyranny
& exaction, fanaticism & superstition, cruelty & falsehood, gradually
growing up & compacted, spreading with the Roman Empire all over
the world, in the name of Jesus & His Mother, mixed into a great
deal of goodness & charity & devotion all along, the Vatican
became what five centuries has shown it to be. Largely
it has extinguished liberty, & shut the Bible from the Eyes of
the people. In the Republic it is virtually despotic[?]. Yet, by the
grace of God, it has never lost those original marks of the
Body & Church of X., - Common worship, Creed, Sacraments or
Ministry, - tho' it has put into them all what I can find no
trace of in the New Testament. It has never Sundered -
as just of the Protestant demonstrations around us here, the grand
historical chain that links us with the Apostles, & it has
cherished the Essential Spirit.

With the love of many years, the Spirit of
a servant to all y'r wants, y'r attached
F D Huntington -

There is the sort of
occasion for my answer.