Cambridge Sept 14. 1863 My dear Mrs. Gibbons Even now I can hardly bring myself to believe that your pleasant home has been sacked by an infuriated mob, & that so many objects dear to you from long-cherished recollections have been plundered or destroyed. The fact & the circumstances attending it have all the inconveniences & inconsistencies of a distressing dream. I read Mr Frothingham’s sermon on the morality of the Mob with great satisfaction; but I could not follow him in all his attempts to palliate the conduct of its wretched instruments. The lowest of them entered into the work with a heartiness, which shows that they were animated by a satanic spirit. After all what is [struck through: Divine] truly Divine in man is not what he is by nature but what he is by training & culture. Say what we will of the dignity of human nature, a wild man is a wild beast, & a beast of prey. It is this grain of truth misunderstood. which has enabled the [?] dogma of hereditary & total [?] to maintain its power so long on the people's mind. Of course, this is only another reason for regarding the degraded subjected slaves with compassion, as well as with concern & anxiety. Still if a man (or woman) [underlined] is [/underlined] a devil, I do not see why we should not call him one, merely because we can account for his being one; & this too, though we are ready to labor & suffer & die to make him otherwise. But all such moralizing seems like a mockery of your trouble, in which, I can assure you, we have taken the deepest sympathy I hope to hear soon of your being happy "at home" again. At best, this whole affair is a strange mystery; & the mystery will indeed be inscrutable, if it should have the effect in the end to abridge your name either of comfort or of charity. glad to know that you, & all your family, progress the [?] which the exigency calls for, women which will turn evil into good. Our activities do much; but our sufferings do more; not only for ourselves, but also for others. One of the best proofs of Christianity is, that this doctrine runs through it, & is the key of its Founder's life & influence. I am happy to learn that so many of the souvenirs of your son, so dearly prized & so tenderly cared for, have been preserved; I regret extremely that those of your father are gone. A fellow feeling enables me to enter keenly into your husband's mourning for his books. But if he will pardon me the paradox, the thoroughness of the destruction has spared him one comfort; nothing has been left & reminded him of his loss. I say this seriously. Nobody can love his books more than I do mine; yet in thinking of the contingency of the house being burnt, I have almost wished that, in that event, they might all be burnt together; so that I might not afterwards have this sight of an odd or scorched volume to renew my grief. We are sorry that you could not pass a part of the summer in this neighborhood; as we should have given you a hearty welcome. My wife joins with me in the kindest remembrances to all your family. Very truly your friend Mrs Gibbons James Walker P.S. I sent a few days ago my [?] in a pamphlet form; but as in your unsettled state it may have failed to reach you, I send another herewith.