James Russell Lowell and His Friends by Edward Everett Hale

I despair of making any person appreciate the ferment in which any young person moved who came into the daily life of Boston in the days when Lowell left college. I have tried more than once, and without the slightest success. But this reader must believe me that nobody was "indifferent" then, even if he do not understand why.

Here was a little community, even quaint in some of its customs, sure of itself, and confident in its future. Generally speaking, the men and women who lived in it were of the old Puritan stock. This means that they lived to the glory of God, with the definite public spirit which belongs to such life. They had, therefore, absolute confidence that God's kingdom was to come, and they saw no reason why it should not come soon. There were still some people, and one or two teachers in the pulpit and in what is technically called the religious press, who believed, or said they believed, that all men are born in sin and are incapable of good. But practically, and in general, the people of Boston believed in the infinite capacity of human nature, and they knew "salvation's free," and "free for you and me."