Though she had never met her young cousin, Barns was happy to learn, from his father and sister, that he was “... engaged in the useful and pleasing theme of learning…I flatter myself you will make good improvement of what you learn. You are young, and now in the time to lay up in store a rich fund of knowledge and information, which may serve for use and entertainment, in a day of adversity, or in a more advanced period of life. I hope, therefore, you will attend closely to the cultivation of your mind; not only with regard to the various branches of literature, but also attend to the study of that pure and undefiled religion which is only acceptable in the sight of our heavenly Father. I am of opinion that a person, who possesses a well cultivated and virtuous mind, enlightened by the cheering rays of the gospel of our dear Lord and Saviour, enjoys an everlasting source of happiness within himself. Tho’ surrounded by misfortunes, he hardly feels the weight of their afflictions, and tho’ adversity aims her cruel shafts at his heart, the thing is scarcely perceptible, and when, by the cruel machinations of the wicked, he is deprived of his liberty and the society of his friends, and thrown into the most dark and solitary dungeon, he there enjoys company, light and freedom: tho’ health and fortune forsake him, he still possesses an inexhaustible fund of riches, and his consolation remains unbounded, and tho’ death, with all his horrors, stares him in the face, he is not affrightened, but bids a sincere welcome to the grim messenger, and cheerfully resigns his immortal soul into the hands of his God.

We were disappointed in not receiving any letters from you; and do let me ask, why you are so backward about writing letters? Particularly to your cousins - .

‘Has thou no friend to set thy mind abroad

Good sense will stagnate: thoughts shut up want air,

And spoil, like bales unopened to the sun.’

I doubt not but you have many pleasing thoughts and agreeable ideas, which might have been very entertaining, as well as edifying, had you been so generous as to have committed them to us: it might, likewise, have been of some advantage to yourselves, for

‘Teaching, we learn, and giving, we retain

The births of intellect, when dumb forgot.’

But I forbear to complain more, trusting you will be more liberal for the future.

I beg you will be so good as to present my grateful love and sincere respects to my honored grandma’am and aunt; may it be some consolation to them to know that, although I am sick, and surrounded with trials, thro’ the goodness of God, I enjoy that health and peace of mind which is far preferable to bodily health, or to all the riches of the East.

‘Tho’ sickness blasts my hopes of earthly bliss,

And sinks my feeble frame extremely low,

My soul on high ascends, and mounts the throne,

Where joys unencumbered from our Maker flow.’

I hope, and trust that they also, as well as yourselves possess that peace of mind, and faith in the gospel, which seems our happiness here, and furnishes us with the hopes of a happy immortality hereafter.

I do not forget cousin Elisabeth, she, also has a share in my regards, and good wishes for her happy welfare…”

This letter from a “frail, bedridden” young woman, written in the last months of her life, is remarkably mature and authoritative, given the patriarchal culture of America in the early years of the 19^th century in which she lived. Her iconoclastic religious views were, in fact, so powerfully espoused that she even “converted” her father, a Methodist Minister, to the Universalist theology. In a recent anthology, “Standing Before Us: Unitarian Universalist Women and Social Reform, 1776-1936”, a chapter is devoted to Barns, with excerpts from her writings, which were collected, after her death from asthma, a life-long affliction, in the booklet, “The Female Christian, Letters and Poems Principally on Friendship and Religion”. The biographical sketch in that chapter notes that her letters were “highly esteemed for the comfort and conviction of the truth of Universalism” and were “notable for their energy of faith, hope and love inspired by her trinitarian Universalist religion.” Universalism, which evolved into Unitarianism, held that all humans, whatever their religious belief, would eventually receive spiritual salvation.  Barns’ “heartfelt belief in God’s universal love for humankind” was a theological principle that later led many Universalists and Unitarians, such as William Ellery Channing, Maria Weston Chapman, Lydia Child, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Higginson, Harriet Martineau, Samuel May, Theodore Parker, and Henry Thoreau, to become passionate anti-slavery Abolitionists.

              The original printing of “The Female Christian¹” is very rare, but so esteemed by later Universalists that it was reprinted in Ohio in 1816 and again in 1904. Lucy Barns’ letters are of equal rarity. ArchiveGrid showing no institutional holdings of her correspondence.                               

1.     Shaw, R.R. American bibliography, 16950, Noyes, R.W. Bibliography of Maine imprints to 1820, 444, Skillin, G.B. Bibliography of Maine imprints 1785-1820, 09-09, Stoddard, R.E. Catalogue of books and pamphlets unrecorded in Oscar Wegelin's Early American poetry, 1650-1820, 12, Stoddard, R.E. Bibliographical description of books and pamphlets of American verse printed from 1610 through 1820, 883