XL. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ.

Knutsford, December 16, 1831,

I want to write an Essay on the true use of Scripture; i. e. that it is a direct guide so far forth as we are circumstanced exactly like the persons to whom it was originally addressed; that where the differences are great, there it is a guide by analogy; i. e. if so and so was the duty of men so circumstanced, ergo, so and so is the duty of men circumstanced thus otherwise; and that thus we shall keep the Spirit of God's revelation even whilst utterly disregarding the letter, when the circumstances are totally different. E. g. the second commandment is in the letter utterly done away with by the fact of the Incarnation. To refuse then the benefit which we might derive from the frequent use of the crucifix under pretence of the Second Commandment is a folly, because God has sanctioned one conceivable simulitude of Himself, when He declared Himself in the person of Christ. The spirit of the commandment not to think unworthily of the Divine nature, nor to lower it after our own devices, is violated by all unscriptural notions of God's attributes and dealings with men, such as we see and hear broached daily, and, though in a less important degree, by those representations of God the Father which one sees in Catholic pictures, and by what Whately calls peristerolatry, the foolish way in which people allow themselves to talk about God the Holy Ghost, as of a dove. The applications of this principle are very numerous, and embrace, I think, all the principal errors both of the High Church and of the Evangelical party.

XLI. TO REV. G. CORNISH.

RYDAL!!! December 23, 1831.

We are actually here, and going up to Nabb's Scar presently, if the morning holds clear: the said Nabb's Scar being the mountain at whose foot our house stands; but you must not suppose that we are at Rydal Hall; it is only a house by the road-side, just at the corner of the lane that leads up to Wordsworth's house, with the road on one side of the garden, and the Rotha on the other, which goes brawling away under our windows with its perpetual music. The higher mountains that bound our view are all snow-capped, but it is all snug, and warm and green in the valley,-nowhere on earth have I ever seen a spot of more perfect and enjoyable beauty, with not a single object out of tune with it, look which way I will. In another cottage, about twenty yards from us, Capt. Hamilton, the author of Cyril Thornton, has taken up his abode for the winter; close above us are the Wordsworths; and we are in our own house a party of fifteen souls, so that we are in no danger of being dull. And I think it would be hard to say which of us all enjoys our quarters the most. We arrived here on Monday, and hope to stay here about a month from the present time.

It is indeed a long time since I have written to you, and these are times to furnish ample matter to write or to talk about. How earnestly do I wish that I could see you; it is the only ungratified wish, as to earthly happiness, of my most happy life, that I am so parted from so many of my dearest friends. .... [After speaking of objections which he had heard made to the appointment of Dr. Whately to the Archbish

opric of Dublin.] Now I am sure that in point of real essential holiness, so far as man can judge of man, there does not live a truer Christian than Whately; and it does grieve me most deeply to hear people speak of him as of a dangerous and latitudinarian character, because in him the intellectual part of his nature keeps pace with the spiritual-instead of being left, as the Evangelicals leave it, a fallow field for all unsightly creeds to flourish in. He is a truly great man-in the highest sense of the word, -and if the safety and welfare of the Protestant Church in Ireland depend in any degree on human instruments, none could be found, I verily believe, in the whole empire, so likely to maintain it. . . . . I am again publishing Sermons, with an essay at the tail, on the Interpretation of Scripture, embodying things that I have been thinking over for the last six or seven years; and which I hope will be useful to a class whose spiritual wants I am apt to think are sadly provided for--young men bringing up for other professions than the church, who share deeply in the intellectual activity of the day, and require better satisfaction to the working of their minds than I think is commonly given them.

XLII. TO THE SAME.

Rugby, February 15, 1832.

A letter from Tucker has this morning informed me of the heavy trial which has fallen upon you. I write, because I should wish to hear from you under similar circumstances, and because it is unnatural not to assure you at such a moment how dearly your friends at Rugby love you and your dear wife, and how truly they sympathize with your sorrow. Tucker's letter leaves us anxious both for your wife and for little Robert,-especially for the latter; it would be a great comfort to hear favourable accounts of them, if you could give them. I will not add one word more. May God strengthen and support you, my dear friend, and bless all His dispensations towards us both, through Jesus Christ.

XLIII. TO THE LADY FRANCIS EGERTON.

(On the subject of the conversion of a person with atheistical opinions.)

Rugby, February 15, 1832.

The subject of the letter which I have had the honour of receiving from you has so high a claim upon the best exertions of every Christian, that I can only regret my inability to do it justice. But in cases of moral or intellectual disorder, no less than of bodily, it is difficult to prescribe at a distance; so much must always depend on the particular constitution of the individual, and the peculiarly weak points in his character. Nor am I quite sure whether the case you mention is one of absolute Atheism, or of Epicurism; that is to say, whether it be a denial of God's existence altogether, or only of his moral government, the latter doctrine being, I believe, a favourite resource with those who cannot evade the force of the evidences of design in the works of Creation, and yet cannot bear to entertain that strong and constant sense of personal responsibility, which follows from the notion of God as a moral governor. At any rate, the great thing to ascertain is, what led to his present state of opinions; for the actual arguments, by which he would now justify them, are of much less consequence. The proofs of an intelligent and benevolent Creator are

given in my opinion more clearly in Paley's Natural Theology, than in any other book that I know, and the necessity of faith arising from the absurdity of skepticism on the one hand, and of dogmatism on the other, is shown with great power and eloquence in the first article of the second part of Pascal's "Pensées," a book, of which there is an English translation by no means difficult to meet with. In many cases the real origin of a man's irreligion is, I believe, political. He dislikes the actual state of society, hates the Church as connected with it, and, in his notions, supporting its abuses, and then hates Christianity because it is taught by the Church. Another case is, when a man's religious practice has degenerated, when he has been less watchful of himself and less constant and earnest in his devotions. The consequence is, that his impression of God's real existence, which is kept up by practical experience, becomes fainter and fainter; and in this state of things it is merely an accident that he remains nominally a Christian; if he happens to fall in with an antichristian book, he will have nothing in his own experience to set against the difficulties there presented to him, and so he will be apt to yield to them. For it must be always understood that there are difficulties in the way of all religion, such, for instance, as the existence of evil which can never be fairly solved by human powers; all that can be done intellectually is to point out the equal or greater difficulties of Atheism or skepticism; and this is enough to justify a good man's understanding in being a believer. But the real proof is the practical one; that is, let a man live on the hypothesis of its falsehood, the practical result will be bad; that is, a man's besetting and constitutional faults will not be checked; and some of his noblest feelings will be unexercised, so that if he be right in his opinions, truth and goodness are at variance with one another, and falsehood is far more favourable to our moral perfection than truth; which seems the most monstrous conclusion, which the human mind can possibly arrive at. It follows from this, that if I were talking with an Atheist, I should lay a great deal of stress on faith as a necessary condition of our nature, and as a gift of God to be earnestly sought for in the way which God has appointed, that is, by striving to do his will. For faith does no violence to our understanding; but the intellectual difficulties being balanced, and it being necessary to act on the one side or the other, faith determines a man to embrace that side which leads to moral and practical perfection; and unbelief leads him to embrace the opposite, or what I may call the Devil's religion, which is, after all, quite as much beset with intellectual difficulties as God's religion is, and morally is nothing but one mass of difficulties and monstrosities. You may say that the individual in question is a moral man, and you think not unwilling to be convinced of his errors; that is, he sees the moral truth of Christianity, but cannot be persuaded of it intellectually. I should say that such a state of mind is one of very painful trial, and should be treated as such; that it is a state of mental disease, which like many others is aggravated by talking about it, and that he is in great danger of losing his perception of moral truth as well as of intellectual, of wishing Christianity to be false as well as of being unable to be convinced that it is true. There are thousands of Christians who see the difficulties which he sees quite as clearly as he does, and who long as eagerly as he can do for that time when they shall know, even as they are known. But then they

see clearly the difficulties of unbelief, and know that even intellectually they are far greater. And in the meanwhile they are contented to live by faith, and find that in so doing, their course practically is one of perfect light; the moral result of the experiment is so abundantly satisfactory, that they are sure that they have truth on their side.

I have written a sermon rather than a letter, and perhaps hardly made myself intelligible after all. But the main point is, that we cannot, and do not pretend to remove all the intellectual difficulties of religion; we only contend that even intellectually unbelief is the more unreasonable of the two, and that practically unbelief is folly, and faith is wisdom. If I can be of any further assistance to you in your charitable labour, I shall be most happy to do my best.

XLIV. TO THE SAME.

Rugby, March 7, 1832.

I thank you for your last letter, and beg to assure you very sincerely, that I shall have great pleasure in placing myself under your directions with regard to this unhappy man; and as he would probably regard me with suspicion, on account of my profession, I think that you would act with the best judgment in alluding to me only in general terms, as you propose to do, without mentioning my name. But I say this merely with a view to the man's own feelings towards the clergy, and not from the slightest wish to have my name kept back from him, if you think that it would be better for him to be made acquainted with it. With respect to your concluding question, I confess that I believe conscientious atheism not to exist. Weakness of faith is partly constitutional, and partly the result of education and other circumstances; and this may go intellectually almost as far as skepticism; that is to say, a man may be perfectly unable to acquire a firm and undoubting belief of the great truths of religion, whether natural or revealed. He may be perplexed with doubts all his days, nay, his fears lest the Gospel should not be true, may be stronger than his hopes that it will. And this is a state of great pain, and of most severe trial, to be pitied heartily, but not to be condemned. I am satisfied that a good man can never get further than this; for his goodness will save him from unbelief, though not from the misery of scanty faith. I call it unbelief, when a man deliberately renounces his obedience to God, and his sense of responsibility to Him and this can never be without something of an evil heart rebelling against a yoke, which it does not like to bear. The man you have been trying to convert, stands in this predicament:-he says that he cannot find out God, and that he does not believe in Him; therefore he renounces His service, and chooses to make a god of himself. Now, the idea of God being no other than a combination of all the highest excellences that we can conceive, is so delightful to a good and sound mind, that it is misery to part with it; and such a mind, if it cannot discern God clearly, concludes that the fault is in itself that it cannot yet reach to God, not that God does not exist. You see there must be an assumption in either case, for the thing does not admit of demonstration, and the assumption that God is, or is not, depends on the degree of moral pain, which a man feels in relinquishing the idea of God. And here, I think, is the moral fault of unbelief:-that a man can bear to make so great a moral sacrifice, as is

implied in renouncing God. He makes the greatest moral sacrifice to obtain partial satisfaction to his intellect a believer insures the greatest moral perfection, with partial satisfaction to his intellect also; entire satisfaction to the intellect is, and can be, attained by neither. Thus, then, I believe, generally, that he who has rejected God, must be morally faulty, and therefore justly liable to punishment. But, of course, no man can dare to apply this to any particular case, because our moral faults themselves are so lessened or aggravated by circumstances to be known only by Him who sees the heart, that the judgment of those who see the outward conduct only, must ever be given in ignorance.

XLV. TO J. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ.

Rugby, April 5, 1832.

I could still rave about Rydal-it was a period of five weeks of almost awful happiness, absolutely without a cloud; and we all enjoyed it I think equally-mother, father, and fry. Our intercourse with the Wordsworths was one of the brightest spots of all; nothing could exceed their friendliness-and my almost daily walks with him were things not to be forgotten. Once, and once only, we had a good fight about the Reform Bill, during a walk up Greenhead Ghyll to see "the unfinished sheepfold" recorded in "Michael." But I am sure that our political disagreement did not at all interfere with our enjoyment of each other's society for I think that in the great principles of things we agreed very entirely-and only differed as to the rà Kat' Ɛkaota. We are thinking of buying or renting a place at Grasmere or Rydal, to spend our holidays at constantly; for not only are the Wordsworths and the scenery a very great attraction, but, as I had the chapel at Rydal all the time of our last visit, I got acquainted with the poorer people besides, and you cannot tell what a home-like feeling all of us entertain towards the valley of the Rotha. I found that the newspapers so disturbed me, that we have given them up, and only take one once a week; it only vexes me to read, especially when I cannot do any thing in the way of writing. But I cannot understand how you, appreciatiug so fully the dangers of the times, can blame me for doing the little which I can to counteract the evil. No one feels more than I do the little fruit which I am likely to produce; still I know that the letters have been read and liked by some of the class of men whom I most wish to influence; and besides, what do I sacrifice, or what do I risk? If things go as we fear, it will make very little difference whether I wrote in the Sheffield Courant or no, whereas, if God yet saves us, I may be abused, as I have been long since, by a certain party; but it is a mistake to suppose that either I or the school suffer by that. I quite think that a great deal will depend on the next three or four years, as to the permanent success of Rugby; we are still living on credit, but of course credit will not last for ever, unless there is something to warrant it. Our general style of composition is still bad, and where the fauit is, I cannot say; some of our boys, however, do beautifully; and one copy of Greek verses (lambics) on Clitumnus, which was sent in to me about a month ago, was one of the most beautiful school copies I ever saw. I should like to show it to you, or even to your brother Edward; for I do not think any of his pupils could write better—τοῦτο δὲ, ὡς ἑικὸς, σπάνιον.

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