rience. It is manifest that the sole difficulty in the subject of your perplexity is merely the origin of moral evil, and it is manifest also that this difficulty equally affects things actually existing around us. Yet if the sight of wickedness in ourselves or others were to lead us to perplex ourselves as to its origin, instead of struggling against it and attempting to put an end to it, we know that we should be wrong, and that evil would thrive and multiply on such a system of conduct.

This would have been the language of a heathen Stoic or Academician, when an Epicurean beset him with the difficulty of accounting for evil without impugning the power or the goodness of the gods. And I think that this language was sound and practically convincing, quite enough so to show that the Epicurean objection sets one upon an error, because it leads to practical absurdity and wickedness. But I think that with us the authority of Christ puts things on a different footing. I know nothing about the origin of evil, but I believe that Christ did know; and as our common sense tells us, that we can strive against evil and sympathize in punishment here, although we cannot tell how there comes to be evil, so Christ tells us that we may continue these same feelings to the state beyond this life, although the origin of evil is still a secret to us. And I know Christ to have been so wise and so loving to men, that I am sure I may trust His word, and that what was entirely agreeable to His sense of justice and goodness, cannot, unless through my own defect, be otherwise than agreeable to mine.

Further, when I find Him repelling all questions of curiosity, and reproving in particular such as had a tendency to lead men away from their great business, the doing good to themselves and others,-I am sure that if I stood before Him, and said to Him," Lord, what can I do? for I cannot understand how God can allow any to be wicked, or why He should not destroy them, rather than let them exist to suffer;" that His mildest answer would be," What is that to thee-follow thou me." But if He, who can read the heart, knew that there was in the doubt so expressed any thing of an evil heart of unbelief-of unbelief that had grown out of carelessness, and from my not having walked watchfully after Him, loving Him, and doing His will,-then I should expect that He would tell me, that this thought had come to me, because I neither knew Him nor His Father, but had neglected and been indifferent to both; and then I should be sure that He would give me no explanation or light at all, but would rather make the darkness thicker upon me, till I came before Him not with a speculative doubt, but with an earnest prayer for His mercy and His help, and with a desire to walk humbly before Him, and to do His will, and promote His kingdom. This, I believe, is the only way to deal with those disturbances of mind which cannot lead to truth, but only to perplexity. Many persons, I am inclined to think, endure some of these to their dying day, well aware of their nature, and not sanctioning them by their will, but unable to shake them off, and enduring them as a real thorn in the flesh, as they would endure the far lighter trials of sickness or outward affliction. But they should be kept, I think, to ourselves, and not talked of even to our nearest friends, when we once understand their true nature. Talking about them gives them a sort of reality which otherwise they would not have; just like talking about our dreams. We should act and speak, and try to feel as if they had no existence, and then

in most cases they do cease to exist after a time; when they do not, they are harmless to our spiritual nature, although I fully believe that they are the most grievous affliction with which human nature is visited.

Of course, what I have here said relates only to such questions as cannot possibly be so answered as to produce even entire intellectual satisfaction, much less moral advantage. I hold that Atheism and pure Skepticism are both systems of absurdity; which involves the condemnation of hypotheses leading to either of them as conclusions. For Atheism separates truth from goodness, and Skepticism destroys truth altogether; both of which are monstrosities, from which we should revolt as from a real madness. With my earnest hopes and prayers that you may be relieved from what I know to be the greatest of earthly trials, but with a no less earnest advice, that, if it does continue, you will treat it as a trial, and only cling the closer, as it were, to that perfect Saviour, in the entire love and truth of whose nature all doubt seems to melt away, and who, if kept steadily before our minds, is, I believe, most literally our Bread of Life, giving strength and peace to our weakness and distractions.

CVI. TO ONE OF THE SIXTH FORM, THREATENED WITH CONSUMPTION.

Fox How, July 31, 1835.

I fear that you will have found your patience much tried by the return of pain in your side, and the lassitude produced by the heat: it must also be a great trial not to be able to bear reading. I can say but little of such a state from my own experience, but I have seen much of it, and have known how easy and even happy it has become, partly by time, but more from a better support, which I believe is never denied when it is honestly sought. And I have always supposed that the first struggle in such a case would be the hardest; that is, the struggle in youth or middle age, of reconciling ourselves to the loss of the active powers of life, and to the necessity of serving God by suffering rather than by doing. Afterwards, I should imagine the mind would feel a great peace in such a state, in the relief afforded from a great deal of temptation and responsibility, and the course of duty lying before it so plain and so simple.

CVII. TO REV. F. C. BLACKSTONE.

Fox How, July 28, 1835. Next week we probably shall return to Warwickshire, and I expect the unusual circumstance of being at Rugby for a fortnight in the holidays, a thing which in itself I shall be far from regretting, though I certainly am not anxious to hasten away from Westmoreland. But I often look at the backs of my books with such a forlorn glance during the half-year, it being difficult then to read consecutively,—that I rather hail the prospect of being able to employ a few mornings in some The school will become more and more enemployment of my own. grossing, and so it ought to be, for it is impossible ever to do enough in it. Yet I think it essential that I should not give up my own reading, as I always find any addition of knowledge always to turn to account for the school in some way or other. I fear, however, that I am growing

less active; and I find myself often more inclined to read to the children, or to amuse myself with some light book after my day's work at Rugby, than to enter on any regular employment.

My volume of Sermons connected with Prophecy is still waiting, but I hope that it may come out before the winter. It is a great joy to me to think that it will not give offence to any one, but will at any rate, I trust, be considered as safe, and as far as it goes, useful. I have no pleasure in writing what is unacceptable, though I confess that, the more I study any subject, the more it seems to me to require to be treated differently from the way in which it has been treated. It is grievous to think how much has been written about things with such imperfect knowledge, or with such narrow views, as leaves the whole thing to be done again. Not that I mean that it can be so done in our time, as to leave nothing for posterity:-on the contrary, we know how imperfect our own knowledge is, and how much requires yet to be learned. Still in this generation an immense step has been made, both in knowledge and in large and critical views; and this makes the writings of a former age so unsatisfactory. In reading them I never can feel satisfied that we have got to the bottom of a question.

I was very much delighted to have staying at Rugby for nearly a week with us in the spring. I had not had any talk with him since he was my pupil at Laleham. I was struck with the recoil of his opinions towards Toryism, or at any rate half-Toryism,-a result which I have seen in other instances, where the original anti-Tory feeling was what I call "popular" rather than "liberal," and took up the notion of liberty rather than of improvement. I do not think that Liberty can well be the idol of a good and sensible mind after a certain age. My abhorrence of Conservatism is not because it checks liberty,-in an established democracy it would favour liberty;-but because it checks the growth of mankind in wisdom, goodness and happiness, by striving to maintain institutions which are of necessity temporary, and thus never hindering change, but often depriving the change of half its value.

CVIII. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE.

Rugby, July 1, 1835.

I thank you most heartily for both your affectionate letters. When I suspect you of unkindness, or feel offended with any thing that you say or write to me, I must have cast off my nature indeed very sadly. Be assured that there was nothing in your first letter which you could wish unwritten, nothing that was not written in the true spirit of friendship. I was vexed only thus far, that I could not explain many points to you, which I think would have altered your judgment as to the facts of the case. My dear friend, I know and feel the many great faults of my life and practice; and grieve more than I can say, not to have more intercourse with those friends who used to reprove me, I think, to my great benefit-I am sure without ever giving me offence. But I cannot allow that those opinions, which I earnestly believe, after many years' thought and study, to be entirely according to Christ's mind, and most tending to His glory, and the good of His Church, shall be summarily called heretical; and it is something of a trial to be taxed with perverting

my boys' religious principles, when I am labouring, though most imperfectly, to lead them to Christ in true and devoted faith; and when I hold all the scholarship that ever man had, to be infinitely worthless in comparison with even a very humble degree of spiritual advancement. And I think that I have seen my work in some instances blessed ;-not, I trust, to make me proud of it, or think that I have any thing to be satisfied with, yet so far as to make it very painful to be looked upon as an enemy by those whose Master I would serve as heartily, and whom, if I dare say it, I love with as sincere an affection as they do.

God bless you, and thank you for all your kindness to me always.

CIX. TO C. J. VAUGHAN, ESQ.

Rugby, September 9, 1835.

It is very hard to know what to say of Hatch as to his bodily health, because, though appearances are unfavourable, Dr. Jephson still speaks confidently of his recovery; but it is not hard to know what to say of his mind, which, I believe, is quite what we could wish it to be. He always seemed to me a most guileless person when in health, -guileless and living in the fear of God,-in such circumstances sickness does but feed and purify the flame, which was before burning strong and brightly. He will be delighted to hear from you, and would be interested by any Cambridge news that you could send him, for I think he must find himself often in want of amusement, and of something to vary the day. I am glad that you have made acquaintance with some of the good poor. I quite agree with you that it is most instructive to visit them, and I think that you are right in what you say of their more lively faith. We hold to earth and earthly things by so many more links of thought, if not of affection, that it is far harder to keep our view of heaven clear and strong; when this life is so busy, and therefore so full of reality to us, another life seems by comparison unreal. This is our condition, and its peculiar temptations; but we must endure it, and strive to overcome them, for I think we may not try to flee from it.

I have begun the Phædo of Plato with the Sixth, which will be a great delight to me. There is an actual pleasure in contemplating so perfect a management of so perfect an instrument as is exhibited in Plato's language, even if the matter were as worthless as the words of Italian music; whereas the sense is only less admirable in many places than the language. I am still in distress for a Latin book, and wish that there were a cheap edition of Bacon's Instauratio Magna. I would use it, and make it useful in point of Latinity, by setting the fellows to correct the style where it is cumbrous or incorrect. As to Livy, the use of reading him is almost like that of the drunken Helot. It shows what history should not be in a very striking manner; and, though the value to us of much of ancient literature is greatly out of proportion to its intrinsic merit, yet the books of Livy which we have, relate to a time so uninteresting, that it is hard even to extract a value from them by the most complete distillation; so many gallons of vapid water scarcely hold in combination a particle of spirit.

CX. TO CHEVALIER BUNSEN.

Rugby, September 21, 1835.

I have been and am working at two main things, the

Roman History and the nature and interpretation of Prophecy. For the first I have been working at Hannibal's Passage of the Alps. How bad a geographer is Polybius, and how strange that he should be thought a good one! Compare him with any man who is really a geographer, with Herodotus, with Napoleon,-whose sketches of Italy, Egypt, and Syria, in his memoirs, are to me unrivalled, or with Niebuhr, and how striking is the difference. The dulness of Polybius' fancy made it impossible for him to conceive or to paint scenery clearly, and how can a man be a geographer without lively images of the formation and features of the country which he describes? How different are the several Alpine valleys, and how would a few simple touches of the scenery which he seems actually to have visited, yet could neither understand nor feel it, have decided for ever the question of the route! Now the account suits no valley well, and therefore it may be applied to many; but I believe the real line was by the Little St. Bernard, although I cannot trace those particular spots, which De Luc and Cramer fancy they could recognize. I thought so on the spot, (i. e. that the spots could not be traced,) when I crossed the Little St. Bernard in 1825, with Polybius in my hand, and I think so still. How much we want a physical history of countries, tracing the changes which they have undergone either by such violent revolutions as volcanic phenomena, or by the slower but not less complete change produced by ordinary causes; such as alterations of climate occasioned by inclosing and draining; alteration in the course of rivers, and in the level of their beds; alteration in the animal and vegetable productions of the soil, and in the supply of metals and minerals; noticing also the advance or retreat of the sea, and the origin and successive changes in the number and variation in the line of roads, together with the changes in the extent and character of the woodlands. How much might be done by our Society at Rome if some of its attention were directed to these points: for instance, drainage and an alteration in the course of the waters have produced great changes in Tuscany; and there is also the interesting question as to the spread of malaria in the Maremme.

CXI. TO J. P. GELL, ESQ.

Rugby, September 30, 1835. My situation here, if it has its anxieties, has also many great pleasures, amongst the highest of which are such letters as that which you have had the kindness to write to me. I value it indeed very greatly, and sincerely thank you for it. I had been often told that I should know you much more after you had left Rugby, than I had ever done before, and your letter encourages me to hope that it will be so. You will not think that it is a mere form of civil words, when I say we shall be very glad to see you here, if you can take us in your way to Cambridge, or in Westmoreland in the winter, if you do not start at the thought of a Christmas among the mountains. But I can assure you that you will find them most beautiful in their winter dress, and the valleys very humanized. I have just seen, but not read, the second number of the Rugby Magazine. I have an un