deficient knowledge of my book, seeing how much requires to be known in order to write history well, and how soon in so many places the soil of my own knowledge is bored through, and there is the barren rock or gravel which yields nothing.

I could write on much, but my time presses. I am anxious to know your final decision as to a profession; but I do not like to attempt to influence you. Whatever be your choice, it does not much matter, if you follow steadily our great common profession, Christ's service. Alas! when will the Church ever exist in more than in name, so that this profession might have that zeal infused into it which is communicated by an "Esprit de Corps ;" and, if the "Body" were the real Church, instead of our abominable sects, with their half priestcraft, half profaneness, its "Spirit" would be one that we might desire to receive into all our hearts and all our minds.

CLX. TO THE REV. J. HEARN.

Rugby, September 25, 1837.

one.

I have to thank you for two very kind letters, as also for
Do you know that C

a volume of C's Sermons.
'was an old Oxford pupil of mine in 1815? and a man for whom I have a
great regard, though I am afraid he thinks me a heretic, and though he
has joined that party which, as a party, I think certainly to be a very bad
But, if you ever see C, I should be much obliged to you if you
would give him my kind remembrances. It grieves me to be so parted
as I am from so many men with whom I was once intimate. I feel and
speak very strongly against their party, but I always consider the party as
a mere abstraction of its peculiar character as a party, and as such I think
it detestable; but take any individual member of it, and his character is
made up of many other elements than the mere peculiarities of his party.
He may be kindhearted, sensible on many subjects, sincere, and a good
Christian, and therefore I may love and respect him, though his party as
such, that is, the peculiar views which constitute the bond of union
amongst its members,-I think to be most utterly at variance with Chris-
tianity. But I dare say many people, hearing and reading my strong
condemnations of Tories and Newmanites, think that I feel very bitterly
against all who belong to those parties; whereas-unless they are merely
Tories and Newmanites-I feel no dislike to them, and in many instances
love and value them exceedingly. Hampden's business seemed to me
different, as there was in that something more than theoretical opinions;
there was downright evil acting, and the more I consider it, the more
does my sense of its evil rise. Certainly, my opinion of the principal
actors in that affair has been altered by it towards them personally; I do
not say that it should make me forget all their good qualities, but I con-
sider it as a very serious blot in their moral character.
Bui

I did not mean to fill my letter with this, only the thought of C-Dided me remember how much I was alienated from many old friends,, blessing I wished to explain how I really felt about them, for I beliepicurean, and people think me to be very hard and very bitter; thine outward circumbelieve, unjustly. . inward, and other people

CLXI.

TO DR. GREENHILL.

Rugby, September 18, 1837.

I shall be anxious to hear what you think of Homœopathy, which my wife has tried twice with wonderful success, and I once with quite success enough to encourage me to try it again. Also I shall like to hear any thing fresh about Animal Magnetism, which has always excited my curiosity. But more than all, I would fain learn something of malaria, and about the causes of pestilential disease, particularly of Cholera. It is remarkable, that while all ordinary disease seems to yield more and more to our increased kowledge, pestilences seem still to be reserved by God for his own purposes, and to baffle as completely our knowledge of their causes, and our power to meet them, as in the earliest ages of the world. Indeed, the Cholera kills more quickly than any of the recorded plagues of antiquity; and yet a poison so malignant can be introduced into the air, and neither its causes nor its existence understood; we see only its effects. Influenza and Cholera, I observe, just attack the opposite parts of the system; the former fastening especially on the chest and sensorium, which are perfectly unaffected, I believe, in Cholera. As to connecting the causes of either with any of the obvious phenomena of weather or locality, it seems to me a pure folly to attempt it; as great as the folly of ascribing malaria to the miasmata of aquatic plants. I shall be very much interested in hearing your reports of the latest discoveries in these branches of science; Medicine, like Law, having always attracted me as much in its study as it has repelled me in practice; not that I feel alike towards the practice of both; on the contrary, I honour the one, as much as I abhor the other; the physician meddles with physical evil in order to relieve and abate it; the lawyer meddles with moral evil rather to aggravate it than to mend.

Yet the study of Law is, I think, glorious, transcending that of any earthly thing.

L

Rugby, November 18, 1837.

I trust that I need not assure you that I feel as deeply interested as any man can do in the welfare of our University, and most deeply should I grieve if any act of mine were to impair it. But then I am interested in the University, so far as it may be a means towards effecting certain great ends; if it does not promote these, it is valueless; if it obstruct them, it is actually pernicious. So far I know we are agreed; but then to my mind the whole good that the University can do towards the cause of general education depends on its holding manifestly a Christian character; if it does not hold this, it seems to me to be at once so mischievous, from giving its sanction to a most mischievous principle, that its evil will far outweigh its good. Now the education system in Ireland, thehich has yet been violently condemned by many good men, is Christian, in Arts, it is not Protestant or Catholic; their Scripture lessons give it has receiveistian character clearly and decisively. Now are we really for examining on afew Jews, who may like to have a Degree in Arts, or for because it is precisely two Mahomedans, who may possibly have the same properly constitutes educatiofish unbelievers, who dare not openly avow

themselves, are we to destroy our only chance of our being even either useful or respected as an Institution of national education? There is no difficulty with Dissenters of any denomination; what we have proposed has been so carefully considered, that it is impossible to pretend that it bears a sectarian character; it is objected to merely as being Christian, as excluding Jews, Turks, and misbelievers.

Now, considering the small numbers of the two first of these divisions, and that the last have as yet no ostensible and recognized exist tence, and that our Charter declares in the very opening that the end of our institution is the promotion of religion and morality,—I hold myself abundantly justified in interpreting the subsequent expressions as relating only to all denominations of Her Majesty's Christian subjects, and in that sense I cordially accede to them. Beyond that I cannot go, as I have not the smallest doubt that it is better to go on with our present system, with all its narrowness and deficiencies, than begin a pretended system of national education on any other than a Christian basis. As to myself, therefore, my course is perfectly clear. If our report be rejected on Wednesday,-I mean as to its Christian clauses,-1 certainly will not allow my name to be affixed to it without them; nor can I assist any farther in preparing a scheme of Examination which I should regard as a mere evil. It would be the first time that education in England was avowedly unchristianized for the sake of accommodating Jews or unbelievers; and as, on the one hand, I do not believe that either of these are so numerous as to be entitled to consideration even on points far less vital, so, if they were ever so numerous, it might be a very good reason why the national property should be given to their establishments and taken away from ours, but nothing could ever justify a compromise between us and them in such a matter as education.

I am quite sure that no earnest Christian would wish the Gospels and Acts, and the Scripture History, to be excluded, because they were in some instances understood differently. It was a sure mark of the false mother when she said, "Let the child be neither mine nor thine, but divide it" the real mother valued the child very differently. I can see, therefore, in this question, no persons opposed to us whom I should wish to conciliate, no benefits in the University, if it bears no mark of Christianity which I should think worth preserving. It will grieve me very much if we in the last result take a different view of this matter. . . . .

CLXIII.

TO THE REV. TREVENEN PENROSE,
(His brother-in-law.)

Rugby, November 20, 1837.

I have long since proposed to write to you, and at last I hope I shall be able to do it. I always read your additions to the Journal with great interest, and they never fail to awaken in me many thoughts of various kinds, but principally, I think, a strong sense of the blessing which seems to follow your father's house, and of the true peace, which, for seventeen years, I can testify, and I believe for many more, has continually abided with it. And this peace I am inclined to value above every other blessing in the world; for it is very far from the "Otium" of the Epicurean, and might indeed be enjoyed any where; but in your case outward circumstances seem happily to have combined with inward, and other people

have rarely, I believe, so large a portion of the one or the other. I am not disposed to quarrel with my own lot; nevertheless, it is not altogether peaceful, and this great concern oppresses me more as I grow older, and as I feel more deeply the evils I am powerless to quell. You see much hardness, perhaps, and much ignorance, but then you see also much softness, if nowhere else, yet among the sick; and you see much affection and self-denial amongst the poor, which are things to refresh the heart; but I have always to deal with health and youth and lively spirits, which are rarely soft or self-denying. And where there is little intellectual power, as generally there is very little, it is very hard to find any points of sympathy. And the effect of this prevalent mediocrity of character is very grievous. Good does not grow, and the fallow ground lies ready for all evil.

CLXIV. TO W. EMPSON, ESQ.

Rugby, November 28, 1837.

The whole question turns upon this-whether the country understood, and was meant to understand, that the University of London was to be open to all Christians without distinction, or to all men without distinction. The question which had been discussed with regard to Oxford and Cambridge, was the admissibility of Dissenters; which in common speech does not mean, I think, Dissenters from Christianity; no one argued, so far as I know, for the admission of avowed unbelievers. I thought that the University of London was intended to solve this question, and I therefore readily joined it. I thought that whatever difficulties were supposed to exist with respect to the introduction of the Greek Testament, related to Dissenters only, and, as such, I respected them; and our plan, therefore, waiving the Epistles, requires only some one Gospel and the Acts: that is, any one who is afraid of the Gospel of St. John, may take up St. Luke, or St. Mark; and St. Luke and the Acts have been translated by the Irish Board of Education, and are used in the Irish schools with the full consent of Catholics and Protestants; nor do I imagine that any Protestant Dissenters could consistently object to either. I do not see the force of the argument about the College in Gower Street; because we admit their students to be examined for degrees, we do not sanction their system, any more than we sanction the very opposite system of King's College. Nor does it follow, so far as I see, that University College must have a Professor of Theology, because we expect its members to have a knowledge of the elements of Christianity. University College hopes-or has not yet ventured to say it does not hope that its students are provided with this knowledge before they join it. But I should protest, in the strongest terms, against its being supposed that our University is to be merely an University College with a Charter: if so, undoubtedly I would not belong to it an hour. You say that we are bringing in the Greek Testament by a side wind, in putting it amongst the classical writers: but, if by Classics we mean any thing more than Greek and Latin Grammar, they are just the one part of our Examination which embraces points of general education; for instance, we have put in some recommendations about Modern History, which, if Classics be laken to the letter, are just as much of a departure from our province as what we have done about the Greek

Testament. On the whole, I am quite clear as to my original position, namely, that if you once get off from the purely natural ground of physical science, Philology, and pure Logic,-the moment, in short, on which you enter upon any moral subjects,-whether Moral Philosophy or History, you must either be Christian or Antichristian, for you touch upon the ground of Christianity, and you must either take it as your standard of moral judgment, or you must renounce it, and either follow another standard, or have no standard at all. In other words, again, the moment you touch on what alone is education,-the forming the moral principles and habits of man,-neutrality is impossible: it would be very possible, if Christianity consisted really in a set of theoretical truths, as many seem to fancy; but it is not possible, inasmuch as it claims to be the paramount arbiter of all our moral judgments; and he who judges of good and evil, right and wrong, without reference to its authority, virtually denies it. The Gower Street College I therefore hold to be Antichristian, inasmuch as it meddles with moral subjects, having lectures in History,-and yet does not require its Professors to be Christians. And so long as the Scriptures were held to contain divine truth on physical science, it was then impossible to give even physical instruction neutrally;-you must either teach it, according to God's principles, (it being assumed that God's word had pronounced concerning it,) or in defiance of them. I hope we may meet on Saturday: I know that you are perfectly sincere, and that L is so; nevertheless, I am persuaded that your argument goes on an over-estimate of the theological and abstract character of Christianity, and an under-estimate of it as a moral law; else how can L-talk of a clergyman being in a false position in belonging to the University, if he does not think that the position is equally false for every Christian; if it be false for me, it is false for you, except on the priestcraft notion, which is as unchristian, in my opinion, as the system in Gower Street. Indeed, the two help one another well.

CLXV. TO J. C. PLATT, ESQ.

Rugby, December 6, 1837.

I am afraid that I did no service to the Hertford Reformer; for what I sent them was, I knew, too general and discursive for a newspaper but they would insert all my articles, and I felt that they would not thank me for any more such, and I thought that I could not manage to write what really would be to their purpose. You must not misunderstand me, as if I thought my writings were too good for a newspaper; it is very much the contrary, for I think that a newspaper requires a more condensed and practical style than I am equal to,-such, perhaps, as only habit and mixing more in the actual shock of opinions can give a man.My writing partakes of the character of my way of life, which is very much retired from the highway of politics, and of all great discussions, though it is engaged enough with a busy little world of its own. . .

I was much gratified in the summer by going over to France for about ten days, at the end of the holidays, with my wife and three eldest children. Seven years had elapsed since I had been in France last, so that many things had quite an appearance of novelty, and I fancied that I could trace the steady growth of every thing from the continuance of peace, and the absence of most of those evils which in times past so inter