seen in the characters both of the Spanish King and Queen. Ferdinand's natural severity was turned into cruelty; Isabella's kindness was extinguished by Catholic zeal.-Happy it was for the world that the grandeur of the Spanish Monarchy was transient; and lamentable it is that it still has any power.

My dear Sir,

From Dr. Channing.

July 21st, 1840.

I was grateful to you for your letter of May, received a short time since, and yet I could not but regret, that you had made a painful effort. I write you, not to lay you under the least obligation to reply, but because you have expressed an interest in my letters. I feel, that you have a right to any alleviation of your sufferings I can give. Your experience differs from mine, for I have had little acute pain. I do not know that I ever suggested to you a fancy which has sometimes come into my head. I have thought, that by analyzing a pain, I have been able to find an element of pleasure in it. I have thought too that by looking a pain fully in the face and comprehending it, I have diminished its intensity. Distinct perception, instead of aggravating, decreases evil. This I have found when reading accounts of terrible accidents which have at first made me shudder. By taking them to pieces, and conceiving each part distinctly, I have been able to think of them calmly, and to feel that I too could pass through them. Sympathy increases by the process, but not fear. The sympathy weakens the personal fear; but this is not the whole explanation. The soul, by resisting the first shudder, and by placing itself near the terrible through an act of the will, puts forth energies which reveal it to itself,

and make it conscious of something within, mightier than suffering. The power of distinct knowledge in giving courage, I have never seen insisted on, and yet it is a part of my experience. The unknown, the vague, the dark, what imagination invests with infinity,—this terrifies—and the remark applies not to physical evils, but to all others. You speak in your letter of the relief you have found in music. Have you met a very curious book, "the Correspondence of a child with Goethe”? Her name was Bettini. I fell in with the work on a journey, and ran through it, omitting a good deal. It interested me as a psychologist, for it gives quite a new specimen of mind. A good deal in it relates to music, much of which I could not understand, and much which sounded like extravagance,but I felt that there was a truth at bottom, and I wanted to understand more. I am no musician, and want a good ear, and yet I am conscious of a power in music which I want words to describe. It touches chords, reaches depths, in the soul, which lie beyond all other influences,—extends my consciousness, and has sometimes given me a pleasure which I may have found in nothing else. Nothing in my experience is more mysterious, more inexplicable. An instinct has always led men to transfer it to Heaven, and I suspect, the Christian under its power has often attained to a singular consciousness of his immortality.-Facts of this nature make me feel, what an infinite mystery our nature is, and how little our books of science reveal it to us.

I was gratified in reading in the Christian Teacher an article on the Midsummer Night's Dream from your pen. You there speak of Don Quixote. That work has never produced its full effect on me, on account of my deep interest in the hero, which makes me indignant at the contumelious treatment he receives. I sympathise with and venerate the knight too much to laugh at him, and wish to join him in discomfiting his assailants. Was the author

aware of his work at the moment of beginning it? His first delineation of Quixote is that of a madman: you are not at all prepared for his loftiness of mind. Did not Cervantes start with the first conception, and lay out the adventures of his hero in correspondence with it—did not the nobler conception steal on him afterwards? Whether this suggestion has been made, I do not know, but the parts do not cohere in my mind. I love the Don too much to enjoy his history.

I still hope to hear that you have found relief. As I have told you, it gives me much pleasure to hear from you; but you must write only when you can find some pleasure in the exercise.

With respect, your sincere friend,

John xviii. 37, 38.-" To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.... Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again."

Here we have the representatives of two very numerous classes of men. Jesus declares his mission is to support Truth: Pilate seems to attribute little or no meaning to that name, and will not contend about it. Pilate's party is increasing very fast in our own times. There is, besides these two, another very important class-namely, the lovers of their own Truth. During what may be called the Church-Ages, the mass of the people were fanatically attached to the doctrines of the priesthood, and many would even sacrifice life rather than deny them. But this at

tachment to inherited tenets cannot be called love of Truth. Faith of that kind is only selfishness disguised. All men love their own Truth, as they love whatever they intimately connect with themselves. The genuine friend of Truth must be ready at all times to renounce whatever he may have embraced as such, provided he finds out that he was mistaken. Whoever subscribes to a Creed, renounces all claim to the title of lover of Truth. "Are we then to be constantly changing our tenets? What a confusion will follow! Society will be always in a state of uncertainty." I answer, Why should society depend, for order and peace, on such dogmas as constitute our creeds? Let society be guided by the nature of its own elements. Study the nature of man; investigate his social principles, and make wise laws accordingly. It is very absurd that the interests of human society should depend on the doctrines of the Trinity or Transubstantiation. If you build society upon such heterogeneous principles, the results must be equally mischievous and absurd. It will be worse than when the highest interests of mankind were regulated according to the position and mutual aspects of the stars.

July 31st.

It is my intention to employ whatever mental power may still be granted to me, in compiling a brief History of the Inquisition, availing myself of the historical materials contained in the extensive work of my unfortunate friend Llorente; and en

deavouring to add such observations as may, to a certain degree, make the composition my own.* The success of this undertaking is every way uncertain; but since I have the prospect of life (however undesirable) for some years, I will try not to throw away any portion of it which, by particular exertion, I may be able to apply usefully.

Here, however, the question occurs-Is a History of the Inquisition useful in our present circumstances? I think it may be made so. The spirit of the Inquisition is not dead: the Protestants themselves are actively fostering it, especially in England. I have already opposed this fearful tendency in my small work on Heresy and Orthodoxy; but there are few readers who can reduce general and abstract principles to practice. My little work requires the trouble of application on the part of the reader; and I fear there are not many that will take that trouble.

As the Inquisition, besides, has at all times directed its power against the progress of the human mind, the history of that Court is inseparable from the history of the progress of knowledge. The narrative of a long series of defeats endured by the noblest tendency of man-that which makes him pant after truth-is undoubtedly very melancholy; yet the unconquerable perseverance of that tendency, as it appears in its struggle against the united powers of craft and tyranny, fills the soul with an illimitable hope of daily increasing success.-If Heaven were to

[* Copious Notes were collected for this Work.]