publication of a work like yours in America was far more delightful to me than its publication in England could have been. Nothing can be more important to the future welfare of mankind, than that God's people, serving Him in power and in love, and in a sound mind, should deeply influence the national character of the United States, which in many parts of the Union is undoubtedly exposed to influences of a very different description, owing to circumstances apparently beyond the control of human power and wisdom.

I request your acceptance of a volume of Sermons, most of which, as you will see, were addressed to boys or very young men, and which therefore coincide in intention with your own admirable book ". And at the same time I venture to send you a little work of mine on a different subject, for no other reason, I believe, than the pleasure of submitting my views upon a great question to the judgment of a mind furnished morally and intellectually as yours must be.

I have been for five years head of this school. [After describing the manner of its foundation and growth.] You may imagine, then, that I am engaged in a great and anxious labour, and must have considerable experience of the difficulty of turning the young mind to know and love f God in Christ.

I have understood that Unitarianism is becoming very prevalent in Boston, and I am anxious to know what the complexion of Unitarianism amongst you is. I mean whether it is Arian or Socinian, and whether its disciples are for the most part men of hard minds and indifferent to religion, or whether they are zealous in the service of Christ, according to their own notions of His claims upon their gratitude and love. It has been long my firm belief that a great proportion of Unitarianism might be cured by a wiser and more charitable treatment on the part of their

a His opinion of the Corner-stone is given in a note to the second Appendix of his third volume of Sermons, p. 440.

adversaries, if these would but consider what is the main thing in the Gospel, and that even truth is not always to be insisted upon, if by forcing it upon the reception of those who are not prepared for it, they are thereby tempted to renounce what is not only true, but essential—a character which assuredly does not belong to all true propositions, whether about things human or things divine.

LXXV. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN.

Rugby, November 8, 1833.

Would any good be likely to come of it, if I were one day to send you a specimen of such corrections in our authorized version of the Scriptures, such as seem to me desirable, and such as could shock no one. I have had, and am having daily, so much practice in translation, and am taking so much pains to make the boys vary their language and their phraseology, according to the age and style of the writer whom they are translating, that I think I may be trusted for introducing no words or idiom unsuited to the general style of the present translation, nothing to lessen the purity of its Saxon, or to betray a modern interpolation. My object would be to alter in the very language, as far as I could guess it, which the translators themselves would have used, had they only had our present knowledge of Greek. I think also that the results of modern criticism should so far be noticed, as that some little clauses, omitted in all the best MSS., should be printed in italics, and important various readings of equal or better authority than the received text, should be noticed in the margin. Above all, it is most important that the division into chapters should be mended, especially as regards the public reading in the Church, and that the choice of lessons from the Old Testament should be improved..

It is almost inconceivable to me that you should misunderstand any book that you read; and, if such a thing

does happen, I am afraid that it must be the writer's fault. But I cannot remember that I have altered my opinions since my Pamphlet (on the Catholic claims), nor do I see any thing there inconsistent with my doctrine (of Church and State) in the Postscript to the Pamphlet on Church Reform. I always grounded the right to Emancipation on the principle that Ireland was a distinct nation, entitled to govern itself. I know full well that my principles would lead to the establishment of the Roman Catholic religion in three-fourths of Ireland; but this conclusion was not wanted then, and the right to emancipation followed à fortiori from the right to govern themselves as a nation, without entering upon the question of the establishment. Those who think that Catholicism is idolatry, ought, on their own principles, to move heaven and earth for the repeal of the Union, and to let O'Connell rule his Kelts their own way. I think that a Catholic is a member of Christ's Church just as much as I am; and I could well endure one form of that Church in Ireland, and another in England. And if you look (it is to be found in the second volume of Voltaire's Siècle de Louis XIV.) for the four Articles resolved on by the Gallican Church in the middle of the seventeenth century, you will see a precedent and a means pointed out, whereby every Roman Catholic national Church may be led to reform itself; and I only hope that when they do they will reform themselves so far as to be thorough Christians, and avoid, as they would a dog or a viper, the errors which marred the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, destroying things most noble and most purifying, as well as things superstitious and hurtful. .

I will trust no man when he turns fanatic; and really these high churchmen are far more fanatical and much more foolish than Irving himself. Irving appealed to the gifts of tongues and of healing, which he alleged to exist in his congregation, as proofs that the Holy Spirit was with them; but the High Churchmen abandon reason, and

impute motives, and claim to be Christ's only Church,— and where are the "signs of an apostle" to be seen among them, or where do they pretend to show them?

LXXVI. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ.

Rugby, February 24, 1834.

I have, as usual, many things on hand, or rather in meditation; but time fails me sadly, and my physical constitution seems to require more sleep than it did, which abridges my time still more. Yet I was never better or stronger than I was in Westmoreland during the winter, or indeed than I am now. But I feel, more and more, that, though my constitution is perfectly sound, yet it is not strong; and my nervous system would soon wear me out if I lived in a state of much excitement. Body and mind alike seem to repose greedily in delicious quiet without dulness, which we enjoy in Westmoreland.

It is easier to speak of body and mind than of that which is more worth than either. I doubt whether we have enough of Christian Confession amongst us; the superstition of Popery in this, as in other matters, doubly injured the good which it corrupted; first by corrupting it, and then, "traitor like, by betraying it to the axe" of too hasty reformation. Yet surely one object of the Christian Church was to enable us to aid in bearing one another's burthens; not to enable a minister to pretend to bear those of all his neighbours. One is so hindered from speaking of one spiritual state, that one is led even to think of it less frequently than is wholesome. I am learning to think more and more how unbelief is at the bottom of all our evil; how our one prayer should be "Increase our faith." And we do fearfully live, as it were, out of God's atmosphere; we do not keep that continual consciousness of His reality which I conceive we ought to have, and which should make

a See Sermons, vol. iii. p. 313.

Him more manifest to our souls, than the Shechinah was to the eyes of the Israelites. I have many fresh sermons; and my wife wants another volume printed; but I do not think there would be enough of systematic matter to make a volume, and mere specimens of my general preaching I have given already. I trust you will come next week; life is too uncertain to admit of passing over opportunities. You have heard, probably, that Augustus Hare is likely soon to follow poor Lowe, and to lay his bones in Rome; he is far gone, they say, in a consumption. May God bless you, my dear Hull, in Jesus Christ, both, you and yours for ever.

LXXVII. TO REV. F. C. BLACKSTONE.

Rugby, February 26, 1834.

I often think what may be your views of the various aspects of things in general-to what notions you are more and more becoming wedded: for, though I think that men, who are lovers of truth, become less and less attached to any mere party as they advance in life, and certainly become, in the best sense of the word, more tolerant, yet their views also acquire greater range and consistency, and what they once saw as scattered truths, they learn to combine with one another, so as to make each throw light on the other; so that their principles become more fixed, while their likings or dislikings of particular persons or parties become more moderate.

Our residence in Westmoreland attaches us all to it more and more; the refreshment which it affords me is wonderful; and it is especially so in the winter, when the country is quieter, and actually, as I think, more beautiful than in summer. I was often reminded, as I used to come home to Grasmere of an evening, and seemed to be quite shut in by the surrounding mountains, of the comparison of the hills standing about Jerusalem, with God standing about His people. The impression, which the mountains