published a Lecture delivered in 1838 before the Mechanics' Institute at Rugby, on the Divisions of Knowledge; "feeling that while it was desirable on the one hand to encourage Mechanics' Institutes, on account of the good which they can do, it was no less important to call attention to their necessary imperfections, and to notice that great good which they cannot do." His "Two Sermons on Prophecy, with Notes," which were published in the same year, and which form the most complete and systematic of any of his fragments on Exegetical Theology, he regarded as a kind of peace offering, "in which it was his earnest desire to avoid as much as possible all such questions as might engender strife,—that is to say, such as are connected with the peculiar opinions of any of the various parties existing within the Church." And it must have been a pleasure to him to witness the gradual softening of public feeling towards himself, not the least perhaps in that peaceful visit of one day to Oxford, to see his friends the Chevalier Bunsen and the aged poet Wordsworth receive their degrees at the Commemoration of 1839, when he also had the opportunity of renewing friendly connexions, which the late unhappy divisions had interrupted.

His wish for a closer sympathy and union of efforts amongst all good men was further increased, when, in 1839-40, his attention was again called to the social evils of the country, as betraying themselves in the disturbances of Chartism, and the alarm which had possessed him in 1831-32 returned, though in a more chastened form, never to leave him. It haunts me," he said, "I may almost say night and

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day. It fills me with astonishment to see antislavery and missionary societies so busy with the ends of the earth, and yet all the worst evils of slavery and of heathenism are existing amongst ourselves. But no man seems so gifted, or to speak more properly, so endowed by God with the spirit of wisdom, as to read this fearful riddle truly; which most Sphinx-like, if not read truly, will most surely be the destruction of us all." To awaken the higher orders to the full extent of the evil, was accordingly his chief practical aim, whether in the Letters which he addressed to the "Hertford Reformer," or in his attempts to organize a Society for that purpose, as described in the ensuing correspondence. "My fear with regard to every remedy that involves any sacrifices to the upper classes, is, that the public mind is not yet enough aware of the magnitude of the evil to submit to them. Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed,' was the question put to Pharaoh by his counsellors; for unless he did know it, they were aware that he would not let Israel go from serving him."

Most of all were these feelings exemplified in his desire, now more strong than ever, for the revival of what he believed to be the true idea of the Church. "I am continually vexed," he writes in 1840, "at being supposed to be a maintainer of negatives—an enemy to other systems or theories, with no positive end of my own. I have told you how it wearies me to be merely opposing Newmanism, or this thing or that thing; we want an actual truth, and an actual good. I wish to deliver myself, if I can, of my positive notions,-to state that for which

I long so eagerly; that glorious Church which Antichrists of all sorts hate and are destroying. If any one would join me in this, I should rejoice; many more, I feel sure, would agree with me, if they saw that the truth was not destructive nor negative, but most constructive, most positive." His desire for removing any particular grievances in the ecclesiastical system was proportionably diminished. The evil to be abated, the good to be accomplished, appeared to him beyond the reach of any single measure; and, though in 1840 he signed a Petition for alteration in the subscription to the Liturgy and Articles, yet it had so little bearing on his general views as not to be worth mention here, except for the purpose of explaining any misapprehension of his doing so. It was planned and drawn up entirely without his participation, and was only brought to his notice by the accident of two of the principal movers being personal friends of his own. Whatever scru

a

ples he had once had on the subject, had been long

a In connexion with this subject, it may be as well to recur to a previous passage in his life, which only came to my knowledge within the last year, and which this and other accidental hindrances prevented from appearing in its proper place. The graver difficulties, which Mr. Justice Coleridge has noticed as attending his first Ordination, never returned after the year 1820, when he seems to have arrived at a complete conviction both of his conscience and understanding, that there was no real ground for entertaining them. But, during the inquiries which he prosecuted at Laleham, there arose in his mind scruples on one or two minor questions, which appeared to him for a long time to present insuperable obstacles to his taking any office which should involve a second subscription to the Articles. "I attach," he said, "no importance to my own difference, except that, however trifling be the point, and however gladly I would waive it altogether, still, when I am

since set at rest; and it was merely from its unwillingness to let others bear alone what he conceived

required to acquiesce in what I think a wrong opinion upon it, I must decline compliance." On these grounds he long hesitated to take Priest's Orders, at least unless he had the opportunity of explaining his objections to the Bishop who ordained him and it was in fact on this condition that, after his appointment to Rugby, whilst still in Deacon's orders, he consented to be ordained by the Bishop of his diocese, at that time Dr. Howley; as appears from the following extracts from letters, of which the first states his intention with regard to another situation in 1826, which he fulfilled in 1828, in the interval between his election at Rugby, and his entrance upon his office. 1. "As my objections turn on points which all, I believe, would consider immaterial in themselves, I would consent to be ordained, if any Bishop would ordain me on an explicit statement of my disagreement on those points. If he would not, then my course would be plain; and there would be an end of all thought of it at once." 2. "I shall, I believe, be ordained Priest on Trinity Sunday, being ordained by the Bishop of London. I wished to do this, because I wished to administer the Sacrament in the chapel at Rugby, and, because as I shall have in a manner the oversight of the chaplain, I thought it would be scarce seemly for me as a Deacon, to interfere with a Priest; and after a long conversation with the Bishop of London, I do not object to be ordained.”

This was the last time that he was troubled with any similar perplexities; and in later years, as appears from more than one letter of this period, he thought that he had, in his earlier life, overrated the difficulties of subscription. The particular subject of his scruples arose from his doubt, founded chiefly on internal evidence, whether the Epistle to the Hebrews did not belong to a period subsequent to the Apostolical age. It may be worth while to mention, that this doubt was eventually removed by an increased study of the Scriptures, and of the early Christian writers. In the ten last years of his life he never hesitated to use and apply it as one of the most valuable parts of the New Testament: and his latest opinion was inclining to be the belief that it might have been written, not merely under the guidance of St. Paul, but by the Apostle himself.

to be an unjust odium, that he joined in a measure, from which he would at this period have been naturally repelled, both by his desire to allay those suspicions against him which he was now so anxious to remove, and by his conviction that the objects which he most wished to attain lay entirely in another direction.

But in proportion to the strength of his belief that these objects, whether social or religious, lay beyond the reach of any single measure, or of any individual efforts, was the deep melancholy which possessed him, when he felt the manifold obstacles to their accomplishment. His favourite expression ἐχθίστη ὀδύνη πολλὰ φρονέοντα πὲρ μηδένος κρατέειν, -"the bitterest of all griefs, to see clearly and yet to be able to do nothing,"-might stand as the motto of his whole mind, as often before in his life, so most emphatically now. The Sermon on "Christ's Three Comings," in the fifth volume, preached in 1839, truly expresses his sense of the state of public affairs; -and in looking at the general aspect of the religious world, "When I think of the Church," he wrote in 1840, "I could sit down and pine, and die." And it is remarkable to observe the contrast between the joyous tone of his sermons on Easter Day, as the birthday of Christ's Religion, and the tone of subdued and earnest regret which marks those on Whit Sunday, as the birthday of the Christian Church:"Easter Day we keep as the birthday of a living friend; Whit Sunday we keep as the birthday of a dead friend.”

Of these general views, the fourth volume of Sermons, entitled "Christian Life, its Course, its Helps,