for a clergyman, and to procure for him a definitely marked district as his cure. The real Church being thus founded, if money can also be procured for the material Church, so much the better. If not, I would wish to see any building in the district licensed for the temporary performance of Divine Service, feeling perfectly sure that the zeal and munificence of the congregation would in the course of years raise a far more ornamental building than can ever be raised by public subscription; and that, in the mean time, there might be raised by subscription an adequate fund for the maintenance of a clergyman; whereas, on the present system, it seems perfectly hopeless by any subscriptions in one generation to provide both clergymen and churches in numbers equal to the wants of the country.

I should not have troubled you with my opinions, which I am aware are of no importance to you, did I not wish to explain the reason which makes me, in such cases, always desirous of contributing to the endowment of a minister rather than to the building.

CCXI. TO THE REV. DR. HAWKINS.

Fox How, December 29, 1839.

It

I retained the benefit of my continental tour throughout the half-year, insomuch that at the very end of it, after the examination, I felt as if I was not entitled to my vacation, because I was so perfectly untired by my past work. This alone could tell you that the school had *** gone on quietly, as indeed was the case. seems to me that people are not enough aware of the monstrous state of society, absolutely without a parallel in the history of the world,-with a population poor, miserable, and degraded in body and mind, as much as if they were slaves, and yet called freemen, and having a power as such of concerting and combining plans of risings, which makes them ten times more dangerous than slaves. And the hopes entertained by many of the effects to be wrought by

new churches and schools, while the social evils of their condition are left uncorrected, appear to me to be utterly wild. Meanwhile here, as usual, we seem to be in another world, for the quietness of the valleys and the comparative comfort and independence of this population are a delightful contrast to what one finds almost everywhere else. We have had heavy rains and a flood, but now both are gone, and the weather is beautiful, and the country most magnificent-snow on all the high hills, but none on the low hills or in the valleys.

CCXII. TO JAMES MARSHALL, ESQ.

Fox How, January 1, 1840.

I may be wrong as to the necessity of gaining more information, but I think I am not wrong in wishing to secure a more extensive and universal cooperation, before any thing is ventured remedially.—I would join half a dozen men, or even fewer, if the object be merely to collect and circulate facts such as may fix the public attention; but, if more be proposed to be done, I dread the thing's assuming a party character, and I could not myself undertake to sanction a sort of political mission system, without knowing more exactly than I can well expect to know, the characters and discretion and opinions of the agents to be employed. And, even if I could depend on these, yet I do not think that they could be successful, for the evil is far deeper, as I believe, than can be cured without the aid of the Government and Legislature. I quite agree with you in the wisdom of forming local societies and a general Central Society; and I should wish the local societies to consist of men of all classes, including certainly the working classes; every possible information collected by such societies would be most valuable, but why should they go on to the farther step of endeavouring by tracts or missionaries to influence the. mass of the working classes, or to propose remedies? For

instance, in Leeds I can conceive that benevolent men among the highest Conservatives, and among the clergy especially, would join a Society which really only sought to collect information; but they could not, and would not, if it endeavoured to do more, because the differences of opinion between you and them render it impossible for you to agree in what you should disseminate. The Society would therefore consist, I think, exclusively of men of what is called the Liberal party, and principally of Dissenters; and this would be, I think, a great pity, and would cripple our operations sadly. I confess I am very suspicious of bodies of men belonging all to one party, even although that party be the one with which I should in the main myself agree, and for this reason, I as little like the composition of the University of London, as I do that of the University of Oxford.

CCXIII. TO THE REV. J. HEARN.

Fox How, Ambleside, January 5, 1840.

I must not let more of my time at Fox How pass away without writing to you, for I wish much to know how you are, and how you bear the winter. Your letter of September 7th, gave me a better account of you than your former note had done, and I was very glad to learn that you were better. Still you did not write as if you were quite well, and I do not like to hear of any disorder or languor hanging about you, however slight; for you are not old enough to feel any natural decay, and slight indisposition requires to be watched, lest it should become serious. But I love to think of the quiet of Hatford for you, which, if your complaints are bodily merely, must be very good for you; if you feel any nervousness or oppression of spirits, then I suspect a little more of the stir of life would be very good for you; and we should be delighted to see you and Mrs. Hearn and your little ones at Rugby, where you might have enough

of movement around you, and yet might be yourself as much at rest as you chose. I sometimes think, that if I were at all in nervous spirits, the solemn beauty of this valley would be almost overwhelming, and that brick streets and common hedgerows would be better for me; just as now, whilst whilst my life is necessarily so stirring, and my health so good, there is an extreme delight in the peacefulness of our life here, and in the quiet of all around us. Last night we were out on the gravel walk for nearly half an hour, watching the northern lights. I never saw them so beautiful; the sky in the north behind the mountains was all of a silvery light, while in other parts it was dark as usual, and all set with its stars; then, from the mass of light before us, there shot up continually long white pillars or needles, reaching to the zenith; and then again, fleeces of light would go quivering like a pulse all over the sky, till they died away in the far south. And to-day there is not a cloud to be seen, and the mountain before our windows reflects the sun's light upon us like a great mirror, we ourselves being in the shade, for the sun soon sets on this side of the valley.

P. S. . . . Have you seen Taylor's book on Early Christianity? With much allowance for an unpleasant manner, and some other faults, yet I think he is right in his main point, that the question at issue is really one of Christianity or of the Church system. . Because I believe the New Testament to represent Christianity truly, therefore I reject the Church system, and I think that the Church of England does exactly the same thing for the same reason. But that the Church has always faithfully preserved the Christian doctrine in other points, and much of the purity of Christian holiness, I acknowledge thankfully; and therefore, although I think that in one point Antichrist was in the Church from the first century, yet God forbid that I should call the Church Antichrist. It preserved much truth and much holiness, with one fatal error, subversive, indeed, in its consequences, both of

truth and goodness, but which has not always developed its full consequences, nor was even distinctly conscious of its own ground. But that the modern Newmanites are far worse than the early Church writers is certain, and many of their doctrines are disclaimed and condemned by those writers; only in their peculiar system, they are the development of that error which, in the early Church, existed in the bud only; and which, as being directly opposed to our Lord's religion, as taught by Him and His Apostles, I call Antichrist.

CCXIV. TO J. C. PLATT, ESQ.

Fox How, January 12, 1840. It is a very long time since I have written to you; your last letter to me being dated, I am ashamed to say, nearly a year ago. But I intended to write to you from this place in the summer; and then my stay here was so short that I had no time for any thing, the greater part of my holidays having been passed on the Continent.

I think that I have to thank you for introducing so much of my little Lecture, on the Divisions of Knowledge, into the Penny Magazine. I printed it, thinking that it might be useful to the members of Mechanics' Institutions; but having printed it at Rugby, and no publisher having an interest in it, and it not having been advertised, it has had, I suppose, but a very limited circulation. I was very glad therefore to see such large extracts from it in the Penny Magazine, which must have brought it to the knowledge of many readers, although perhaps not exactly of that class for whom I most designed it.

I shall be very glad if you can give me good accounts of yourself and all your family. Our life goes on with very little variety beyond its own even alternations of vacation and half-year; and I could be too happy if private comfort did not seem almost inconsistent with justice, while the state of public affairs is so troubled. If