tion, or have seen any reason to alter your views about it. The intolerance of their presumption in calling themselves the only true Church, would, to my mind, go very near to decide against them; but in all respects they seem to me to resemble those fanatical sects, which have from time to time arisen, and will do so to the end of the world. But with regard to the cessation of the miraculous powers in the Church, which I think at first sight is startling, I am inclined to believe that it is truly accounted for by the supposition that none but the Apostles ever conferred these gifts, and that therefore they ceased of course after one generation. I do not think that the state of the Apostolical Churches was so pure, or that of the Churches in the next century so degenerate, as to account for the withdrawal of the gifts as a sign of God's displeasure, seeing that the graces of the Spirit were then and ever have been vouchsafed abundantly,-which is inconsistent with the notion of God's abandonment. Nor do I see that the Church of Christ has at any time plainly apostatized, although it has been greatly unworthy of its privileges; nor that the doctrine of Christ crucified and Christ risen, has been so forsaken, as that the very standard of Christianity should need to be planted afresh. But, if so, then the parallel with the Jewish Church fails: for the final guilt of the Jewish Church consisted in refusing to admit of the full development of its system, as wrought in Christ; and therefore, without apostatizing from the old, they fell because they refused the new. But ours being the dispensation of the fulness of times, a new system is with us not to be looked for; and, if we hold fast the principles of the Gospel, we have no other object to look to than that great one, which indeed has been enough neglected,-the working out and carrying into all earthly institutions the practical fruits of these principles. I have always thought that the Quakers stand nobly distinguished from the multitude of fanatics, by seizing the true point of Christian advancement,—the development of the principles of the

Gospel in the moral improvement of mankind. It is a grievous pity that some foolishnesses should have so marred their efficiency, or their efforts against wars and oaths would surely ere this have been more successful. . . .

CXVIII. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE.

Rugby, December 16, 1835.

It is ill answering your long and kind letter between nine and ten o'clock at night, when I am liable to be interrupted every moment by calls from my boys who are going home, and when I am going myself to start with a patriarchal party of seventeen souls at seven o'clock to-morrow for Westmoreland. I think that there runs through your letter, perhaps unconsciously, a constant assumption that the Conservative party is the orthodox one; a very natural assumption in the friends of an existing system, or, as I think, in any one who has not satisfied himself, as I have, that Conservatism is always wrong; so thoroughly wrong in principle, that, even when the particular reform proposed may be by no means the best possible, yet it is good as a triumph over Conservatism;—the said Conservatism being the worst extreme, according to both of Aristotle's definitions, first, as most opposed to the mean in itself, since man became corrupt; and secondly, as being the evil that we are all most prone to -I myself being conservative in all my instincts, and only being otherwise by an effort of my reason or principle, as one overcomes all one's other bad propensities. I think Conservatism far worse than Toryism, if by Toryism be meant a fondness for monarchical or even despotic government; for despotism may often further the advance of a nation, and a good dictatorship may be a very excellent thing, as I believe of Louis Philippe's government at this moment, thinking Guizot to be a great and good man who is looking steadily forwards; but Conservatism always looks backwards, and therefore, under whatever

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form of government, I think it the enemy of all good. And if you ask me how I can act with the present Ministers, with many of whom I am far from sympathizing; answer, that I would act with them against the Conservatives as Cranmer and Ridley acted with Somerset and Northumberland and the Russells of that day, not as thinking them the best or wisest of men, but as men who were helping forward the cause of Reform against Conservatism, and who therefore were serving the cause of their country and of mankind, when Fisher and More and Tonstall, better men individually, would have grievously injured both. This I should say, even if I judged of the two parties as you do. . . . . . But I am running on unreasonably, and time is precious; my meaning is, that had I been a Conservative, I am quite sure that no act of mine would have ever been considered as going out of my way into politics; but on the other side, "defendit numerus ;" and that is called zeal for the Church, which in me is called political violence. We are all well, and I am marvellously untired by our five weeks' examination; but still I expect to rejoice in the mountains.

CXIX. TO W. EMPSON, ESQ.

January 8, 1836.

I find even in private life, and amongst men of the Tory party who are most favourable specimens of it, a tone of increased virulence, interfering even with private relations, which really seems almost like the harbinger of civil war. In London, I have no doubt, all this, externally at least, is softened; but in the country, where men live more apart, their passions seem to me to be daily exasperating, and any interruption of the present commercial prosperity would find, I fear, a bitter temper already existing to receive the increased embittering of private distress. My great fear is, that the English are indifferent to justice when it is not on their own side, and that therefore in this

Irish Church question the Ministers will fare as Lord Chatham did in the beginning of the American war, be outvoted, overruled and driven from power. And then what is the "Avenir" which any Tory can image to himself within the very limits of possibility? For whether Ireland remain in its present barbarism, or grow in health and civilization, in either case the downfall of the present Establishment is certain; a savage people will not endure the insult of a hostile religion, a civilized one will reasonably insist on having their own.

CXX. TO CHEVALIER BUNSEN.

Fox How, February 1, 1836. Let me thank you again and again for your dedication of the Article on the Sabine cities, for it roused me to go to work in good earnest, and I can now tell you that, having begun with Æneas, I have fairly brought down the history to the institution of the Tribuneship. I believe I have never written without thinking of you, and wishing to be able to ask you questions; you must expect, therefore, presently to have a string of interrogatories, after I have first told you the plan and contents of what I have hitherto done. I need not tell you how entirely I have fed upon Niebuhr; in fact I have done little more than put his first volume into a shape more fit for general, or at least for English readers, assuming his conclusions as proved, where he was obliged to give the proof in detail. I suppose that he must have shared so much of human infirmity as to have fallen sometimes into error; but I confess that I do not yet know a single point on which I have ventured to differ from him; and my respect for him so increases the more I study him, that I am likely to grow even superstitious in my veneration, and to be afraid of expressing my dissent even if I believe him to be wrong. Though I deeply feel my own want of knowledge, yet I know of no one in England who can help me; so little are we on a level with you in Germany in our

attention to such points. What would I give to recover the History of Sisenna, or any contemporary account of the war of Marius and Sylla! Once more, is any thing doing about decyphering the Etruscan or Oscan languages, and what authority is there for making the Oscan and Sabellian tribes distinct? whereas I cannot but think they all belong to one stock, distinct from the Latins on one hand, and from the Etruscans on the other.

I will now release you from the Roman History, I am also engaged upon the three Pastoral Epistles, as I believe I told you. Do not all the three Epistles appear to belong to a period in Paul's life later than that recorded in the Acts; and must they not have been written nearly at the same time? In the 1st Timothy, iii. 15, do you approve of Griesbach's stopping of the passage, when he joins the words στύλος καὶ ἑδραίωμα τῆς ἀληθειας with the following verse? I cannot well make up my mind, whether to agree with it or no; but it is certain, that if the words are to be applied to the Church, they do not describe what it is de facto, but what it ought to be. "Take care that no error through thy fault creep into that Church which was designed by God to be nothing but a pillar and basis of truth." Then Muoτngiov τñs Evσeßéias may fitly be translated, I suppose, the "Revelation of Christianity, the secret which Christianity has to impart to its own initiated." The μυστήριον τῆς ἐυσεβειας is Christ, as the μυστήριον τῆς ἀνομίας is Antichrist. Here again I must stop, though I have much more to say. I look forward with great pleasure to your son's joining us in June, and seeing this delicious country with us in July. But five long months of work intervene between this present time and our summer holidays. May Christ's Spirit enable me to turn them to profit, if I am permitted to live through them..