CXXXI. TO J. C. PLATT, ESQ. Fox How, February 4, 1837. I have to thank you for your letter, as well as for the papers which you have from time to time been kind enough to send me. I do not think that I am less zealous than formerly; but I feel that, if I write briefly, and without giving all the grounds of my opinions, I am constantly misunderstood: and to give the grounds, requires a volume, rather than half a column in the newspaper. For instance, on this very question of Church Rates, how much really is involved in it! If the Churches are public buildings for a national object, then how can a minority object to maintaining them? If they are only to be maintained by those who belong to one religious denomination, it strikes, of course, at the very root of any Establishment, because the same principle must apply equally to tithes. I am sure that, sooner or later, what I said in the Church Reform Pamphlet will be verified; either the Church must be more comprehensive, or, if this be impracticable, then an Establishment cannot be maintained: and the next best thing will be, to take care that all the Church property is applied to strictly public purposes, to schools, hospitals, almshouses, or something of the sort, and that it is not stolen by the landlords. For the only possible way, in which there can be a robbery of public property, is to transfer it to private uses: this is a direct robbery, committed against ourselves and our posterity; but in varying the particular public object to which it is applied, there may be great folly, great wickedness in the sight of God, but not the especial crime of robbery or spoliation. Your mention of the Article on the Life of Christ, encourages me to allude to it. I heard it spoken of before I had the least idea of its author, and spoken of with regret, not as unorthodox, but as painful to a Christian reader from its purely historical tone. Now I think that this is a reasonable source of pain, supposing the fact to be as stated; because, in such a case, neutrality is almost the same as hostility. To read an account of Christ, written as by an indifferent person, is to read an unchristian account of Him; because no one who acknowledges Him can be indifferent to Him, but stands in such relations to Him, that the highest reverence must ever be predominant in his mind when thinking or writing of Him. And again, what is the impartiality that is required? Is it that a man shall neither be a Christian, nor yet not a Christian? The fact is, that religious veneration is inconsistent with what is called impartiality; which means, that as you see some good and some evil on both sides, you identify yourself with neither, and are able to judge of both. And this holds good with all human parties and characters, but not with what is divine, and consequently perfect; for then we should identify ourselves with it, and are perfectly incapable of passing judgment upon it. If I think that Christ was no more than Socrates, (I do not mean in degree, but in kind,) I can of course speak of Him impartially; that is, I assume at once that there are faults and imperfections in his character, and on these I pass my judgment: but, if I believe in Him, I am not His judge, but His servant and creature; and He claims the devotion of my whole nature, because He is identical with goodness, wisdom, and holiness. Nor can I for the sake of strangers assume another feeling, and another language, because this is compromising the highest duty, it is like denying Him, instead of confessing Him. This all passed through my mind when I heard that the Article was written in a purely historical tone, and yet stated the Resurrection as a matter of fact. Now, if the Resurrection be true, Christianity surely is true; and then how can one think of Christ except religiously? A very able and good friend of mine, made the same objection to Victor Cousin's tone: "It was," he said, " a patronizing of Christianity;" that is, he spoke of it as one who could judge it, and looked upon it, as it were, de loco superiori,-a condition inconsist - ent altogether with the relations of man to God, when once acknowledged. Will you forgive me for all this,— but there seems to me rather a vague notion prevalent about impartiality and fair judgment in all matters of religion, which is really running into scepticism as to all. There is abundant room for impartiality in judging of religious men, and of men's opinions about religion, just as of their opinions about any thing else; but with regard to God and His truth, impartiality is a mere contradiction; and if we profess to be impartial about all things, it can only be that we acknowledge in none that mark of divinity which claims devout adherence, and with regard to which impartiality is profaneness. CXXXII. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. Fox How, February 5, 1837. I must write to you from Fox How, though it is our last evening; and to-morrow we set out to return to Rugby. We have been here just six weeks; and six weeks of greater peace and happiness it would scarcely be possible, I suppose, for any one to pass. In this neighbourhood there has been as yet no influenza; no snow at any time to obstruct communication; no rains to keep us within doors, nothing more than the ordinary varieties of winter, containing among them days of such surpassing beauty, that at no time of the year could the country have been more enjoyable. You know the view from the dining room; it was only a few mornings since, that the clouds broke away from the summit of Fairfield, while we were at breakfast, a little after eight o'clock, and the sun just threw his light upon the crest of the mountain all covered with snow, and gave it the rose colour which you have seen on the Alps; while all the lower points of the hills, and all the side of Loughrigg, wore the infinite variety of their winter colouring of green and grey and gold. We have had two of our Sixth Form boys down here, who I thought wanted the refreshment of a mountain country, as they had been working rather too hard. Meanwhile my history has been flourishing; I have been turning to account all my Roman law reading, in a chapter on the Twelve Tables, and I have carried on the story to the year of Rome 350. I am inclined to publish one volume, when I have got to the end of the year 365, the Gaulish invasion; and I shall have plenty of matter for a volume; but whether I am not yielding to a movement of impatience I can hardly say. The natural divisions of the subject appear to me to be the Gaulish Invasion; the Conquest of Italy, after the repulse of Pyrrhus; the Conquest of the World, or of all that could offer any effectual resistance, in the Punic and Macedonian wars; the Civil Wars from the Gracchi to Actium; the Maturity of the Empire from Augustus to M. Aurelius; the Decline of the Empire and of Paganism from Commodus to Honorius; the chaos out of which the new creation of modern society has come, from Alaric to Charlemagne. How grand a subject, if it could be written worthily! And how vast a variety of knowledge is required to do it worthily! I constantly feel how overpowering the labour is, and how many advantages I want; yet I feel, too, that I have the love of history so strong in me, and that it has been working in me so many years, that I can write something which will be read, and which I trust will encourage the love of all things noble and just, and wise and holy. The study of the Law is quite to my heart's content, as is the practice of it in your situation. I think if I were asked what station within possibility I would choose, as the prize of my son's well doing in life, I should say, the place of an English judge. But then, in proportion to my reverence for the office of a judge, is, to speak plainly, my abhorrence of the business of an advoI have been thinking, in much ignorance, whether there is any path to the bench except by the cate. bar; that is, whether in conveyancing, or in any other branch of the profession, a man may make his real knowledge available, like the juris consulti of ancient Rome, without that painful necessity of being retained by an attorney to maintain a certain cause, and of knowingly suppressing truth, for so it must sometimes happen, in order to advance your own argument. I am well aware of the common arguments in defence of the practice; still it is not what I can myself like. On the other hand, Medicine, in all its branches, I honour as the most beneficent of all professions; but there I dread an incidental evil, the intense moral and religious degradation of so many medical students, who are, if you may trust report, materialist atheists of the greatest personal profligacy; and then if the profligacy wear out with age, the evil principle will not; and Satan will be but cast out by Satan.. We are going to Oxford, I believe, before we finally settle at Rugby. I do love the place after all, though I sometimes think of the fox's exclamation over the vizor mask-κάλον πρόσωπον, κ.τ.λ. Forgive my profaneness to Alma Mater, and do not ascribe it to any academical jealousy in behalf of my new University of London, of which I am a most poor Fellow. CXXXIII. TO THE REV. G. CORNISH. Fox How, February 5, 1837. Even the bustle of Fox How is calmer than the quiet of Rugby. We are going away to-morrow morning, and it is now past ten o'clock; yet I know not when I can sit down to write so peacefully, as I can in this last hour of our last day's sojourn at this most dear and most beautiful home. Thank you very much for your letter. I will not revive matters of dispute; what, if spoken, would be known at once to be half in joke, seems in writing to be all meant in sober earnest; and therefore our discussions shall wait |