the opportunity thus afforded me to speak with him generally on the subject of his state as a Christian, and the peculiar temptations to which he was now peculiarly exposed, and the nature of that hope and faith which he would require as his best defence. But, on enquiring to what persuasion his friends belonged, I found that they were Unitarians. I felt myself therefore unable to proceed, because, as nothing would be more repugnant to my notions of fair dealing, than to avail myself indirectly of my opportunities of influencing a boy's mind contrary to the religious belief of his parents, without giving them the fullest notice, so, on the other hand, when the dif ferences of belief are so great and so many, I feel that I could not at all enter into the subject, without enforcing principles wholly contrary to those in which your son has been brought up. This difficulty will increase with every half-year that he remains at the school, as he will be gradually coming more and more under my immediate care; and I can neither suffer any of those boys with whom I am more immediately connected, to be left without religious instruction, nor can I give it in his case, without unavoidably imparting views, wholly different from those entertained by the persons whom he is naturally most disposed to love and honour. Under the circumstances, I think it fair to state to you, what line I shall feel bound to follow, after the knowledge which I have gained of your son's religious belief. In everything I should say to him on the subject, I should use every possible pains and delicacy to avoid hurting his feelings with regard to his relations; but at the same time, I cannot avoid labouring to impress on him, what is my belief on the most valuable truths in Christianity, and which, I fear, must be sadly at variance with the tenets in which he has been brought up. I should not do this controversially, and in the case of any other form of dissent from the Establishment, I would avoid dwelling on the differences between us, because I could teach all that I conceive to be essential in Christianity, without at all touching upon them. But in this instance, it is impossible to avoid interfering with the very points most at issue. I have a very good opinion of your son, both as to his conduct and abilities, and I should be very sorry to lose him from the school. I think, also, that any one who knows me, would give you ample assurance that I have not the slightest feeling against Dissenters as such, or any desire, but rather very much the contrary, to make this school exclusive. My difficulty with your son is not one which I feel as a Churchman, but as

a Christian; and goes only on this simple principle, that I feel bound to teach the essentials of Christianity to all those committed to my caree-and with these the tenets of the Unitarians alone, among all the Dissenters in the kingdom, are in my judgment irreconcileable. I trust that you will forgive me for having troubled you thus at length on this subject.

IX. TO THE REV. GEORGE CORNISH.

(After the death of his father-in-law.)

Rugby, September 2, 1829.

I, too, had been meditating a letter to you for some time past, when the sight of yours roused me to make a vigorous effort, and here I have regularly begun a sheet of paper to you. You will perhaps have heard already that all our anxiety for Mr. Penrose was speedily and mercifully terminated, by as blessed a death as I suppose ever was witnessed. Although we were naturally anxious about him, because his attacks, though very slight and transient, had rather increased in frequency, yet he was perfectly able to perform all his usual duties, and enjoy his usual comforts in his family, and even his amusements in attending to his garden. On the Thursday before his death he was standing on his ladder, and pruning his vine for some time, and he went to bed perfectly well. The next morning he was seized with a more violent attack, but still without pain, or without affecting his senses, and all he said indicated perfect Christian peace. A second attack the same morning made him speechless, and he soon sank into a lethargic slumber, in which he remained till Sunday night, when he expired in the arms of his children without a struggle. We arrived in time to see him alive, although he was then insensible, and M. followed him to his grave on the Thursday following, with her aunts, brothers and sisters, and John Keble to read the funeral service. When I dwell on the entire happiness that we are tasting day after day and year after year, it really seems startling; and the sense of so much and such continued temporal mercy, is even more than humbling,—it is at times even fearful to me when I look within, and know how little truly grateful I am for it. All the children are well, and all, I trust, improving in character-thanks to their dear mother's care for them,

who, under God, has been their constant corrector and guide. As for myself, I think of Wordsworth's lines,

"Yes! they can make who fail to find

Brief leisure e'en in busiest days," &c.

and I know how much need I have to make such moments of leisure: for else one goes on still employed, till all makes progress, except our spiritual life, and that, I fear, goes backward. The very dealing, as I do, with beings in the highest state of bodily health and spirits, is apt to give a corresponding carelessness to my own mind. I must be all alive and vigorous to manage them, and to do my work; very different from the contemplations of sickness and sorrow, which so often present themselves to a man who has the care of a parish. And, indeed, my spirits in themselves are a great blessing, for without them, the work would weigh me down, whereas now I seem to throw it off like the fleas from a dog's back when he shakes himself. May I only learn daily and hourly σωφρονεῖν.

I am very much delighted with what you say of my pamphlet [on the Roman Catholic claims]. I know it gave - pain, and I fear it has and others of my friends. Yet, I know that I did not write it with one atom of unkindness or violence of feeling-nor do I think that the language or tone is violent; and what I said of the clergy, I said in the very simplicity of my heart, no more imagining that it would give offence, than if I had said that they were unacquainted generally with military tactics or fortification. The part which you object to was not put in unthinkingly—but I wished very much to bring the matter of schism to an issue; and if any respectable man were to notice that part of the pamphlet, I should like to enter more fully into the subject. My own notions upon it have grown up wholly out of the New Testament, and because I never have thought, that what people call the Primitive Church, and much less the Ante-Nicene Church more generally, was any better authority per se, than the Church of Rome, or the Greek Church. But I do not know that what I have said in the pamphlet goes at all beyond the fair conclusions to be drawn from our own Articlea, which gives to any national Church an authority to manage its own concerns, where God has not laid down any fixed rule; and, besides, what resemblance is there between the government of the most

" Article 34.

ancient Episcopal Churches, and that of the Church of England, to those who regard resemblances or differences of government to consist in things more than in names? I think, that what I have said in my pamphlet merely goes so far as to assert, that there is no schism in the Church of England, having nothing to do with the Bishop of Rome, or in the Kirk of Scotland, having nothing to do with any Archbishops and Bishops at all, but that I have not at all treated of the question of different ecclesiastical societies existing in one and the same civil society like our English Dissenters, whatever my own opinions may be about the matter. I find people continually misunderstanding the strong distinction which I draw between individuals and societies, insomuch that Faber charges me with saying, that every individual has a right to govern himself, which I have specially disclaimed in divers places; being, in fact, a firm believer in the duty of absolute passive obedience in all cases between an individual and the government-but not when the individual is acting as a member of the society, and their concurrence with him tells him that obedience is now a misplaced term-because there is no authority in a rebellious government-rebellious against society -to claim obedience. I am sure that my views in this matter are neither seditious nor turbulent-and I think I stated them clearly, but it seems they were not clear to everybody.

X. TO REV. F. C. BLACKSTONE.

Rugby, October 14, 1829.

I never felt more strongly the desire of keeping up my old friendships, and it often grieves me to think how little I see or hear of many of those for whom I feel the strongest regard. I do not mean that this is their fault rather than mine, or that it is a fault at all; but it is a tendency of middle life and settled occupation, which I think we ought to struggle against, or else it grows with a fearful rapidity. I am very anxious to express my repentance of that passage in my pamphlet, which you allude to, "raving about idolatry," &c. I mean my repentance of its tone and language, for the substance of it I think correct, and that men whose most ignorant, and worse than ignorant, application of English history had, to say the truth, made me angry, are likely to do a great deal of mischief in Ireland. But the expression was unkind, and too sweeping, and I certainly ought not, nor would I, speak of all those as "raving

about idolatry," whose opinions as to the guilt of the Romish Church differ from my own. With regard to the apparent inconsistency between the sermons and the pamphlet, you will find the term "practically idolatry" applied to the Roman Catholic system in some countries, even in the pamphlet. I never wish to mince the matter with their practices, but still, in principle, I cannot call the Romish Church an idolatrous Church in that strong sense as to warrant Faber's conclusions, even putting aside the difference of Christian times from Jewish. I should compare their superstitions to the worship of the brazen serpent, which Hezekiah did away with, which appears to have been long in existence, and which, in many of its worshippers, at any rate, was practically idolatry; but I should not have called the Jewish Church idolatrous so long as this worship was encouraged, nor applied to it the language of “Come out of her my people,” &c. . . .

Of the moral state of the boys, for which of course I care infinitely the most, I can judge the least; our advantages in that respect are great, at least in the absence of many temptations to gross vice; but to cultivate a good spirit in the highest sense is a far different thing from shutting out one or two gross evils from want of opportunity.

XI. TO REV. J. TUCKER.

Rugby, October 26, 1829.

If we are alive fifteen years hence, I think I would go with you gladly to Swan River, if they will make me schoolmaster there, and lay my bones in the land of kangaroos and opossums. I laugh about it; yet if my wife were alive, and able to go, I should think it a very great benefit to the good cause to go out with all my family, and become a Swan River man; and I should try to get others of our friends to go out with us. My notion is, that no missionaryzing is half so beneficial, as to try to pour sound and healthy blood into a young civilized society; to make one colony, if possible, like the ancient colonies, or like New England-a living sucker from the mother country, bearing the same blossoms and the same fruits, not a reproduction of its vilest excrescences, its ignorance, and its wickedness, while all its good elements are left behind in the process. No words can tell the evil of such colonies as we have hitherto planted, where the best parts of the new society have been men too poor to carry with them or to gain much of the higher