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CCX.

TO H. BALSTON, ESQ.

Rugby, November 21, 1839.

66

sua

With regard to the questions in your letter, I hold that to a great degree in the choice of a profession, cuique Deus fit dira cupido," a man's inclination for a calling is a great presumption that he either is or will be fit for it. And in education this holds very strongly, for he who likes boys has probably a daily sympathy with them; and to be in sympathy with the mind you propose to influence is at once indispensable, and will enable you in a great degree to succeed in influencing it.

ness.

Another point to which I attach much importance is liveliThis seems to me an essential condition of sympathy with creatures so lively as boys are naturally, and it is a great matter to make them understand that liveliness is not folly or thoughtlessness. Now I think the prevailing manner amongst many very valuable men at Oxford is the very opposite to liveliness; and I think that this is the case partly with yourself; not at all from affectation, but from natural temper, encouraged, perhaps, rather than checked, by a belief that it is right and becoming. But this appears to me to be in point of manner the great difference between a clergyman with a parish and a schoolmaster. It is an illustration of St. Paul's rule, "Rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep." Α clergyman's intercourse is very much with the sick and the poor, where liveliness would be greatly misplaced; but a schoolmaster's is with the young, the strong, and the happy, and he cannot get on with them unless in animal spirits he can sympathize with them, and show them that his thoughtfulness is not connected with selfishness and weakness. At least this applies, I think, to a young man; for when a teacher gets to an advanced age, gravity, I suppose, would not misbecome him, for liveliness might then seem unnatural, and his sympathy with boys must be limited, I suppose, then, to their great interests rather than their feelings.

You can judge what truth may be in this notion of mine generally; and if true, how far it is applicable to your own case; but, knowing you as I do, my advice to you would be to follow that line for which you seem to have the most evident calling; and surely the sign of God's calling in such a case is to be sought in our own reasonable inclination, for the tastes and faculties which he gives us are the marks of our fitness for one thing rather than another.

CCXI. TO AN OLD PUPIL.

(D.)

Fox How, December 20, 1839.

It is just one-and-twenty years ago this very day that I was ordained Deacon at Oxford, and I wish this letter to reach you on Sunday, when I suppose you will be ordained at the same place to the same office. I had enough and more than enough of scruples and difficulties, not before only, but afterwards for a long time.

But I have been satisfied now for many years, and wonder almost that I ever could have been otherwise, that Ordination was never meant to be closed against those who, having been conscientious members of the Church before, and wishing in earnest to be ministers of the Church now, holding its truths and sympathizing in its spirit, yet cannot yield an active belief to the words of every part of the Articles and Liturgy as true, without qualification or explanation. And I think so on historical as well as on à priori grounds; on historical, - from the fact that the subscriptions were made more stringent in their form to meet the case of those whose minds, or rather tempers, were so uncomplying, that they would use in the service of the Church no expressions which they did not approve of; and therefore the party in power, to secure the conformity, required a pledge of approbation; and also from the expressed opinion of Bull, Usher, and others; opinions not at all to be taken to such an extent as if the Articles were Articles of peace merely, but abundantly asserting that a whole Church never can be expected to agree in the absolute truth of such a number of propositions as are contained in the Articles and Liturgy. This consideration seems to me also decisive on à priori grounds. For otherwise the Church could by necessity receive into the ministry only men of dull minds or dull consciences; of dull, nay, almost of dishonest minds, if they can persuade themselves that they actually agree in every minute particular with any great number of human propositions; of dull consciences, if exercising their minds freely and yet believing that the Church requires the total adhesion of the understanding, they still, for considerations of their own convenience, enter into the ministry in her despite.

You will say that this makes the degree of adhesion required indefinite, and so it must be: yet these things, so seemmgly indefinite, are not really so to an honest and sensible

mind; for such a mind knows whether it is really in sympathy with the Church in its main faith and feelings; and, if it be not, then subscription would indeed be deceitful; but, if it be, to refuse subscription would, I think, be at once unjust to the Church and to itself.

Enough, however, of this; I earnestly hope and pray that your entrance into the ministry may be to God's glory, to the good of His Church, and to your own great blessing. To have a ministry in the Church is a great honor, and a great responsibility; yet in both is it far inferior to the privilege of being a member of the Church. In our heavenly commonwealth the Jus Civitatis is a thousand times greater than the Jus Honorum; and he who most magnifies the solemnity of Baptism, will be inclined to value most truly the far inferior solemnity of Ordination.

If

You are entering on an office extinct in all but name. it could be revived in power, it would be one of the greatest blessings that could be conferred on the Church. I wish you would talk to about this; and if a book on this point could be got up between us, I think it could excite no offence, and might lead to very great good. God bless you ever in this and in all your undertakings, through Jesus Christ.

CCXII.

(In answer to a request for a subscription to a church.)

Fox How, December 22, 1839.

Your letter followed me hither from Rugby, and I only reply to it, that you may not think me neglectful if I delayed my answer till my return to Warwickshire.

I shall be happy to subscribe towards the endowment of the Church and not towards the building. My reason for this distinction is, that I think in all cases the right plan to pursue is to raise funds in the first instance 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 ade

quate 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.

CCXIII. TO THE REV. DR. HAWKINS.

Fox How, December 29, 1839.

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 was the case. . . . . . It 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.

CCXIV. 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 co-operation, before

anything 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 endeavoring, 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 endeavored 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.

CCXV. 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