CLX.

*TO C. J. VAUGHAN, ESQ.

Rugby, September 13, 1837.

The first sheet of the History is actually printed, and I hope it will be out before the winter. But am sure that it will disappoint no one so much as it will myself; for I see a standard of excellence before me in my mind, which I cannot realize; and I mourn over the deficient knowledge of my book, seeing how much requires to be known in order to write History well, and how soon in so many places the soil of my own knowledge is bored through, and there is the barren rock or gravel which yields nothing.

I could write on much, but my time presses. I am anxious to know your final decision as to profession; but I do not like to attempt to influence you. Whatever be your choice, it does not much matter, if you follow steadily our great common profession, Christ's service. Alas! when will the Church ever exist in more than in name, so that this profession might have that zeal infused into it which is communicated by an "Esprit de Corps ;" and, if the "Body" were the real Church, instead of our abominable sects, with their half priestcraft, half profaneness, its "Spirit" would be one that we might desire to receive into all our hearts and all our minds.

CLXI. TO THE REV. J. HEARN.

Rugby, September 25, 1837.

I have to thank you for two very kind letters, as

-'s Sermons.

also for a volume of CDo you know that C was an old Oxford pupil of mine in 1815? and a man for whom I have a great regard, though I am afraid he thinks me a heretic, and though he has joined that party which, as a party, I think certainly to be a very bad one. But, if you ever see CI should be much obliged to you if you would give him my kind remembrances. It grieves me to be so parted as I am from so many men with whom I was once intimate. I feel and speak very strongly against their party, but I always consider the party as a mere abstraction of its peculiar character as a party, and as such I think it detestable; but take any individual member of it, and his character is made up of many other elements than the mere peculiarities of his party. He may be kind-hearted, sensible on many subjects, sincere, and a good Christian, and

therefore I may love and respect him, though his party as such, — that is, the peculiar views which constitute the bond of union amongst its members, I think to be most utterly at variance with Christianity. But I dare say many people, hearing and reading my strong condemnations of Tories and Newmanites, think that I feel very bitterly against all who belong to those parties; whereas, unless they are merely Tories and Newmanites, I feel no dislike to them, and in many instances love and value them exceedingly. Hampden's business seemed to me different, as there was in that something more than theoretical opinions; there was downright evil acting, and the more I consider it, the more does my sense of its evil rise. Certainly my opinion of the principal actors in that affair has been altered by it towards them personally; I do not say that it should make me forget all their good qualities, but I consider it as a very serious blot in their moral character. But I did not mean to fill my letter with this, only the thought of C- made me remember how much I was alienated from many old friends, and then I wished to explain how I really did feel about them, for I believe that many people think me to be very hard and very bitter; thinking so, I hope and believe, unjustly.

CLXII. *TO DR. GREENHILL.

Rugby, September 18, 1837.

I shall be anxious to hear what you think of Homœopathy, which my wife has tried twice with wonderful success, and I once with quite success enough to encourage me to try it again. Also I shall like to hear anything fresh about Animal Magnetism, which has always excited my curiosity. But more than all I would fain learn something of malaria, and about the causes of pestilential disease, particularly of Cholera. It is remarkable, that while all ordinary disease seems to yield more and more to our increased knowledge, pestilences seem still to be reserved by God for his own purposes, and to baffle as completely our knowledge of their causes, and our power to meet them, as in the earliest ages of the world. Indeed, the Cholera kills more quickly than any of the recorded plagues of antiquity; and yet a poison so malignant can be introduced into the air, and neither its causes nor its existence understood; we see only its effects. Influenza and Cholera, I observe, just attack the opposite parts of

era.

the system; the former fastening especially on the chest and sensorium, which are perfectly unaffected, I believe, in CholAs to connecting the causes of either with any of the obvious phenomena of weather or locality, it seems to me a pure folly to attempt it; as great as the folly of ascribing malaria to the miasmata of aquatic plants. I shall be very much interested in hearing your reports of the latest discoveries in these branches of science; Medicine, like Law, having always attracted me as much in its study as it has repelled me in practice; not that I feel alike towards the practice of both; on the contrary, I honor the one, as much as I abhor the other; the physician meddles with physical evil in order to relieve and abate it; the lawyer meddles with moral evil rather to aggravate it than to mend. ... Yet the study of Law is, I think, glorious, transcending that of any earthly thing.

CLXIII. TO W. EMPSON, ESQ.

Rugby, November 18, 1837.

I trust that I need not assure you that I feel as deeply interested as any man can do in the welfare of our University, and most deeply should I grieve if any act of mine were to impair it. But then I am interested in the University, so far as it may be a means towards effecting certain great ends; if it does not promote these, it is valueless: if it obstruct them, it is actually pernicious. So far I know we are agreed; but then to my mind the whole good that the University can do towards the cause of general education depends on its holding manifestly a Christian character; if it does not hold this, it seems to me to be at once so mischievous, from giving its sanction to a most mischievous principle, that its evil will far outweigh its good. Now the education system in Ireland, which has yet been violently condemned by many good men, is Christian, though it is not Protestant or Catholic; their Scripture lessons give it the Christian character clearly and decisively. Now, are we really for the sake of a few Jews, who may like to have a Degree in Arts, or for the sake of one or two Mahometans, who may possibly have the same wish, or for the sake of English unbelievers, who dare not openly avow themselves are we to destroy our only chance of our being even either useful or respected as an Institution of national education? There is no difficulty with Dissenters

of any denomination; what we have proposed has been so carefully considered, that it is impossible to pretend that it bears a sectarian character; it is objected to merely as being Christian, as excluding Jews, Turks, and misbelievers.

Now considering the small number of the two first of these divisions, and that the last have as yet no ostensible and recognized existence, and that our Charter declares in the very opening that the end of our institution is the promotion of religion and morality, — I hold myself abundantly justified in interpreting the subsequent expressions as relating only to all denominations of Her Majesty's Christian subjects, and in that sense I cordially accede to them. Beyond that I cannot go, as I have not the smallest doubt that it is better to go on with our present system, with all its narrowness and deficiencies, than to begin a pretended system of national education on any other than a Christian basis. As to myself, therefore, my course is perfectly clear. If our report be rejected on Wednesday, - I mean as to its Christian clauses,

-I certainly will not allow my name to be affixed to it without them; nor can I assist any farther in preparing a scheme of Examination which I should regard as a mere evil. It would be the first time that education in England was avowedly unchristianized for the sake of accommodating Jews or unbelievers; and as, on the one hand, I do not believe that either of these are so numerous as to be entitled to consideration even on points far less vital, so, if they were ever so numerous, it might be a very good reason why the national property should be given to their establishments and taken from ours, but nothing could ever justify a compromise between us and them in such a matter as education.

I am quite sure that no earnest Christian would wish the Gospels and Acts, and the Scripture history to be excluded, because they were in some instances understood differently. It was a sure mark of the false mother when she said, "Let the child be neither mine nor thine, but divide it;" the real mother valued the child very differently. I can see, therefore, in this question, no persons opposed to us whom I should wish to conciliate, no benefits in the University, if it bears no mark of Christianity which I should think worth preserving. It will grieve me very much if we in the last result take a different view of this matter.

CLXIV. TO THE REV. TREVENEN PENROSE,

(His brother-in-law.)

Rugby, November 20, 1837.

I have long since purposed to write to you, and at last I пре I shall be able to do it. I always read your additions to the Journal with great interest, and they never fail to awaken in me many thoughts of various kinds, but principally, I think, a strong sense of the blessing which seems to follow your father's house, and of the true peace, which, for seventeen years, I can testify, and I believe for many more, has continually abided with it. And this peace I am inclined to value above every other blessing in the world; for it is very far from the "Otium" of the Epicurean, and might indeed be enjoyed anywhere; but in your case outward circumstances seem happily to have combined with inward, and other people have rarely, I believe, so large a portion of the one or of the other. I am not disposed to quarrel with my own lot; nevertheless, it is not altogether peaceful, and this great concern oppresses me more as I grow older, and as I feel more deeply the evils I am powerless to quell. You see much hardness, perhaps, and much ignorance, but then you see also much softness, if nowhere else, yet amongst the sick; and you see much affection and self-denial amongst the poor, which are things to refresh the heart; but I have always to deal with health and youth, and lively spirits, which are rarely soft or self-denying. And where there is little intellectual power, as generally there is very little, it is very hard to find any points of sympathy. And the effect of this prevalent mediocrity of character is very grievous. Good does not grow, and the fallow ground lies ready for all evil.

CLXV. TO W. EMPSON, ESQ.

Rugby, November 28, 1837.

The whole question turns upon this; - whether the country understood, and was meant to understand, that the University of London was to be open to all Christians without distinction, or to all men without distinction. The question which had been discussed with regard to Oxford and Cambridge, was the admissibility of Dissenters; which in common speech does not mean, I think, Dissenters from Christianity no one argued, so far as I know, for the admis