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 care-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.

VII. TO REV. G. CORNISH.

Rugby, September 2, 1829.

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 ow@govεiv.

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 Article, 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 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 every body.

VIII. TO THE REV. F. C. BLACKSTONE.

Rugby, October 14, 1829.

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 wished 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. .

IX.

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 branches of knowledge; or else mere official functionaries from England, whose hearts and minds have been always half at home, and who have never identified themselves with the land in which they were working. But if you and sisters were to go out, with half Southborough after you,— apothecary, lawyers, butchers, bakers, tailors, carpenters, and labourers, and if we were to join with a similar draught from Rugby and Laleham, I think we should deserve to be αναγραπτοι ευεργεται both here and in Swan River. Such notions about it; and I am not clear that I shall not devote my first £1000 that I make here to the purchase of land in Swan River, that I may have my estate and the school buildings got into due order, before I shut up shop at Rugby. Mean time, I hope you will not think I ought to shut up shop forthwith, and adjourn to the next asylum for daft people, because I am thus wildly dreaming about Swan River, instead of talking soberly about Rugby. But Rugby is a very nice place all the same, and I wish you would come and form your own judgment of it, or that some of your sisters would, if you cannot or will not. . . . .

are my

your