about. How earnestly do I wish that I could see you; it is the only ungratified wish as to earthly happiness of my most happy life, that I am so parted from so many of my dearest friends. . . . . . . [After speaking of objections which he had heard made to the appointment of Dr. Whately to the Archbishopric of Dublin.] Now I am sure that in point of real essential holiness, so far as man can judge of man, there does not live a truer Christian than Whately; and it does grieve me most deeply to hear people speak of him as of a dangerous and latitudinarian character, because in him the intellectual part of his nature keeps pace with the spiritual-instead of being left, as the Evangelicals leave it, a fallow field for all unsightly creeds to flourish in. He is a truly great man-in the highest sense of the word,-and if the safety and welfare of the Protestant church in Ireland depend in any degree on human instruments, none could be found, I verily believe, in the whole empire so likely to maintain it. . . .. .. I am again publishing Sermons, with an essay at the tail, on the Interpretation of Scripture, embodying things that I have been thinking over for the last six or seven years; and which I hope will be useful to a class whose spiritual wants I am apt to think are sadly provided for-young men bringing up for other professions than the church, who share deeply in the intellectual activity of the day, and require better satisfaction to the working of their minds than 1 think is commonly given them..

......

XXXI. TO THE LADY FRANCIS EGERTON.

(On the subject of the conversion of a person with atheistical opinions.) Rugby, February 15, 1832.

The subject of the letter which I have had the honour of receiving from you has so high a claim upon the best exertions of every Christian, that I can only regret my inability to do it justice. But in cases of moral or intel

lectual disorder, no less than of bodily, it is difficult to prescribe at a distance; so much must always depend on the particular constitution of the individual, and the peculiarly weak points in his character. Nor am I quite sure whether the case you mention is one of absolute Atheism, or of Epicurism; that is to say, whether it be a denial of God's existence altogether, or only of his moral government, the latter doctrine being, I believe, a favourite resource with those who cannot evade the force of the evidences of design in the works of Creation, and yet cannot bear to entertain that strong and constant sense of personal responsibility, which follows from the notion of God as a moral governor. At any rate, the great thing to ascertain is, what led to his present state of opinions; for the actual arguments, by which he would now justify them, are of much less consequence. The proofs of an intelligent and benevolent Creator are given in my opinion more clearly in Paley's Natural Theology, than in any other book that I know, and the necessity of faith arising from the absurdity of scepticism on the one hand, and of dogmatism on the other, is shown with great power and eloquence in the first article of the second part of Pascal's "Pensées," a book, of which there is an English translation by no means difficult to meet with. In many cases the real origin of a man's irreligion is, I believe, political. He dislikes the actual state of society, hates the Church as connected with it and, in his notions, supporting its abuses, and then hates Christianity because it is taught by the Church. Another case is, when a man's religious practice has degenerated, when he has been less watchful of himself, and less constant and earnest in his devotions. The consequence is, that his impression of God's real existence, which is kept up by practical experience, becomes fainter and fainter; and in this state of things it is merely an accident that he remains nominally a Christian; if he happens to fall in with an antichristian book, he will have nothing in his own experience to set against the difficulties there

presented to him, and so he will be apt to yield to them. For it must be always understood that there are difficulties in the way of all religion, such, for instance, as the existence of evil, which can never be fairly solved by human powers; all that can be done intellectually is to point out the equal or greater difficulties of Atheism or scepticism; and this is enough to justify a good man's understanding in being a believer. But the real proof is the practical one; that is, let a man live on the hypothesis of its falsehood, the practical result will be bad; that is, a man's besetting and constitutional faults will not be checked; and some of his noblest feelings will be unexercised, so that if he be right in his opinions, truth and goodness are at variance with one another, and falsehood is more favourable to our moral perfection than truth; which seems the most monstrous conclusion, which the human mind can possibly arrive at. It follows from this, that if I were talking with an Atheist, I should lay great deal of stress on faith as a necessary condition of our nature, and as a gift of God to be earnestly sought for in the way which God has appointed, that, is by striving to do his will. For faith does no violence to our understanding; but the intellectual difficulties being balanced, and it being necessary to act on the one side or the other, faith determines a man to embrace that side which leads to moral and practical perfection; and unbelief leads him to embrace the opposite, or, what I may call the Devil's religion, which is, after all, quite as much beset with intellectual difficulties as God's religion is, and morally is nothing but one mass of difficulties and monstrosities. You may say that the individual in question is a moral man, and you think not unwilling to be convinced of his errors; that is, he sees the moral truth of Christianity, but cannot be persuaded of it intellectually. I should say that such a state of mind is one of very painful trial, and should be treated as such; that it is a state of mental disease, which like many others is aggravated by talking about it, and that he is in great

danger of losing his perception of moral truth as well as of intellectual, of wishing Christianity to be false as well as of being unable to be convinced that it is true. There are thousands of Christians who see the difficulties which he sees quite as clearly as he does, and who long as eagerly as he can do for that time when they shall know, even as they are known. But then they see clearly the difficulties of unbelief, and know that even intellectually they are far greater. And in the meanwhile they are contented to live by faith, and find that in so doing, their course practically is one of perfect light; the moral result of the experiment is so abundantly satisfactory, that they are sure that they have truth on their side.

I have written a sermon rather than a letter, and perhaps hardly made myself intelligible after all. But the main point is, that we cannot, and do not pretend to remove all the intellectual difficulties of religion; we only contend that even intellectually unbelief is the more unreasonable of the two, and that practically unbelief is folly, and faith is wisdom.

If I can be of any further assistance to you in your charitable labour, I shall be most happy to do my best.

XXXII. TO THE SAME.

Rugby, March 7, 1832.

I thank you for your last letter, and beg to assure you very sincerely, that I shall have great pleasure in placing myself under your directions with regard to this unhappy man; and as he would probably regard me with suspicion, on account of my profession, I think that you would act with the best judgment in alluding to me only in general terms, as you propose to do, without mentioning my name. But I say this merely with a view to the man's own feelings towards the clergy, and not from the slightest wish to have my name kept back from him, if you think that it would be better for him to be made acquainted with it. With

respect to your concluding question, I confess that I believe conscientious atheism not to exist. Weakness of faith is partly constitutional, and partly the result of education and other circumstances; and this may go intellectually almost as far as scepticism; that is to say, a man may be perfectly unable to acquire a firm and undoubting belief of the great truths of religion, whether natural or revealed. He may be perplexed with doubts all his days, nay, his fears lest the Gospel should not be true, may be stronger than his hopes that it will. And this is a state of great pain, and of most severe trial, to be pitied heartily, but not to be condemned. I am satisfied that a good man can never get further than this; for his goodness will save him from unbelief, though not from the misery of scanty faith. I call it unbelief, when a man deliberately renounces his obedience to God, and his sense of responsibility to Him: and this never can be without something of an evil heart rebelling against a yoke, which it does not like to bear. The man you have been trying to convert, stands in this predicament: he says that he cannot find out God, and that he does not believe in Him; therefore he renounces His service, and chooses to make a god of himself. Now, the idea of God being no other than a combination of all the highest excellences that we can conceive, it is so delightful to a good and sound mind, that it is misery to part with it; and such a mind, if it cannot discern God clearly, concludes that the fault is in itself-that it cannot yet reach to God, not that God does not exist. You see there must be an assumption in either case, for the thing does not admit of demonstration, and the assumption that God is, or is not, depends on the degree of moral pain, which a man feels in relinquishing the idea of God. And here, I think, is the moral fault of unbelief:—that a man can bear to make so great a moral sacrifice, as is implied in renouncing God. He makes the greatest moral sacrifice to obtain partial satisfaction to his intellect: a believer ensures the greatest moral perfection, with partial satisfaction to his