our country, as your asylum, was honourable to it; and I lament that, for the sake of your happiness and health, its most benign climates were not selected. Certainly, it is a truth, that climate is one of the sources of the greatest sensual enjoyment, I received, in due time, the letter referred to in your last, with the pamphlet it inclosed, which I read with the pleasure I do every thing from you. Accept assurances of my highest veneration and respect.† To REV. T. LINDSEY. DEAR FRIEND, Northumberland, June 26, 1802. WHETHER it be you or Mrs. Lindsey that is my correspondent, I consider it as the same thing. You are alike my friends, and my best friends, and, whoever survives, this correspondence will not, I hope, cease, on this side the grave, while it is possible to continue it. This great change, to which we are making near approaches, I regard, I hope I may say, with more curiosity than anxiety. It is the wise order of Providence that death should intervene between the two different modes of existence; and what engages my thoughts is, the change itself, more than the mere manner of making it. I look at your portrait, and that of Dr. Price, and Mr. Lee, which are always before me,§ and think of my deceased friends, whose portraits I have not, with peculiar satisfaction, under the idea that I shall, at no great distance, see them again, and, I hope, with pleasure. But, how we shall meet again, and how we shall be employed, we have little or no ground even for conjecture. It should satisfy us, however, that we shall be at the disposal, and under the government, of the same wise and good Being who has superintended us here, and who best knows what place and employment will best suit all of us. The more I think of the wonderful system of which we are a part, the less I think of any difficulties about the reality or the circumstances of a future state. The resurrection is, really, See supra, pp. 435, 436. + Mem. of Lindsey, p. 443. § See supra, p. 412. nothing, compared to the wonders of every day in the regular course of nature; and the only reason why we do not wonder is, because the appearances are common. Whether it be, because I converse less with men, in this remote situation, I contemplate the scenes of nature, as the production of its great Author, more, and with more satisfaction, than I ever did before; and the new discoveries that are now making in every branch of science, interest me more than ever in this connexion. I see before us a boundless field of the noblest investigation; and all that we yet know appears to me as nothing, compared to what we are wholly ignorant of, and do not, as yet, perceive any means of access to it. I now take great pleasure in my garden; and plants, as well as other objects, engage more of my attention than they ever did before; and I see these things in a more pleasing light than ever. I wish I knew a little more of botany; but, old as I am, I learn something new continually. I admire Dr. Darwin's Phytologia, and am reading it the second time. But this work, which, I believe, contains all that we yet know of this part of nature, shews me how little that all is. Before he died, I am informed, he was about to publish another work, in which he maintained the doctrine of equivocal generation; and of all absurdities, this appears to me to be the greatest, if by it they mean to exclude intelligence from the system of nature. And I cannot see any other reason why unbelievers in revelation should lean, as many of them do, to that doctrine. Their faith has certainly less evidence than ours. If we believe that the whale swallowed Jonah, they may believe that Jonah swallowed the whale. We have now printed one volume of the Church History, and before we come to the third and last, I wish much to see the life of Madame Guyon.† Before the riot, I had it, as published by Mr. Wesley, at Bristol. If it can be procured Mr. Priestley mentions, among his father's communications to "the American Philosophical Society," an answer to Dr. Darwin's Observations on Spontaneous Generation." Continuation, 8vo. p. 110, 12mo. p. 190. ↑ See W. X. 318. in time, I shall be very glad. I have written a dedication of this second part of my History to Mr. Jefferson. The preface* is the longest I ever wrote. It consists chiefly of reflections on the middle and dark ages. As soon as a copy can be made up, one shall be sent to you. I have just received yours of March 23. I need not say how happy it makes me.† DEAR FRIEND, TO THE SAME. Northumberland, July 3, 1802. How rejoiced I was to receive your letter, written wholly with your own hand, after your late alarming attack! I now hope I shall have more of them; and nothing on this side the grave gives me more satisfaction; and yet, considering how soon we may hope to meet again, the separation by death should not give us much concern. While we live, we ought to value life, and friendship, especially Christian friendship, as the balm of it. But we have a better life in prospect, and therefore should not regret the parting with the worse, provided we have enjoyed it properly, and improved it so as to have ensured the better. Absolute confidence does not become any man, conscious, as we all must be, of many imperfections, of omissions, if not of commissions; but surely a general sincere endeavour to do what we apprehend to be our duty, will authorize so much hope as may be the reasonable foundation of joy, with respect to a future state, without being chargeable with arrogance or presumption. You could not have made choice of a more pleasing or interesting subject than that of the work which you have happily completed, which, as I believe it is in Philadelphia, I expect soon to receive. It occupies my own thoughts, I may say, almost constantly, and is the greatest source of satisfaction that in my present situation, and under my late trials,§ I enjoy. + Orig. MS. *W. IX. 7-20. 1 "Conversations on the Divine Government, shewing that every Thing is from God, and for Good to All." Mem. of Lindsey, pp. 402-431. § See supra, pp. 407, 451, 469. Indeed, the reflection that we are under the government of the wisest and best of Beings, and that nothing can befal us without his permission, is sufficient to banish the very idea of evil, and to make us regard every thing as a good, for which we ought to be thankful. At the moment, none who have the hearts and feelings of men, but must grieve for many things that he sees and feels; but Christian principles soon bring relief, and are capable of converting all sorrow into joy. But this will be in proportion to the strength of our faith, in consequence of the exercise of it, when, according to Hartley, speculative faith is converted into practical. We have printed one volume of the History, and, as I told you, I have dedicated it to Mr. Jefferson. I inclose his letter* on receiving a manuscript copy of it. I have since altered it, I hope, to his mind, and shall very soon send it, together with the volume. The three volumes, if I do not take a journey in October, will be done about Christmas. I now hope you will see this work, and even the Notes on the Scriptures. I wish you particularly to see the preface and dedication. The latter will not please you, as not calculated for England; but I have done with that country, and am indifferent to what the friends of its government may think of me. I shall always appear as I am, a sincere friend to the country, and shall not with intention say any thing offensive of its constitution, or the administration of it. I rejoice that its situation is much better than I feared such a war would leave it. My health, I thank God, is better, but still very precarious, and what I ought not to trust to. I am therefore very desirous to get my two works through the press.† TO THE SAME. DEAR FRIEND, Northumberland, Aug. 28, 1802. I HAVE just been made very happy by the receipt of yours of May 5, together with a box of books from Mr. Johnson. I had a letter from him, informing me that a scheme had been formed and adopted by him to print my two works, and desiring me to proceed without delay.* As it may perhaps please the Duke of Grafton to see the copy that I sent you of Mr. Jefferson's last letter to me, I wish you would shew it to him. Such things as these give a better idea of a man's principles and character than more public documents. I shall not be able to visit him as he wishes. Indeed, the state of my health is such as warns me that I have no time to lose, and I am desirous of doing all I can in what remains of life. If well spent, longer or shorter makes no great difference; but mine has been a long life, though not so long as yours. Whenever we die, we shall start together, at the same time, hereafter. May it be in the same place, and our happy connexion be resumed! Mr. Maseres's third volumet I have not received, though I have the fourth. Please to thank him for me, and, if you please, mention this circumstance. Till I was near forty, when I had an opportunity of making experiments, I applied very much to mathematics, and still I have not lost my liking to them. His works of this kind are original and excellent. I have this moment received Mrs. Lindsey's letter of May 31, and shall notice the contents the next post. Our post is weekly, and returns in a few hours after it arrives.§ 66 was "What gave my father most real pleasure," says Mr. Priestley, the subscription set on foot by his friends in England, to enable him to print his Church History, and his Notes on all the Books of Scripture. The whole was done without his knowledge; and the first information he received on the subject was, that there was a sum raised sufficient to cover the whole expense." Continuation, 8vo, pp. 204, 205, 12mo, p. 185. + See supra, p. 473. ↑ See I. 75. "It is well known that the accident of living near a public brewery at Leeds first directed the attention of Dr. Priestley to pneumatic chemistry, by casually presenting to his observation the appearances attending the extinction of lighted chips of wood, in the gas which floats over fermenting liquors." See "An Estimate of the Philosophical Character of Dr. Priestley, by William Henry, M.D. F.R.S., &c., &c." Read at York (1831), to “the British Association for the Advancement of Science." First Report, (1832,) p. 62. On Dr. Priestley's "enlarged views of the scope and objects of Natural Science," sce ibid. p. 72. § Orig. MS. |