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where we experienced the most friendly attentions, and indulged an active curiosity in the direction of Malvern hills, and other noble scenes. I am fully convinced, that as an intellectual manufacturer I shall need occasional change of scene, for the purpose of varying my ideas, renovating my images of beautiful nature, and avoiding the total loss of all social dexterity and pliancy of mind. My cultivation of personal religion is aided essentially by the preaching habits, which conduce also a little to keep up my acquaintance with mankind.

Studies, so to call them, continue miserably desultory, and take most wonderful care to wind along the lower, smoother grounds, meandering in all manner of directions, to avoid the high and rugged regions of metaphysic, direct science, &c. In all matter of faults, however, I am, for my age, wonderfully sanguine in my hopes of amendment, and zealous in all the resolutions relative to all the amendments. If there be one point I am less perfectly confident about, it is the practice of buying books. In this point, since I wrote last, I have been greatly tempted, and have moderately sinned.

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LXXXIV. TO JOHN SHEPPARD, ESQ.

1810, 1811.

I was lately very powerfully and suddenly struck (though certainly not for the first time) with the simple idea-Now, there is some one state of character and plan of action the very best possible to me, under all the circumstances of my age, measure of mental faculties, and means within my reach; the one plan that will please the Governor of the world the most, that it will be the most pleasing to look back upon at the hour of death, the most satisfactory to hear referred to at the day of judgment; and can I be so infatuated as not instantly and most earnestly to endeavor to ascertain what is that plan, and then most zealously devote myself to its execution? This idea strongly recurs to me in writing to my respected friend; and my expressing it to you in the form in which it struck myself, does not by any means imply that such reflections will not be likely often to occur to your own mind. Only we are enjoined to "provoke one another to good works ;" and this must be by suggesting the ideas that can most powerfully stimulate our conscience concerning them. There is a conceivable mode of applying all means and advantages that a thoughtful mind, in its most solemn moments, will feel very certain must be the one that our great Master will most approve, and on which he will one day the most emphatically pronounce those words, "Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Power, to its very last particle, is duty. To have full independence for deliberating and for entering on the best plan for future life, imposes the indispensable obligation of proceeding, without delay, to the balancing and the determination. Those who cannot change their

situation and mode of employment are bound to consider them as the allotment of Providence, forming their peculiar sphere of duty, in which they are to exert themselves faithfully, and to exercise patience and selfdenial amidst and against involuntary feelings of dislike to the nature of that allotted sphere. But when a man has the full power, and is in the favorable season of life, to make a choice, having also the essential means for prosecuting the object of his choice effectually, whatever it may be, the mere fact of having been previously in one particular way of life surely does not, of itself, fix on him a duty of continuing in it. This would suppose him absolved from the paramount duty of considering what is the best and greatest thing he might accomplish in life. Such a notion would be as gross a superstition as that of the Chinese. At the same time it should not be overlooked, that the knowledge and aptitude acquired by the practice of such previous employment are to be considered as of the nature of a talent, of no small value, and ought, in all reason, to be the deciding weight, if the balance were, as to all other things, in equilibrio, between retaining the mode of employment and changing it...

LXXXV. TO D. PARKEN, ESQ.

Bourton, February 7, 1812.

In spite of so much good advice as you have received, you are still, I understand, at that foolish project of law. Pray now, what good do you expect to do? On the grand estimate which a philosopher, philanthropist, and Christian ought to hold of the value of life, and its noblest employments, what pleasure will it be toward the conclusion of it, to have to recollect all the toils, quibbles, and jabber of that inglorious profession? Not to mention that many able men do actually linger out half a life, without obtaining, against the monopolists of the bar, even the opportunity of fairly figuring off in this jabber itself. As to getting money, making a fortune, and living in style,-surely a philosopher and Christian will and must hold such an object in contempt. It is quite time of day to make this contempt a real and practical principle of life. It is in perfect seriousness that I make such remarks. I never think without regret of your sacrificing your life and talents to that profession, which has so little connection with the highest objects to which an able young man might devote his studies and life; and a profession too that is already, and will continue to be, excessively crowded and crammed with competitors. Surely it is worth one serious hour's consideration, whether, at the approach of death, and in the ultimate appearance before the divine Judge, it would not be incomparably a more delightful recollection to have passed such a life and course of employment as that, for instance, of Fuller, or as that of Hall might be, if he were not so hopelessly idle in one respect, than the career of the most famous lower in the

LXXXVI. TO D. PARKEN, ESQ.

Bourton, April 30, 1812.

No language I can easily find would exaggerate my most real, sincere, and habitual horror of the implements of writing. I long hoped that this, even though compelled practice, might be partly removed; but now I foresee its prevalence to the end of life. I literally never write a letter, or a page, or paragraph for printing, without an effort, which I feel a pointed repugnance to make. And this circumstance I will not at all allow to be anything negative of the truth and cordiality of my friendship for a few individuals, including among the very foremost my old master, whom it would be a most cordial luxury to see and converse with, at this or any other hour, of any day of my life; but writing-writing is one of the most grievous afflictions laid on this mortal state.

I am very glad of so good an account, so much better an account than some time since I could have hoped to hear, of your health; or rather perhaps I ought to say, I should be very glad if you were likely to make a good use of the inestimable possession. . . .

I believe the last thing of the nature of letter I wrote to you, and most appropriately denominated by you "trashy," was something about this topic. It made not the slightest impression, you are careful to say, in disfavor of your adopted profession. Faith! it little expected to do any such thing; nor would it have been in the least more successful, if it had been written in the best mode of Johnson or Junius. What effect had Andrew Marvell's preaching, in his time, or would the preaching of any the like of him have now, on the congregation in St. Stephen's Chapel ?

But to be sober on this point just one moment, it is a remarkable and incontestable fact, that throughout the community, men of the legal profession have, as a class collectively, a much worse reputation for integrity than any other class of men not directly and formally addicted to iniquitous employments. There is a general and very decided feeling, that their consciences are of a looser texture, that they easily make their own rules of right and wrong, and that it is peculiarly hazardous and unfortunate to be thrown on their mercy, or to have any important points of interest depending on the discretion of their integrity. This is such an established impression in society, as could no have been made without an adequate cause founded in experience. Again (as I probably noticed in my last scribblement), the public and political conduct of this class of men, as exhibited during this last melancholy stage of our history, furnishes a strong proof of the general baseness of their principles. It is nearly as a body—it is with a most extremely small number of exceptions-that they have supported all manner of corruptions -that they have fiercely and insolently opposed all manner of reforms— that they have gone with the ministry (such a ministry as this country has been under the last twenty years!) through thick and thin. All this, or the substance of all this, it would be mere quibbling and folly to attempt

to deny. And all this being so, it is impossible for a person whose opinions shall be formed clear of the influence of any specific bias or interest, to help being convinced that there is, either in the essence of the profession, or in the established systematic spirit and mode, to which the characters of its members have reduced its practice, something extremely adverse to pure and exalted integrity, and something peculiarly destructive to political independence. The moral of all this is very obvious; if a man enters the profession unaware or unbelieving of its perverting influence, and without adopting at the commencement, and maintaining in perpetuity, an extra moral discipline and regimen for preserving the rectitude of his conscience, there is too strong a probability that he wil lose that rectitude irretrievably, as he advances into the thickening influences and associations of the profession. The moral might, indeed, be applied at an earlier step of the concern, making it an important question whether a man who is deeply solicitous about the moral and religious habits of his mind should enter the profession at all; but I have supposed that question affirmatively decided, and only suggested that the person who has chosen it had need be fully aware of the quality of the auspices under which he has chosen to place his character, and aware of what is indispensable to defeat their malignant influence.

May I without hazard of seeming to depart from that reverence which I have ever maintained, and am resolved ever to maintain, towards an old superior and commander, hint, that I could not help, in some of the latest interviews, feeling a certain small impression, as if this influence had already begun to operate, and to give some of the indications of its nature, in a disposition—I mean in a small, incipient degree of the disposition to put everything in question and doubt; to be more intent on seeking exceptions to plain and important principles, than willing to admit their importance; to equalize the weight of little and secondary considerations on one side of a question, with great and primary ones on the other; to extenuate, especially in political matters, the moral weight and bearing of principles and practices; and to put the whole concern somewhat in the light of a game, where we must indulge men in their play, and not to be too Catonically or Puritanically rigid upon them with moral principles ;-in short, a disposition sometimes less seriously desirous to come to the real, honest truth and importance of matter, than to try what can be said about it, and especially what can be said in contravention of that which would ascertain, and stamp, and apply, that importance?

Doubtless my knowing (a knowledge quite general in society) that things of this kind are the prevailing characteristics of men in the legal profession, made me more prompt at surmises and perceptions; but I was not perfectly solitary in this sort of perception; and in this I do not allude to any con-domestic opinions. Now a truce to all this; your brother is just come to take leave. I most sincerely wish him health as the grand sine quâ non ; and then, all success in his pursuits. Perhaps

it is to be regretted that those pursuits have a preference to a certain other destination to which you allude, and to which I had some time since heard that he also had alluded. My regret on this point would be more decidedly expressed but for the doubt, for which I fear there is too much ground, that the kind and degree of physical effort required in frequent public speaking would be injurious to him, if not dangerous. If his health shall become, which I most earnestly wish, fully established during the few next ensuing years, I hope the question of reverting to this theological destination will become a matter of conscience with him. But indeed he may very well unite the two engagements, maintaining a moderate exercise of both; for I am for preachers having, as many of them as possible, some other sources of emolument than the precarious one of their ministerial employment.

LXXXVII. TO THE REV. DR. RYLAND.

Bourton, May 20, 1812.

MY DEAR SIR,-Dr. Cox's return, early in the morning, from a three or four days' visit here, gives me the opportunity of returning, without having recourse to any public conveyance, the books you were so kind as to lend me, so long since that I am quite ashamed to think of it. In any similar case in future, there really must be some legal bond, with a penalty for not returning the article lent within a specified short time. I am the less excusable in this delay, from having in my present possession (sent by Mr. Fuller I believe) the second volume 4to. of the Ramayuna, and the first volume of Confucius, wanting only the first sheet, and including the whole of the biographical introduction, concerning the Chinese philosopher.

I am amazed beyond expression at the achievements of these missionaries; and I am almost glad, that so considerable a portion of their labors has been expended in translating for us the most renowned works of the East; for thus we shall all, willing and unwilling, be brought to a right understanding of the vaunted wisdom of the orientals, which had left no need of such a thing as Christianity. As to the absolute value of what we thus obtain, one really begins to doubt, whether all that will ever be brought from the treasures of Asiatic learning, will be worth much more than the song of Chevy Chace.

With respect to the Chinese, a grand object is gained by our having now fairly got a way opened into that hitherto formidable and inaccessible language, for the introduction of the Christian truth by means of the translations that will now be easily made into it of the Bible, and other volumes of sound instruction.

I most sincerely wish you continued health to sustain you in your unwearied and diversified labors in the cause of Christ; and am, with friendly remembrance to Mrs. Ryland, my dear sir,

Yours, most respectfully and cordially,

J. FOSTER

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