that he will do for me, in all respects, that which is the best. . . . The season, so gloomy here, must be dismal up on your hills; it would be peculiarly so to my father, if the spirit and the hopes of religion were not independent of changing times, and capable of triumphing over them all.

XXV. TO THE REV. JOSEPH HUGHES.

Chichester, Feb. 15, 1799.

MY DEAR FRIEND,—Forgive me that the business of this letter is, like that of so many former ones, entirely personal, and the person-myself. I am anxious to show you that your remonstrances, accusations, regrets, are not all in vain, though even during my last visit you thought them so. Unfortunately the most cynical fold of my character is the outermost. But impressions may disappear on the surface because they are gone inward.

I have thought with great emotion on some of the views and facts presented to me while with you. I have before expressed my conviction of the value of preaching as an instrument of the best kind of utility. How much must the sentimental force of this conviction have been augmented by the representation of the apostolic felicities of such a man as Pearce! I feel affectingly that this is to live divinely; that this is indeed to imitate the great Master, and to pursue a course which his approbation will crown. How much I long to call such men brothers, and to attest the relationship by a similarity of spirit and of action!

I have asked myself with solemn earnestness, and deep regret, "Why am not I added to the evangelic constellation?" Oh! why not myself an apostle-a confessor? Shall I be indeed estranged from the best cause? At the day of accounts, shall it indeed be found that I have been in the Messiah's kingdom, less than all my contemporaries? Am not I to hear the "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord ?" I have asked myself, "Are the obstacles insuperable? are the causes of failure necessarily perpetual?" I am not convinced that the answer ought to be affirmative. I love the evangelic style of truth when I read it, or hear it, more than any other ;-it appeals directly to my heart, and makes me aspire ardently to attain that divine discipleship, that devotion to Jesus, which would make me zealous, and useful, and happy. I am unwilling to believe myself finally precluded from the most favored and popular field of religious exertion,-that in which such men as Pearce, Hinton, and yourself are laboring. You intimated in your last letter that this career is still open to me, let but my mind be adapted. You repeated the opinion during my visit. I wish to know how far you were sincere. I should be happy to make one more experiment among people, if they are to be found, who have all the

warmth of the gospel. There is a feeling that tells me I should succeed. Do you deem my present views of Christianity, if aided by more fervor of inculcation, essentially inadequate? My opinions are in substance Calvinistic, and therefore, when fully brought out, differ obnoxiously from those of the General Baptists here or elsewhere. Add to this, that many of their societies, either through the medium of their opinions, or from some other cause, seem to have been smitten with a mortal coldness, and incurable decay. Among them therefore I could never reach the animated freedom, if I could obtain even a bare toleration, of that strain of preaching which my views require, and of which some enviable examples evince the superior efficacy, and in this efficacy evince perhaps the peculiar approbation of God.

Now then the question is, Will you recommend me to any society you may hear of in your connexion, or to any other man (Pearce for instance) whose local information may be more extensive? I have an irresistible conviction that "the truth as it is in Jesus," is incomparably the best thing that can be administered to my fellow-mortals, and that he is the noblest of men who administers this with the most fidelity and zeal. I feel this moment as if an angel appeared to me and commanded me thus to employ myself to my last hour. Yes, I will! The idea of losing all that glory of Christian achievement and immortal reward, which still appears as if it were possible to me, would greatly aggravate the sadness with which I think how much I have already lost.

I repeat that while I cannot but contemn the circle and the spell of any denomination, as a party of systematics professing a monopoly of truth, I hold (I believe) accurately the leading points of the Calvinistic faith; as the corruption of human nature, the necessity of a divine power to change it, irresistible grace, the influence of the Spirit, the doctrine of the atonement in its most extensive and emphatic sense, final perseverance, &c., &c. As to my opinion respecting the person of Christ, a candid and honest statement would be, that I deem it the wisest rule to use precisely the language of Scripture, without charging myself with a definite, a sort of mathematical hypothesis, and the interminable perplexities of explication and inference. I am probably in the same parallel of latitude with respect to orthodoxy, as the revered Dr. Watts in the late maturity of his thoughts. I assigned to you the reason why I consider the question not of primary importance; nor in fact is any question so, which is of difficult comprehension and determination.

The necessarian scheme, which has greatly consoled some of my feelings regarding mankind, has not, however, diminished my regrets for my own past negligence, nor the ever springing desire to tread the exalted path of Christian heroism,-of prophets and apostles; and by teaching the strict connection between cause and effect, it has enforced my conviction of the necessity of means and strenuous exertion to the attainment of ends. . .

XXVI. TO THE REV. JOSEPH HUGHES.

[Date uncertain.]

My Dear Friend,—I have nothing additional or different to express on the theological subject of our correspondence. Every new reflection tells me that my evangelic determinations ought to be, and every hope flatters that they will be, irreversible. Assembling into one view all things in the world that are important, and should be dear to mankind, I distinguish the Christian cause as the celestial soul of the assemblage, evincing the same pre-eminence, and challenging the same emphatic passion, which in any other case mind does beyond the inferior elements; and I have no wish of equal energy with that which aspires to the most intimate possible connection with Him who is the life of this cause, and the life of the world.

I believe I expressed myself in a very crude manner on the subject of elocution, in my last letter. I must have utterly misrepresented myself if you suppose my sentiments go in the smallest degree to approve a dry, monotonous enunciation. My leading principle is the simple and trite one, that every kind of speaking, whether argumentation, invective, familiar ideas, or solemn ones, should in public always take that modulation of voice and cast of manner, which in the actual intercourse of life is ascertained to be the appropriate one; and that there ought to be no canonical manner, belonging by distinction to the pulpit. It is of course that the sentimental intonation of voice should not be assumed, but when, and in the degree in which, the sentiment is there. Perhaps it is fair that a speaker's manner should thus always indicate the present pitch of his mind. In my diction I am sensible that a striking defect must have appeared in most of the extemporaneous specimens you have heard. You would notice a great many inert, make-weight pieces of expression, to supply the want of continuity; many spiritless terminations of a sentence, hanging to the period like a withered hand to the body; a deficiency of the life-blood, so to call it, of fervid intelligence, circulating vitality to the last extremities of expression, into the minutest ramifications of phrase; a certain something like restive unwillingness in the train of words to move on, producing an effect rather like the creak of unoiled wheels; and a want of what I again name the liquid flux of expression, varying, swelling, concealing each rugged point as it glides freely over, and passing gracefully away.

I repeat that these defects belong to my uninspired seasons; that they are not inserted into my most appropriate and characteristic diction, even my letters will testify. I own it, however, a criminal neglect, not to have acquired that command of my mind which would make it indepen dent on the visitations of sentiment, for an execution at least moderate proper and graceful.

XXVII. TO HIS PARENTS.

Chichester, March 25, 1799.

HONORED PARENTS,-Some of the particulars contained in your letter occasioned me considerable surprise. At an advanced age, changes of any kind are unpleasant, and a new habitation may at first require one degree of patience added to that which your situation needed before. However, the principal consideration in any residence is that piety which is confined to none, and which makes into a temple of the divinity whatever house it inhabits. To the immortal spirit every house, and the world itself, is but a prison; you carry into your new abode the pleasing eertainty, that no sublunary abode will detain you so long as the one which you have quitted. How much you will know before so many more years shall have passed! Long before that time you will have seen the visions of eternity; you will have entered the alone happy mansions; you will have joined the great company which no man can number. Yes, and at an earlier period or a later I hope I shall meet you there, after having overcome through the blood of the Lamb. Go before, if it must be so, and enter first into the paradise of God; I trust that the path of faith and zeal will conduct me to the same happy place, and that He who has the keys of the invisible world will give me admittance there.

. . . . Provided I could realize the requisite preliminaries, a matrimonial connexion is certainly the object of my wishes at present, as much as, perhaps more than, at any former time. Certain romantic projects, stretching into wild and distant scenes, have, for some time past, considerably faded on my imagination. I wish it were possible to mingle enthusiasm of design with sobriety of calculation, and then to crown this conjunction with the addition of resolute, persevering industry.

Within the last fortnight my eyes have been in one respect (for two or three complaints seem to meet in them) considerably better. I do not feel reason to be sanguine as to the effect of the means last prescribed to me, but shall persist for the present to employ them, though attended with much pain. To-morrow I mean to write a statement of symptoms, in a letter to Hughes, to be shown to the gentleman I last consulted, and to whom I was introduced through the means of Hughes's acquaintance with him. If it appear necessary, I will not hesitate to make another journey to London on purpose. I can at present read a moderate time with tolerable ease, which I could by no means do some time since. Conscience has repeatedly made accusation on my neglect of employing this faculty, each faculty, the whole man, in a zealous prosecution of the noblest purposes. Hoping for a restoration of soundness in this valuable article, and determined to consecrate my whole self, whether in disorder or well, to the work of God, with even an apostle's zeal, I feel much resignation to his providence, respecting the event of this and each other affair. Your prayers I know will not be wanting. In mine I have felt and ac

knowledged the necessity of admonitory dispensations, and even have been in some degree thankful for them. I have supplicated heaven, that whatever afflictions are absolutely needful to make me and keep me such as I ought to be, and such as I find it very difficult to be, may be applied. At whatever cost, I fervently wish to be humble, to be devotional, to be heavenly-minded, in short, to be a Christian. Life is but short; and it is long, long since I fancied it could be a scene of pleasure and paradise. I consent to take it as a series of sorrows; to pass through it as a vale of tears, if in the end that better world may pour all its light and its joys on my soul.

My visit to Mr. Hughes has been of great service in respect of my religious feelings. He has the utmost degree of evangelic animation, and has incessantly, with affectionate earnestness in his letters, and still more in his personal intercourse, acted the monitor on this subject. It has not been in vain. I have felt the commanding force of the duty to examine and to judge myself with a solemn faithfulness. In some measure I have done so, and I see that on this great subject I have been wrong. The views which my judgment has admitted in respect to the gospel in general, and Jesus the great pre-eminent object in it, have not inspired my affections in that animated, unbounded degree, which would give the energy of enjoyment to my personal religion, and apostolic zeal to my ministrations among mankind. This fact is serious, and moves my deep regrets. The time is come to take on me, with stricter bonds and more affectionate warmth, the divine discipleship. I fervently invoke the influences of Heaven, that the whole spirit of the gospel may take possession of all my soul, and give a new and powerful impulse to my practical exertions in the cause of the Messiah.

My opinions are more Calvinistic than when I first came here; so much so as to be in direct hostility with the leading principles of belief in this society. The greatest part of my views are, I believe, accurately Calvinistic. My opinion respecting future punishments is an exception. Judging from what is here, I deem that the season must with you be still very inclement. Very soon, however, another May will shed its mild influences to alleviate my father's pains and confinement. My mother will feel even so short a remove an added burden in the fatigue of a return from Hebden-bridge, Heptonstall, &c. Which house is it in the fold that you occupy? Nothing of consequence is in motion here, except indeed the arrangements respecting the income tax, which seem to transform many into enemies of government who professed to be friends before. What is the state, on the whole, of the cotton trade? No trade, however, no resources of any kind, can long support the present enormous system—as about a third part of the whole productive industry of the nation goes directly to the purposes of government and war, with the prospect of a still larger proportion being so diverted each succeeding year.

The fate of Europe, it seems, is about to be put to a last trial in Ger