had a long conversation with Mrs. J—, lately of Hebden Bridge, in which I obtained several points of information concerning the terra incognita of that neighborhood. As to Hebden Bridge itself, she described it as stretched out into a long continuity of houses, reaching I forget how far. This, on a more moral account than its breaking up the old picture in my imagination, did not please me at all. It was just saying there were so many more sinners in the locality. Unless mankind were better, an augmented number is nothing to be pleased with. On the contrary I am always apt to be pleased at seeing vacated sites, and houses deserted. and in ruins. This gratification is too seldom afforded in these times. It is a considerable number of years since I had it to my full contentment, at a place a good way down on the west coast, where a score or two of houses, visited some years before by the reform of a fire, remained as dilapidated walls going fast to decay. I have always a restive feeling that knows not how to go into pleasure, at the promises sometimes made to the Jews in the Old Testament, of a prodigiously multiplied posterity. Now you are smiling (or affecting to smile) at all this as a cynical whim, a wanton perversity. But pray, now, do look at the collective moral and religious state of the species, even in this so vaunted nation, exhibiting so sad a preponderance of what is not good, in the high and alone satisfactory sense; and soberly consider whether an augmentation of such an existence be really a cause for exultation.

A better age, both for this and every other country, will come, assuredly. But do you not sometimes muse in a kind of gloomy wonder on the present dark aspect of the world, in which even the precursory signs of the approach are so faint or dubious? You were not, I think, quite so sanguine in early life as I was. Recollecting my morning, crude, prospective dreams, I can imagine what a damp it would have been, what a heavy snow in May, if I could have foreseen, at the distance of about half a century forward, the state of the world just as it actually is at this day. In those visions there was, no doubt, much of what a sound mature judgment might, at the time, have convicted of folly. The grand excitement had far too little in it of a moral and religious principle, far too little recognition of the Governor of the world, to authorize such magnificent anticipations of moral and political good. But still, methinks, it might (before the proof) have been assumed as probable that such a prodigious awakening of human energy would be directed by that sovereign Power to the destruction of a much larger portion of the fearful system of evils that still lies and tyrannizes on the human race. On every field of thought the awful mystery of the divine government surrounds us with its darkness, and abases our speculations and presumptions The political state of this nation is becoming formidable, the war being mortal between the two orders of principles, with their respectively arrayed masses. No peace but by the subjugation of one of the antagonist powers. Which is it to be? Not the democratic certainly, for it is in a process of continually augmenting force, notwithstanding any tem

porary interruptions and defeats. But it is in vain to calculate the dura tion of the conflict before the other can be prostrated, possessed as it is of such vast advantages.

How do the affairs among you as between the church and dissenters shape themselves? I hope the latter will not be wanting in spirit to assert themselves. They see clearly now that they have no other remedy but what is in their own hands. Let them everywhere avail themselves of that, and the government will at last be forced, even for the church's sake, to do them justice. Our great desideratum is (what we cannot have yet, nor for a long time) a genuine House of Commons. In the present thing so called there are many scores of knaves and fools, who got there by the vilest means.

We (you, your wife, and I) shall not live to see any great amendment in the world. Shall we, when in that other to which we are going, receive any information of the changes on that which we shall have left? But think of the stupendous change and novelty of being in another world! And it will not be very long before. Each of us in near approach to seventy! I believe you have both had good health. I hope you still have for that age. I have been in this respect highly favored through life. But recently,-I may say at this hour, I have some very monitory omens, being under rigid medical treatment in consequence of the rupture of some vessel in the neighborhood of the throat, indicated by a very considerable effusion of blood twice within ten days. I am told that great and protracted care may arrest the evi.. But it is a formidable intimation; and will, I hope, have the effect, under divine influence, of rendering me more earnest in preparation for the demolition, at whatever time, of the whole tabernacle. A circumstance of the same kind, but not in the same degree, occurred to me about half a year since. So long exempt from any recurrence, I have not been duly careful.

CCV. TO B. STOKES, ESQ.

June 9, 1837.

It often occurs to me, when thinking of striking spectacles here and there on the earth that I can never see, “But I shall infallibly behold, at no distant time, something incomparably more striking, new, and marvellous." To behold, to be in the midst of, another economy, another world! And with an amazing change, of the very manner, personally, of existence; to be in communication with a new order of realities by a totally different medium of perception; having, in relinquishing this world, relinquished also the entire organization by which the spirit maintained its connection with it.

Imagine a very brief, as nearly as might be a sudden, transition from he ordinary state of feeling, to that which would be caused at sight of the most striking phenomenon on earth; and then imagine, just at that

highest excitement of emotion, an instant transition by death into the other world;-would not this second rush of amazement on the soul *ranscend the previous one to a far mightier degree than the previous one would have surpassed the ordinary state of feeling?

But again, and again, comes the thought, "Though I shall never behold the supposed grand phenomena of this world, that other transcendent amazement I am certain to experience; and the more mighty will it be that I have no previous knowledge or conjecture concerning the manner of it."

And how mortifying, what reason for intense self-reproach, that with this certainty before me, and in a continual approximation, the mysterious prospect should not have a more habitually commanding influence over me;—over my thoughts, devotions, and habits of life! A correction, a reformation, a renovation of feeling, is the thing imperatively demanded...

CCVI. TO THE REV. JOSIAH HILL.

September 23, 1837.

. . This is All-Saints' day with the Independent tribe in Bristol ;speeches by exhibitors fresh from all nations, peoples, and languages. I was something like disposed to force my inclination, and go to see and hear, for the useful sake, to myself I mean, of witnessing the character and varieties of the spectacle; but the inveterate repugnance was invincible. But really I wish it had not [been]. For I am so totally secluded here that I have no immediate impression of what men are, or are doing.

It seems that even you . . could not keep the soul of which you are the owner from getting a whirl in the late great vortex; wishing, hoping, fearing; disappointed, mortified, indignant; just all the same. unhallowed emotions as one's self. It is truly a grievous result, and a disastrous predicament. Interminable war, now, with very small and dear-bought successes to the liberal cause; merely an exemption from absolute defeat; the grand measures of national improvement (education among the rest) either not (from hopelessness) attempted, or contemptuously quashed. Why is this suffered to be-under the government of the supreme Authority, the only Potentate? Just because the nation is to be wicked and is to be plagued. It is a judicial dispensation. This is the idea often forced on one's mind, in looking over the state of the world. What a glaring instance is Spain! One would think that it is beyond mere human stupidity and perversity to manage the nation's affairs so wretchedly. There must be a special divine malediction, dooming that barbarous, cruel, superstitious, and bigoted people to miseries from which there seems no escape; their counsels and proceedings under a continual infatuation; the most favorable occasions lost; the 15

VOL. II.

efficient means systematically thrown away; the whole condition of life and life's interests in distraction. . . . .

CCVII. TO B. STOKES, ESQ.

Nov. 25, 1837.

Our good M. P. has but little in prospect, in that public capacity, to set against what in his private one he feels so painfully. He enters the service justly indignant against every party, and has little or nothing better to look forward to than a long, vexatious, and nearly useless course of toil and conflict, perhaps to end in a break-up of the whole rotten concern. I wish he were out of it, if only there were another honest man to take his place. But that sort of thing is most scandalously scarce—the sort of thing, that is to say, which every man in the world ought to be.-It is fearful to think what the final account must be, at the award of infallible Justice, for the immense multitude of accountable creatures. And how desperately heedless of all such consideration they are, even those who, as in our nation and time, are the most instructed, or have the means of being so, and are therefore the most accountable. . . . . But these politics run away with one, even when talking to old friends, with whom one has so many recollections, lively or pensive, and has spent so many hours, days, and weeks, amidst interests, occupations, and scenes, far apart from political affairs. Lately I was recollecting our first interview, when Mr. Coles brought a stranger, in whom I could not foresee so cordial a friend for so long a period; as to whom and myself it was little within the probability of life's duration that I should at this (then very far off) time be writing to him. I proceeded on, from that original point of remembrance, through the successive periods of the long lapse of nearly thirty years; dwelling a while on some of the most remarkable times and scenes, down to the social weeks, or rather months, of the last year; and to the time when, excepting a few pleasing hours, I was disappointed of seeing you here. A long series of interesting reminiscences,—combining what is gratifying in friendship with what is memorable in situations and incidents. All this is of the past!-and the review brings us to the solemn reflection, what a very large portion of our allotted sojourn on earth has been expended and has vanished, between the first term and the last of the retrospect; which reflection passes immediately into the emphatic monition, how near we are coming to the termination of that sojourn, to the moment of transition to another world; and how earnest and habitual should be our solicitude and our diligence to be prepared for that world where there may be a happy and an endless friendship....

CCVIII. TO JAMES FAWCETT, ESQ.

February 24, 1838.

DEAR SIR,-.

The feelings with which I heard of the decease

(not till several weeks after the event) of my valued old friend, your excellent father, were pensive even to sadness. He and Mr. Greaves were the peculiarly favorite friends of my youth. And so deeply fixed was my conviction of his virtues, and so faithful my memory of his cordial kindness at that far-off period, and additionally testified by his letters, that I have retained invariably my friendly regard throughout the long absence of not less than thirty-five years. Since the informa tion of the mournful event I have often retraced in thought the scenes, the intercourse, the little social adventures and incidents, of that early time; his person, voice, habits, and domestic associates and circumstances, are vividly presented to my imagination. I cannot but feel regret, now when it is in vain, at the entire loss of personal intercourse, caused by great distance, my dislike of travelling, my feeling no attraction to my native place, as such, and our respective occupations. I am wondering how he appeared in advanced age; the image of him in my mind being exclusively that of his appearance in youth, or before the attainment of middle age. I saw him for the last time, one transient hour in the neighborhood of London: but I think it was not within the long period that I have mentioned. Doubtless if we had met at any recent time, without being previously apprised, it would have been, till explanation, as perfect strangers; mutually the victims and monuments of Time.

. . . You will all have been consoled amidst your affectionate sorrow by the consideration of his happy exchange; an event deferred, too, for the sake of those whom he loved and who loved him, to so late a period of life, that any great prolongation would have been a stage of infirmity, decline, and perhaps the pains which inflict, as it were, a portion of death before the termination of life. He had lived also to see his family advanced to maturity, acting their appointed parts in life; and all, I hope and trust, entered on and pursuing a course which will bring each of them one day to an end like his. You have the pleasure also of reflecting on his consistent, honorable, and useful life, from his pious childhood to his latest day;—a well-sustained religious character for I may say, sixty years, for he must at his decease have been bordering on seventy.

A loss which nothing now in this world can adequately compensate will have caused your mother a painful sense of desolation, at an age which no longer retains the elasticity of spirit, the animated force of reaction, by which younger people, in active excitement and with life before them, are so soon relieved from the pressure of such a dispensation. I trust resignation to the Divine will, the looking forward to a better world, combined with the affectionate interest in her children, and the pleasure of seeing them wise and good, and favored by Providence, will impart to her a consolation effectual to cheer the remainder of her life. How well I remember her cheerfulness, her vivacity of spirit, near forty years since. . . . I am glad of [your] brother's favorable prospects for usefulness and happiness, and hope that a name so long honored