: *^ -MW^mJ^^ 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 SEELEY W. MUDD 
 
 and 
 
 GEORGE I. COCHRAN MEYER ELSASSER 
 
 DR.JOHNR. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD 
 
 JAMES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F. SARTOR! 
 
 to the 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SOUTHERN BRANCH
 
 EEY. r. W. KOBEETSON'S WEITINGS. 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth. 
 
 SECOND SERIES. " " " 
 
 THIRD SERIES. " " " 
 
 FOURTH SERIES. " " " 
 
 FIFTH SERIES. " " " 
 
 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES ON SOCIAL AND 
 LITERARY TOPICS. 
 
 1 vol, 12mo. ^ Cloth. 
 
 These volumes are sold separately or in uniform sets. 
 LIFE AND LETTERS. 
 
 2 vols. 12mo. Cloth. 
 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS, Publishers.
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 FEEDEEICK W. EOBERTSON, M.A. 
 
 INCUMBENT OF TRINITY CHAPEL, BRIGHTON, 1847-53. 
 
 EDITED BT 
 
 STOPFORD A. BROOKE, M.A. 
 
 LATE CHAPLAIN TO THE EilBASST AT BERLi:!. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 ff^g^r^^ 
 
 BOSTON: 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS 
 
 1865. 
 
 Q 5 i ^^ ^v
 
 University Press : Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 
 Cambridge.
 
 V. I 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THERE would seem to be no apology necessary for 
 presenting to the Public the Life and Letters of 
 Frederick W. Robertson. 
 
 ^^ The abiding influence of his published writings on 
 all those readers who are capable of being interested in 
 spiritual questions and in Christian experience, has 
 awakened in them a desire to know more of his career. 
 
 •?D Constant allusions made in the Public Press and in 
 
 ^, Reviews to his pre-eminence as a Preacher, — the wide 
 
 diffusion of his Sermons not only over this Kingdom 
 
 . but also over part of the Continent and of America, — 
 
 /. the interest in his teaching, which now (more than 
 twelve years after his death) is increasing rather tlian 
 dimlnishinoc, have led men to ask whether his life corre- 
 sponded to the Ideal pictured in his writings, — whether 
 his private letters would be worthy companions of his 
 public utterances. 
 
 The friends who lived with him and loved him — 
 his Congregation, and especially those Workingmen 
 of Brighton with whom he was connected — have 
 
 o
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 long and eagerly wished to have some record of his 
 life. 
 
 Those on the other hand who knew him not, but 
 who since his death have learned to reverence him as 
 their Teacher, — who have found in his sermons a Hving 
 source of Impulse, a practical direction of Thought, a 
 key to many of the problems of Theology, and above 
 all a path to Spiritual Freedom, — tliese, with an 
 amount of feeling rarely given to one personally un- 
 known, have hoped to possess some more intimate me- 
 morial of him, without whose life they had not lived. 
 
 For these reasons this Book has been undertaken. 
 
 The publication of Mr. Robertson's Letters was con- 
 sidered to be of great importance. They seemed to add 
 a personal interest to his Sermons, to explain fully his 
 mode of thought, to indicate the source and progress of 
 many of his views, and to supplement his general teach- 
 ing. They are full of tender human thought, of subtle 
 and delicate feeling, and of much tried and suggestive 
 experience. 
 
 They possess also, in common with his Sermons, a 
 peculiar literary interest. This interest lies not so much 
 in the originality of their ideas as in the mode in which 
 these ideas are represented. The choice of words in 
 them is remarkable. There is sometimes a happy 
 indefiniteness which belono-s to and which suo-o-ests 
 the infinite nature of the things discussed. A spirit 
 pervades them which influences unconsciously their
 
 PREFACE. VU 
 
 reader, and renders him receptive of their truths, by 
 inducing in him a kindred tone of heart. Even Robert- 
 son's shght sketches of an idea, traced perhaps in a 
 single sentence, contain the materials for a finished 
 composition. If he is not a Creator he is eminently a 
 lucid Interpreter of thought. It is in this power of apt, 
 logical, and striking expression that the chief litei^ary 
 interest of his writings consists. 
 
 I cannot but believe also that the noble truthful life 
 he lived, and the " very courageous " battle which he 
 fought, will have an influence as real and as helpful as 
 Ills Sermons. 
 
 The inadequacy with which this Life has been rep- 
 resented cannot be more a subject of regret to his 
 friends than it is to myself. The fault can only, per- 
 haps, be pardoned for the sake of the love and rever- 
 ence with which the following j)ages have been written. 
 
 I have to thank many of his friends, and especially 
 his father, Captain Robertson, for their assistance and 
 advice. 
 
 I wish to draw attention to the interesting letters 
 written from the Tyrol to Mrs. Robertson, and col- 
 lected in the first Appendix, and to those from some of 
 his friends which are inserted in the Text and in the 
 second Appendix. 
 
 In conclusion, I must regret the delay in the appear- 
 ance of tliis book. It is due partly to my absence from 
 England, but chiefly to my desire to make the collec-
 
 Vill PEEFACE. 
 
 tion of Mr. Robertson's letters as complete as possible. 
 The arrival of new matter has often compelled me to 
 recast whole chapters, and I have waited for months in 
 the hope of obtaining an important Correspondence, and 
 found, at last, my hope in vain. 
 
 STOPFORD A. BROOKE. 
 
 London, Sept. 15, 1865.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Pagb 
 Birth of F. W. Robertson. — Childhood. — Love of Nature. — Charac- 
 ter as a Boy at the Academy in Edinburgh. — Youthful Interests. — 
 Choice of Profession. — Military Enthusiasm. — Studies for the In- 
 dian Service. — Circumstances which led him into the Church. — 
 Enters Oxford. — Contact with Tractarianism. — Religious Views 
 and Christian Effort. — Reading. — Arnold and Wordsworth. — 
 Speaking at " the Union." — His Opinion as to the Position of a 
 Popular Preacher. — Two Letters recalling his College Life. — Fer- 
 ment of his Mind at Oxford. — Letter expressing his Opinion of the 
 Tract School and his Desire for a Military Chaplaincy. — Examin- 
 ation for his Degree. — He studies for Ordination. — Letters review- 
 ing the Position of the English Church 1 
 
 Letters from May, 1838, to June, 1840. 
 
 I. Reading. — Oxford " Donnishness " 37 
 
 II. Desire for the Coming of Christ 38 
 
 III. Conversation with an Infidel 39 
 
 IV. Separation from his Brother 40 
 
 V. Anticipations of the Difficulties of the Ministry ... 42 
 
 VI. To a Friend whose Birthday approached 43 
 
 Vn. Farewell to Oxford 44 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Passage from Collegiate to Active Life. — Growth of his Christian 
 Faith. — Early Sadness of his Heart. — Ordination. — Curacy at 
 Winchester. — First Appearance in the Pulpit. — Difficulties of his 
 Work. — Letter recalling his Life in Winchester. — Success as a 
 Minister. — Description of him by a Friend. — Spiritual Life. 
 — Devotional Reading. — Prayer. — Preaching. — Despondency
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 arising from Illness. — Examination for Priest's Orders. — Close of 
 Ministerial Life at Winchester. — Continental Tour.— Geneva and 
 its Parties 47 
 
 Letters from September 17, 1840, to August 3, 1841. 
 
 VIII. On first entering the ^Ministry 74 
 
 IX. To his Brother, on his Work , 75 
 
 X. To a Friend, on the same subject 76 
 
 XI. Justification by Faith 77 
 
 XII. Aspiration after greater Self-devotion 78 
 
 XIII. Geneva. — Discussion with M. Malan on " Assurance." — With 
 
 on the Deity of Christ 79 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Marriage. — Death of his Sister. ~ He takes the Curacy of Christ 
 Church. Cheltenham. — Character and Influence of his Preaching. 
 — His Despondency and its Causes. — His Influence in Society. — 
 His Conversation. — His daring Character. — His Reading. — Ex- 
 tracts and Letter throwing Light on his Spiritual Development.— 
 Influences which contributed to the Change in his Opinions.— 
 Progress of this Change. — Its Crisis. — He leaves Cheltenham for 
 the Continent 82 
 
 Letters during his Journey. 
 
 XIV. Arrival at Innspruck. — Description of his Feelings. — Tomb 
 of Hofer.— Chamois Hunting. — Lassitude of Heart and 
 
 Restlessness. — Walk to Botzen 112 
 
 XV. Account of Mental Difficulties. — Struggle after Truth. — In 
 the "Thickest Darkness" hold fast to Moral Good. — 
 Perplexity as to the Ministry. — Heidelberg . . .117 
 
 XVI. R^sum(5 of the Crisis of Thought through which he was passing 120 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OXFORD. 
 
 Return to Cheltenham. — Surrender of Curacy of Christ Church. — 
 He accepts the Charge of St. Ebbe's, Oxford. — Position in Rela- 
 tion to the High Church and the Evangelical Parties. — Results of 
 his Work on the Parish of St. Ebbe's and on himself. — Trinity 
 Cliapel, Brighton, is offered to him. — He refuses, but afterwards 
 accepts the oflfer. — Sad Presentiments 121
 
 CONTENTS. xi 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 BRIGHTON — 1847, 1848. 
 
 Arrival at Brighton. — Trinity Cliapel. — Death of his Infant Daugh- 
 ter. — Self-analysis and Resolutions on entering on his Minisfry 
 at Brighton. — First Sermon. — Characteristics of his Teachuig. — 
 I?apid Increase of his Congregation. — Appreciated by Servants and 
 Workingmen. — Wide Sphere of Work at Brighton. — The questions 
 raised by the Revolutions of 1848, and how he met them. — Af- 
 ternoon Lectures on the First Book of Samuel. — Results of these 
 Lectures. — Foundation of the Workingman's Institute. — He is 
 asked to deliver the Opening Lecture. — His Answer, and his Opin- 
 ions on the Institution. — Delivery of the First Address. — His bold- 
 ness of Speech. — Endeavor to reconcile Rich and Poor, — Quali- 
 fications which fitted him to be a Mediator 128 
 
 Letters from August 9, 1847, to January 5, 1849. 
 
 XVH. Reception of the " Address." — The Events of 1848 . . 147 
 XVIII. Charge of Radicalism. — " Alone with Christ." — Grounds of 
 the Brotherhood of the Race. — Pantheism. — '' Baptism 
 of John," and Baptism of the Spirit. — "That which 
 
 calls itself Evangelicalism " 149 
 
 XIX. "The Wear and Tear" of ceaseless Preaching . . . 154 
 XX. " Every one is not called upon to be a Martyr for Truth " . 155 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 BRIGHTON — 1849. 
 
 His Interest in all the Questions which agitated Society. — Clairvoy- 
 ance and Mesmerism. — Speech at the Meeting for the " Early 
 Closing Association." — Opposition which Avas roused by his 
 Preaching. — Work, and hidden Life 156 
 
 Letters from January. 1849, to November, 1850. 
 
 XXI. Reply to Strictures brought against a Sermon on the Sui- 
 cide of Judas 162 
 
 XXIL On the Death of a School Friend 170 
 
 XXIII. The Character of a Man is measured by the Poets Avhom 
 
 he loves 171 
 
 XXIV. The true Means of developing our Human Nature . . 173 
 XXV. To a Friend about to become a Roman Catholic . . . 173 
 
 XXVI. To the same 174 
 
 XXVII. To the same . . .176 
 
 XXVllI. Loneliness of Heai-t ; but Loneliness with Christ . . 177
 
 Xll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Letters of Mr. Robertson. — Complexity of his Character. — His Sen- 
 sitiveness. — His Knowledge of Men. — His Life in Society. — 
 Effect of Climate upon him. — Exquisite Perception of Natural 
 Scenery. — Impressions received from Art, and how he used them. 
 
 — Appreciation of Poetry. — Intensity of Enthusiasm and of Indig- 
 nation. — His Eloquence and. its Characteristics. — Hatred of the 
 Eeputation of a " Popular Preacher." — The natural Morbidity 
 and the dangerous Tendencies of his Character. — The Means he 
 employed to conquer them. — His noble Truth and Self-devotion. 
 
 — Causes of the Gloom which appears in his Letters . . .178 
 
 Letters, August and September, 1849. 
 
 XXIX. Fichte. — Life in the " Supersensuous " World . . 198 
 
 XXX. " My Sins nailed Him to the Tree " .... 199 
 
 XXXI. Who are these who criticise ray Sermons . . . 201 
 
 XXXH. " When I felt the Days before me " . . . . 203 
 
 XXXIII. Souvenirs — Joy in Early Morning Air .... 204 
 
 XXXIV. Evil of Desultory Reading. — Desultory Life. — Sacri- 
 
 ficial Expression 208 
 
 XXXV. Effects of Suspicion on Character. — Is Prayer " of the 
 Nature of a Charm " ? — Where does the Inwax'd Change 
 
 begin? 210 
 
 XXX VL A Character 213 
 
 XXXVIL Another Character 216 
 
 XXXVIII. "Is Sensibility to Sensuous Beauty necessary for the at- 
 tainment of the Highest Excellence ? " . . . 218 
 
 CHAPTER VIII, 
 
 OCTOBER, 1849 — DECEMBER, 1850. 
 
 Visit to Cheltenham. — New Intei-est in the Lives of others and in 
 Ministerial Work. — Depression. — Great Intellectual Activity. — 
 Afternoon Lectures on the Book of Genesis. — Gorham Case. — 
 Sermons on Baptism, on the Sabbath, on the Atonement. — Viru- 
 lent Opposition. — Solitary Position. — Summing up of Life. — 
 Internal Dissension in the Workingman's Institute. — Proposition 
 to admit Infidel Publications into the Library'. — His Speech on 
 the Occasion. — Its Meaning. — Its partial Success. — Reconstruc- 
 tion of the Association. — His Letters on the Subject. — Speech at 
 the Meeting against the Papal Division of England into Dioceses. 
 — Two Letters of Gratitude from Workingmen ....
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 XUl 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 XL. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 XLV. 
 XL VI. 
 
 XLVIL 
 XL VIII. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 L. 
 LI. 
 LII. 
 
 LIII. 
 LIV. 
 
 LV. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 LVIL 
 LVIir 
 
 Letters from October, 1849, to December 31, 1850. 
 Miss Martineau's " Feats on the Fiord." — Eeligious Super- 
 stitions. — Moments of Sacred Rest in Life . . .244 
 Effect of Violent Tragedies, e. g. Ph^dre, on the Mind, also 
 
 of Speculative Reading 246 
 
 Sabbath Observance. — Duty of Cheerfulness in Christian 
 
 Life 248 
 
 The Blessing of the Lot of Woman. — The inarticulate Sor- 
 rows of the World. — How to conquer the oppressive 
 Weight of Time. — Giving Happiness .... 250 
 Transmission of Letters on Sunday. — The Puritan's Sab- 
 bath. — True Basis of a Day of Rest . . . .253 
 Irony and Indignation of Christ. — Resignation of Heart. — 
 
 Recollection of Swiss Tour 254 
 
 Evil of taking Opiates 256 
 
 Feeling? during the Sunday Services. — Is Human Love 
 
 Idolatry ? — The Mystery of SutTering .... 257 
 St. Paul's Estimate of Women. — The Agony of Scepticism 259 
 The Temperaments of the Northern and Southern Nations 
 
 contrasted • . . . 260 
 
 Sunset, and Sympathy with Nature. — Desolate Loneliness 
 with Truth better than a comfortable Life with the Con- 
 sciousness of being in Error. — Walk by Night in Hove 
 
 Churchyard . 261 
 
 Keble's Hj^mn for the 22d Sunday after Trinity. — Influ- 
 ence of Carlyle 264 
 
 " Walk in the Spirit," &c. &c. — Does Friendship gain by 
 
 Absence? 266 
 
 The Mercy which is Just. — The Poetry of Prosaic Life. — 
 When Solitude is useful to Character. — Keble's Hymn 
 
 for the 23d Sunday after Trinity 267 
 
 Inspiration 270 
 
 Description of a Stormy Day. — Capital Punishment. — 
 Keble's Line, " Who for the spangles wears the funeral 
 pall? " — Shelley's Gloom. — Love of Cheerful, Healthy 
 
 Life 271 
 
 Source of the Strength of the Will of Christ. — Sins of 
 Thought. — Dr. Channing's Life. — Did Channing wor- 
 ship Christ? 275 
 
 Depression. — Keble's Hymn for the 24th Sunday after 
 Trinity. — The Temptation of Christ as enabling Him 
 
 to sympathize with Men 280 
 
 Swedenborg . ........ 284 
 
 Self-devotion as a mere Instinct. — Majesty of Law. — 
 Keble's Hymn for the 25th Sunday after Trinity . 286
 
 XIV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LIX. Robespierre's Theory and Practice of the Punishment of 
 Death. — Administration of the Communion to the 
 Murderer. — Superhuman Forgiveness. — " Le mystere 
 de Pexistence, c'est le rapport de nos erreurs avec nos 
 peines." — The Trial of Christ, only Three Years! . 2S9 
 LX. Shakespeare and his Critics. — Healthy Humanity of 
 
 Shakespeare 293 
 
 LXI. " Romeo and Juliet." — Threefold Web of Life. — A 
 
 Friend's Analysis of the Teaching in Trinity Chapel . 295 
 LXn. Keble's Hymn for the Sunday next before Advent.— The 
 
 Doctrine of the Atonement 298 
 
 LXni. The True I\Iode of beginning a Christian Life. — " My 
 God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? " — Christ 
 as Conqueror of all Evil. — Are we guilty of His 
 Death? — Character judged by Handwriting. — " If 
 God is Love, why do we need a Mediator?" . . 301 
 LXIV. End served by the Mutilation of our Afiections. — Rigid 
 Rules do not produce Goodness. — Greek Art. — " Co- 
 mus." — Deep Sadness. — Difficulties of Position . 306 
 LXV. Jan. 4, 1850: Duty of Larger Interest in Humanity. — 
 
 Death of the Queen Dowager 311 
 
 LXVI. Anecdotes of the Kaffir War 312 
 
 LXVII. The same subject . . . . , . . .314 
 
 LXVIII. Afternoon Lectures on Genesis 315 
 
 LXIX. Walk by the Sea Coast 318 
 
 LXX. Humble Resignation 319 
 
 LXXI. Relative Priority of Will and Law. — Vvliere can we best 
 worship, alone in the Temple of the Universe, or in a 
 
 Church with Living Men ? 320 
 
 LXXII. Need of Devotional Reading. — Channing's Life . . 321 
 LXXIII. Advice to a Friend perplexed by pett}' Domestic Troubles 323 
 LXXIV. Uselessness of mere Eloquence. — Lessing and Warburton 824 
 LXXV. Hatred of Evil. — Sad Fate of an English Lady. — Les- 
 sing's Speculation as to Pre-existence. — The " Veraci- 
 ty" of Woman 326 
 
 LXXVL The Gorham Judgment 323 
 
 LXXVIL Sermons on Baptism. — The Phrase " Too Late." — The 
 
 so-called Means of Grace 330 
 
 LXXVIIL On Baptism 332 
 
 LXXIX. Unconscious Influence. — " The Luxury of Doing Good." 
 — Intellectual Cultivation versus Moral Good. — Lord 
 
 Byron 335 
 
 LXXX. The Truth that God is Love cannot be reached through 
 
 the " Understanding " 339 
 
 LXXXI. Analogy of Morning, Midday and Evening with Human
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 XV 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 LXXXVI. 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 Life. — Advantage of living by the Seaside. — "Wild 
 Feelings suggested by the Stormj' Sea . . .341 
 Speculative and Meditative Form of Character contrast- 
 ed with the Practical and Contriving. — Blessed are 
 
 they that Mourn 343 
 
 " The Course of True Love never did run Smooth." — 
 
 Romance in Earl}^ Love 345 
 
 Calming Power of English Country Scenery. — Words- 
 worth's " Prelude." — Settled Depression. — To do 
 
 Good for our own Sake? 346 
 
 " All is Well " 349 
 
 The Final Cause of Sorrow 350 
 
 " Macbeth." — Regulation of Outward Life . . 351
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 THE REV. F. W. ROBERTSON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Birth of F. W. Robertson. — Childhood. — Love of Nature. — Character as 
 a Boy at the Academy in Edinburgh. — Youthful Interests. — Choice of 
 Profession. — Military Enthusiasm. — Studies for the Indian Service. — 
 Circumstances which led him into the Church. — Enters Oxford.— 
 Contact with Tractarianism. — Religious Views and Christian Effort. 
 — Reading. — Arnold and Wordsworth. — Speaking at " the Union." — 
 
 . His Opinion as to the Position of a Popular Preacher. — Two Letters 
 recalling his College Life. — Ferment of his Mind at Oxford. — Letter 
 expressing his Opinion of the Tract School and his Desire for a Military 
 Chaplaincy. — Examination for his Degree, — He studies for Ordina- 
 tion. — Letters reviewing the Position of the English Church. 
 Letters from May, 1838, to June, 1840. 
 
 FREDERICK WILLIAM ROBERTSON, the 
 eldest of the seven children of Frederick and Sa- 
 rah Robertson, was born February 3, 1816, at the 
 house of his grandfather. Colonel Robertson, in London. 
 His father, who is still alive, was a captain in the 
 Royal Artillery. Two of his brothers, Charles Dews- 
 bury and Harry, won fi^equent " honorable mention " 
 in the Kaffir war. The third, Struan, was a captain in 
 the Royal South Lincoln jNIihtia. They all survived 
 him, but before he had reached his twenty-fifth year he 
 had o-rieved over the death of his three sisters. 
 
 1 A
 
 2 CHILDHOOD. 
 
 The first five years of his childliood were passed at 
 Leith Fort. In 1821, his father, then captain in the 
 Royal Artillery, retired on half pay in order to attend 
 to the education of his children, left Leith and settled 
 at Beverley, in Yorkshire. There he personally in- 
 structed his son for four years, and then sent him to 
 ine grammar-school of the to^\ii, under the Rev. G. P. 
 Richards. 
 
 In 1S29, the family went to Tours, where young 
 Robertson studied the classics with an English tutor, 
 attended a French seminary, and laid the foundation of 
 his accurate knowledcre of the French lano;uao;e. In 
 consequence of the revolution of 1830, his father re- 
 turned to England, and placed the boy, now nearly 
 sixteen years old, in the New Academy, Edinburgh, 
 under the late Rev. John Williams, afterwards Arch- 
 deacon of Cardigan. 
 
 He owed much to the careful education and watch- 
 fulness of his parents. They kept him apart from evil 
 influences, and made his home his most honored recol- 
 lection. This seclusion, and the books he was induced 
 to read in childhood, were both so calculated to devel- 
 op his character in a true direction, that he mentions 
 them afterwards in some MS. notes, written at Win- 
 chester, as two of the special mercies with which 
 God had blessed his infancy. The loneliness, which is 
 more or less the lot of the eldest of the family, soon 
 created in him a thouojhtfulness fiill of imamnation, 
 and a spirit of inquiry which supplied him with the 
 materials for a silent self-education. But on this ac- 
 count he became neither morbid nor unnatural. On 
 the contrary, he was a radiant and eager child, full of
 
 LOVE OF NATURE. 3 
 
 healtliy enjoyment of life, dellglitlng in air, and sun- 
 light, and active exercise. His happy childhood at 
 Leith Fort was a cherished memory of his ministerial 
 life, and he looked back upon it with a pleasure deep- 
 ened by the necessarily sedentary nature of his profes- 
 sion. In 1849 he writes from Brighton : — 
 
 My pony, and my cricket, and my j-abbits, and my father's 
 pointers, and the days when I proudly carried his game-bag, 
 and my ride home with the old gamekeeper by moonlight in 
 the frosty evenings, and the boom of the cannon, and my 
 father's orderly, the artilleryman who used to walk with me 
 hand-in-hand, — these are my earliest recollections. 
 
 Even at that time there seems to have been nothing 
 in external nature which did not give him pleasure, and 
 awake in him a vivid interest. The fresh winds, and 
 sunlight, and clear waters, which he enjoyed at Leith, 
 seem to have infused their own spirit into his receptive 
 organization. He wandered over the country with an 
 open eye and heart, and found in every walk and ride 
 something to admire and to love. He had a child's af- 
 fection and reverence for animals, and especially for 
 bh'ds. He studied their natural history; he watched 
 them to their haunts ; he rejoiced in the freedom of 
 their life as if it had been his own ; he even began a 
 book in which he made drawings of them, with notes 
 on their habits and habitations. Many will remember 
 the passage in one of his lectures on Poetry, in which 
 he notices with enthusiasm Wilson's work on " Birds," 
 and Waterton's " Wanderings," and describes with the 
 minuteness of affection the series of stuffed birds which 
 illustrated falconry in the Exhibition of 1851. " I have 
 visited," he says, " the finest museums in Europe, and
 
 4 BOYHOOD. 
 
 spent many a long day in watching the habits of birds 
 in the woods, hidden and unseen by them ; but I never 
 saw the reproduction of life till I saw these." 
 
 He describes himself, m boyhood, " as iron in strength, 
 broad and stout." He excelled in manly games and 
 athletic exercises and was the leader of all the darincr 
 exploits of his companions. To this he joined a love of 
 reading and of quiet remarkable at his age. On the 
 brightest day he would become entranced in some tale 
 of chivalry or imagination which charmed him into 
 stillness. He loved to fancy himself a knight — seek- 
 incr adventure, redressino; wrono;s, lavincr down his life 
 for maidens in distress ; and often for hours together 
 the vividness of these imaginary pictures would sep- 
 arate him from the commonly thoughtless activity of 
 a boy's life, and exile him from his companions. 
 Lying at the root of much of this dreaminess, was 
 the sensitiveness of nerve and feeling which so strong- 
 ly marked and influenced his whole existence. It 
 betrayed its presence during boyhood in his shy and 
 sometimes defiant manner, and in a settled self-mis- 
 trust, often sinking into hopelessness. " Deficiency of 
 hope," he says himself, " is the great fault of my 
 character." 
 
 Such a temperament, without his strong will and 
 stem sense of duty, would naturally have led him into 
 idleness. But it was not so with him. In childhood 
 he learned quickly, and mastered fully what he had 
 learnt. His memory was retentive, and in later years 
 he could recall with ease page after page of books 
 which he had not read since his boyhood. But this 
 power never stole from him his conviction that perse-
 
 AT SCHOOL IN EDINBURGH. 5 
 
 verance in labor was the only foundation of real 
 knowledore. He was an intense worker. He never 
 left a subject till he had done his utmost to exhaust it, 
 and to examine it in all its bearings. At the Academy 
 in Edinburgh, his toil was incessant, and he soon took a 
 hio-h place in his class. Thouo-h without the advantao;e 
 of previous training in the lower forms, he gained at 
 the end of the session the first prizes for Latin verse, 
 English prose, the French language, and French recita- 
 tation, and contested so sharply the prize given to the 
 best Greek scholar, that the decision was referred to Pro- 
 fessor Sandford, who gave it in favor of the Dux of the 
 Academy — George Moncrieff, with whom, as boy and 
 man, Robertson maintained an unbroken friendship. 
 
 All this success surprised no one more than himself; 
 he continually wrote home in depreciation of his work. 
 This self-distrust made him even then acutely conscious 
 of small errors. In composition he magnified shght 
 failures in the rhythm and style of a sentence into 
 grave faults ; he was intolerant of a misplaced stop ; he 
 shrank with all the over-subtle purism of a boy from a 
 mispronunciation or an antiquated pronunciation of 
 words. He carried this humility and sensitiveness into 
 morals ; the slightest deviation from truthfulness in 
 words or truthfulness in action was abhorrent to his 
 nature. His mother said of him, " I never knew him 
 tell a lie " ; and he would rather have lost every prize 
 at the Academy, than owe one to foreign help or to the 
 usual aid which boys seek from translations. 
 
 The principal of the Academy soon recognized the 
 character he had to deal with, and gave him repeated 
 encouragement, and of this he speaks with grateful ap-
 
 6 BOYHOOD. 
 
 preciation. Without sympathy he would have been 
 hopeless, although he would not have ceased to work ; 
 for there was mingled in him the womanliness which 
 seeks for external help, and the manliness which per- 
 forms a duty even in loneliness. To romance, sensi- 
 tiveness, delicacy, humility, great gentleness, he added, 
 even, at this early age, a practical view of life, calm 
 good sense, steady adherence to right, unselfishness, and 
 a com^age at once enthusiastic and prudent. Two let- 
 ters, written when he was sixteen years old, to his 
 mother and brother, shortly after the cholera appeared 
 at Edinburgh, will illustrate some of these points of 
 character : — 
 
 February 26, 1832. 
 
 My dear Mother, — T ou need be under no appre- 
 hension concerning the cholera, as the cases here, upon an 
 average, are one a week, or something of that kind. If, 
 however, it should increase in violence, I have made up my 
 mind to remain here. In the first place, I should bring in- 
 fection home, and it would be extremely selfish to bring oth- 
 ers into danger merely for my own private safety. In the 
 next place, instead of escaping it, I might only rush into 
 danger in my journey. I am sorry to say, that because I 
 kept a good place at first in my class, the Rector said to 
 several persons that he expected me to be second at the end 
 of the year. He will, I am sorry to say, soon find out his 
 mistake, as I am terribly behindhand in several things. 
 Ten o'clock, p. m. — I have just finished fagging hard for to- 
 morrow. 
 
 July 2, 1832. 
 
 My dear Brother, — Tell papa that my suspicions about 
 the French composition prize were but too well founded ; for 
 this morning, Monsieur Braed, after I had endeavored for
 
 BOYHOOD. 7 
 
 a long time to get it out of him, acknowledged that he had 
 given the prize to Moncrieff. He then put me in a very try- 
 ing situation, by asking me to recite it (Moncrieff's) on the 
 exhibition day. I told him I could not decide, but would 
 give him an answer to-morrow. Though it is hard upon me 
 to be thus made the herald of my own defeat, I have deter- 
 mined to comply, partly for Moncrieff's sake, and partly be- 
 cause I am determined that whatever I feel, it shall not be 
 visible. A few days ago the Academical Club, or rather a 
 deputation, waited on the Rector to announce the decision 
 upon the English verses given in a long time ago. The sev- 
 enth, sixth, and fifth classes were summoned into the Rector's 
 class-room, and the prize was decided to have been gained 
 by Terrot in my class. After he had recited his verses, we 
 were told that all the other copies which had been given in 
 were very meritorious, but that the two next in merit to Ter- 
 rot's were so equal, that they had been unable to decide be- 
 tween them. I was astonished by hearing my motto read 
 out as one of them, and still more so when I was called upon 
 to recite them. Imagine me standing elevated upon the 
 Rector's platform, and feeling more like a criminal than any- 
 thing else. I trembled so violently that I could not hold the 
 paper steady, and do not know how I managed to get to the 
 end. The deafening claps of the boys were the first thing 
 that brought me to my senses. I cannot imagine what I shall 
 do when I recite the French in the public hall with several 
 hundred spectators, when I felt so uncomfortable by just 
 reading before a hundred and twenty boys, most of whom I 
 knew, the masters, and a few of the directors, and the Aca- 
 demical Club. 
 
 At the end of the session he left the Academy, and, 
 under the care of Mr. Terrot, afterwards Bishop of Ed- 
 inburgh, attended the various classes at the University, 
 and at the age of eighteen returned home, bringing
 
 8 YOUTHFUL INTERESTS. 
 
 witli him a lar^re amount of multifarious knowledo;e and 
 many memories of a pleasant life and profitable study. 
 Of his general reading at Edinburgh there is no record, 
 but he had devoted himself eagerly to practical chemis- 
 try and physical geogi*aphy. There remains among his 
 papers a MS. book full of notes of Professor Jamieson's 
 lectures, and illustrated by drawings, which manifest 
 the artistic talents which he afterwards cultivated, and 
 then, when he had attained to some excellence, charac- 
 teristically despised. 
 
 But his interest in all these things was small in com- 
 parison with his enthusiasm for a military life. This 
 was literally born with him. At Leith, before he was 
 five years old, he drank in, w^ith all the eagerness of a 
 boy, the intoxicating aroma of his father's profession. 
 " I was rocked and cradled," he writes, " to the roar of 
 artillery, and the very name of such things sounds to 
 me like home. A review, suggesting the conception 
 of a real battle, impresses me to tears ; I cannot see a 
 regiment manoeuvre, nor artillery in motion, without a 
 choking sensation." 
 
 The traditions of his family suggested and fostered 
 this passionate love of arms. The conversation at home 
 was full of recollections of bivouac and battle, and of 
 the daring exploits of Sir Charles Napier, who was his 
 father's personal friend. He writes from the Academy 
 to his brother, begging that the miniature fort in the 
 garden at home might not be blown up till he arrived. 
 He argued daily with his French masters on mihtary 
 engineering. It is no wonder that, on leaving Edin- 
 burgh, the secret wish of his heart to enter the aniiy 
 had grown into a settled purpose. This was not, how-
 
 CHOICE OF PROFESSION. 9 
 
 ever, the intention of his father, who considered that 
 the character of his son, and his deep rehgious feeHng, 
 were unfitted for a barrack hfe. The Church was, 
 therefore, proposed to him as a profession ; but his an- 
 swer was decisive, — "Anything but that: I am not 
 fit for it." 
 
 He was then (1833) articled to Mr. Boston, a sohci- 
 tor at Bury St. Edmunds, and passed a year in his office. 
 But the sedentary nature of the work broke down his 
 health ; and Captain Robertson discovered that his 
 son had adopted a profession which he detested, only 
 through a feehng of chivalrous obedience. It was then 
 resolved that he should follow the bent of his genius. 
 An application was made to the Horse Guards for a 
 commission. It was refused on the ground of age. But 
 his mother's family had been fortunate enough to do 
 the King, when Prince WiUiam, some service, and the 
 refusal was retracted. His name was placed upon the 
 list for a cavalry regiment serving in India. He was 
 enraptured, and immediately began to study for his 
 profession with enthusiasm. He went to stay with his 
 brother in the Engineers, at Chatham, to gain an in- 
 sight into practical engineering. His whole soul was in 
 his work. He recalls in later letters that time : — '' On 
 that road I had walked and ridden, O, how often ! ex- 
 ulting in the future, fearless, full of hope, and feeling 
 the perfection of the present, — days when I was prodi- 
 gal of happiness." 
 
 A spirit so buoyant and enthusiastic fitted him well 
 for the army, and he became a first-rate rider, a good 
 shot, and an excellent draughtsman. He omitted noth- 
 ing hkely to make him a faithful and useful officer. In
 
 10 TWOFOLD CHABACTER AND EFFORT. 
 
 hope and work two years were thus passed by, during 
 which he hved with his family at Cheltenham. There 
 it was that Captain Robertson, under the impression 
 that his application to the King had been forgotten, 
 again proposed to his son the profession of the Church, 
 and again was answered by a firm refusal. The temp- 
 tations to which he would be exposed in the army were 
 strongly set before him, but he could not believe that 
 they were any real barriers against his entrance into it ; 
 on the contrary, with his usual desire for some positive 
 outward evil to contend with, he imagined that it was 
 his peculiar vocation to bear witness to God, to set the 
 example of a pure and Christian life in his corps, to be 
 the Cornelius of his reo;iment. The trained obedience 
 of an army to one head, harmonized with his own strong 
 conception of the beauty of order and the dignity of 
 duty. All the impulses of his character to self-sacrifice, 
 chivalry, daring, romantic adventure, the conquest of 
 oppression, the living of life intensely, he looked for- 
 ward to satisfying as a soldier; and he believed that 
 the active out-door existence of a campaign, with its 
 danorer and excitement, would suit his physical tem- 
 peniment, and tend to neutralize his constitutional ner- 
 vousness. 
 
 Associated in remarkable contrast with his vivid out- 
 ward life and activity at this time was an inward life, 
 peculiarly sensitive, subtle in thought, more subtle still 
 in feeling, full of poetry and of religious sentiment. It 
 was impossible to express in prose the minuter shades 
 of feeling which passed over his heart as boyhood grew 
 into youth, and he began at this period to read poetry 
 with greater eagerness, and to write verses. His own
 
 STUDIES FOR 1:NDIA. 11 
 
 efforts are, strange to saj, characterized by almost no 
 imagination, and curiously devoid of poetical talent. 
 The influence of Pope, of whom he was now an ardent 
 admirer, seems to have clogged all his attempts at 
 English verse. Striving after the terseness of thought 
 and sharp clearness of expression which mark his model, 
 he naturally became incapable of putting into verse 
 delicate dreams of intuitive feeling. Perhaps it was 
 owing to his discovery of this want that he ceased for a 
 time to read Pope, and turned in preference to Byron 
 and Shakespeare. 
 
 To two great objects — the profession of arms which 
 he had chosen, and the service of Christ in that pro- 
 fession — he now devoted himself wholly. They filled 
 his life, and for both of them he read carefully. It 
 marks his honesty and sincerity of purpose, that imme- 
 diately, on making sure of his Indian commission, he 
 gave himself up to preparation for service in that coun- 
 try. He would have thought it a sin against truthful- 
 ness of character, if he had adopted a career without a 
 special training for his work. With this purpose he 
 studied the early histoi-y and geography of India, and 
 the characters of its various populations. He mapped 
 the campaigns, and made himself master of the strategi- 
 cal movements of the British generals in that country. 
 The fortunes of India, and the constitution which the 
 English had elaborated for their large dependency, be- 
 came familiar to him. It is interesting to observe how 
 fondly he recalled at Brighton these youthful studies, 
 how he followed the course of the Sikh war, and read 
 with careful pleasure the exploits of Napier, and the 
 story of Major Edwardes's career. In a series of
 
 12 DISAPPOINTMENT. 
 
 lectures delivered at Brighton, and unfortunately lost, 
 he treated of Christianity as it would come into con- 
 tact with Hindooism with the same wide grasp of prin- 
 ciples, and in the same manner, as he dealt with the 
 advent of Christ to the Greek, Roman, and Barbarian. 
 The seed of which these lectures were the flower, was 
 sown at this time. 
 
 Parallel with his military reading, in rather a strange 
 contrast, ran his religious reading. Sometimes both 
 glided into one another, as when, in the hope of ad- 
 vancing Christ's kingdom, he devoted a portion of his 
 time to the history of Indian missions, and the study of 
 the reasons of then' small success ; and Avith a rare wis- 
 dom, the need of which has at last been recognized, 
 gained all the information accessible to him upon the 
 religion of the Hindoos. At other times, his reading 
 was entirely theological. Towards the end of 1836, he 
 seems to have almost given up the hope of hearing 
 favorably from the Horse Guards, and, with a kind of 
 presentiment, began to labor at books on Evidences 
 and on Prophecy. Then again, as if the hope of a 
 military life had reawakened, he analyzed the Jugur- 
 thine war. In his commonplace book may be seen 
 the fluctuations of the mind between the Church and 
 the Army as professions, or, at least, his desire to bring 
 Christianity into a soldier's life. 
 
 All these fair hopes were destined to disappointment. 
 Looking back now on his career as a clergyman, and 
 considering the wide influence which his pubhshed ser- 
 mons have had in EnMand, it is interestino; to trace 
 how he was apparently impelled by circumstances into 
 the clerical profession.
 
 URGED TO ENTER THE CHURCH. 13 
 
 In March 1837, he met Mr. Davies, now Vicar of 
 Tewkesbury, at the house of a common friend in Chel- 
 tenham. A close friendship soon sprung up between 
 them. Mr. Davies, believing that he saw in Robertson 
 all the elements which would form a successful and de- 
 voted minister of the Church, endeavored to dissuade 
 him from entering the army.* He replied, " that the 
 matter had been already settled, that application had 
 been made long ago, and interest employed to obtain a 
 commission." He added, " I do not become a soldier 
 to win laurels ; my object is to do good." Mr. Davies, 
 however, did not desist till he had obtained from him a 
 promise to allow the whole matter to be reconsidered. 
 His mind, however, remained fixed in its previous res- 
 olution. Three weeks only before he entered Oxford 
 
 * Mr. Davies thus relates the origin of their friendship: — " The daugh- 
 ter of Lady Trench, at whose house I met my friend, had been seriously 
 ill. She was prevented from sleeping by the barking of a dog in one of the 
 adjoining houses. This house was Captain Robertson's. A letter was 
 written to ask that the dog might be removed: and so kind and acquiescent 
 a reply was returned, that Lady Trench called to express her thanks. 
 She was much struck at that visit by the manner and bearing of the eldest 
 son, and, in consequence, an intimacy grew up between the families." 
 
 This apparently trivial, circumstance is mentioned, because in one of 
 Mr. Robertson's papers a curious allusion to it has been found, which 
 proves that this intimacy promoted the change of his profession. He is 
 speaking of one of his favorite theories — that all great truths consist of 
 two opposites which are not contradictory. " All is free," he says: " that 
 is false ; all is fated, — that is false. All things are free and fated, — that 
 is true. I cannot overthrow the argument of the man who says that every- 
 thing is fated, or, in other words, that God orders all things, and cannot 
 change that order. If I had not met a certain person, I should not have 
 changed my profession: if I had not known a certain lady, I should not 
 probably have met this person : if that lady had not had a delicate daugh- 
 ter who was disturbed by the barking of my dog: if my dog had not 
 barked that night, I should now have been in the Dragoons, or fertilizing 
 the soil of India. Who can say that these things were not ordered, and 
 that apparently the merest trifles did not produce failure and a marred 
 existence ? "
 
 14 URGED TO EXTER THE CHURCH. 
 
 his father said to him, " I think you had better recon- 
 sider your plans and enter the Churcli." He an- 
 swered, energetically, " No, never ! " The following 
 day he met Mr. Daly, now the Bishop of Cashel, at 
 Lady Trench's. It stmck him as singular that Mr. 
 Daly should ask him so soon after his father's sugges- 
 tion, " Whether it were definitely settled that he should 
 go into the anuy ? " After some conversation, he in- 
 quired, "What would you advise me to do?" Mr. 
 Daly, who, much impressed by his unaffected piety, de- 
 sired to see him in the Church, answered : " Do as 
 your father likes, and pray to God to direct your father 
 aright." His friends also at Cheltenham urged the 
 same upon him. He spoke then to his father, and left 
 the final decision in his hands. With a romantic in- 
 stinct of self-sacrifice, which transcended the bounds of 
 prudence, he resolved to give up the idea of his whole 
 life. Yet he would scarcely have done this had not liis 
 strong sense of duty been appealed to by the arguments 
 of his fii'iends, and had not his characteristic self-mistnist 
 disposed him to believe that he was himself the worst 
 judge of his future profession. 
 
 His father, after anxious consideration, decided, at 
 last, to send him up immediately to Oxford with Mr. 
 Davies. With some difficulty, and, through the inter- 
 est of Mr. Churton, who wished to secure him for his 
 college, a vacancy was found for him in Brazenose. 
 He wrote home to state this, and added, with evidently 
 a lingering wish for the army, " What shall I do ? " 
 He shrank with deep pain from completing the sacri- 
 fice. But his father wrote to say, " Accept it " : and 
 on May 4, 1837, he was examined and matriculated.
 
 HE ENTERS OXFORD. ' 15 
 
 A fortnight afterwards, the long-expected letter came 
 from the military secretary, offering him a cavalry com- 
 mission. Had it arrived three weeks sooner, he had 
 never entered the Church ; but arriving after his ma- 
 triculation, his father considered that God had directed 
 the circumstances, and the commission was declined. 
 
 He was now twenty years old, and, accepting, some- 
 what sternly, his destiny, he began his' university 
 career. 
 
 Before entering on residence, he spent much time 
 with Mr. Davies. They walked daily together, and his 
 friend, anxious lest he should have forced his inclina- 
 tions, asked him frequently whether he was satisfied 
 with what had been done. He would never answer di- 
 rectly, but only quietly reply, " Wait ; some day I will 
 tell you." 
 
 Often (Mr. Davies writes) when passing a soldier in the 
 street, has he tightly pressed my arm, observing, " Well, so 
 I am to have nothing to do with them " ; and at other times, 
 "Poor fellows, they are but little thought of ; few care for 
 their souls." I can never forget the feeling and energetic 
 manner in which he would quote at length the passage from 
 Coleridge's " Sibylline Leaves," dwelling with marked em- 
 phasis on the Hnes, 
 
 As if the soldier died without a wound; 
 
 As if the fibres of this godlilie frame 
 
 Were gored without a pang ; as if the wretch 
 
 Who fell in battle, doing bloody deeds, 
 
 Passed off to Heaven, translated and not killed; 
 
 As though he had no wife to pine for him, 
 
 No God to judge him. 
 
 It was with great delight that he told me that the applica- 
 tion for a commission had been successful, for it would not 
 be said that he went into the Church because he could not 
 get into the army.
 
 16 VIEWS OF LIFE AND OF RELIGION. 
 
 During the summer he went up the Wye, and visited 
 Tintern by moonhght. Mr. Davies, who accompanied 
 him, remembers that he always collected the servants 
 of the several inns to evening prayers, and recalls his 
 intense and romantic enjoyment of the scenery ; and 
 
 Yet, (continues Mr. Davies,) with all this poetical sense of 
 life aPid nature, I never knew any one who took a more cor- 
 rect view of life, and who was more anxious to deal in a man- 
 ly and Christian way with its realities. 
 
 At the time to which I refer I never knew him otherwise 
 than cheerful, and there were times when his spirits were 
 exuberant, times when he was in the mood of thoroughly 
 enjoying everything. With him as I was, daily and hourly, 
 I can testify that he was a constant and prayerful student of 
 his Bible He possessed a very logical mind, and in ar- 
 gument was a close and accurate reasoner. At this time, he 
 held firmly what are understood as evangelical views, and 
 for these he would mildly but perseveringly contend. He 
 advocated strongly the pre-millennial advent of Christ. But 
 one who was more free from the shibboleths of a party, or 
 more abhorrent from anything like cant, or one who re- 
 garded others with a more large-hearted charity, I never 
 knew. 
 
 In October, 1837, Mr. Robertson became a resident 
 at Brazenos'e. With his deep and cultivated interest in 
 all the variations of religious opinion, he at once came 
 into contact with the movement which engrossed a large 
 portion of the most remarkable men in the University, 
 under the leadership of John Henry Newman. Several 
 efforts were made to induce Mr. Robertson to join this 
 party. He had himself been much impressed by a 
 sermon of Mr. Newman's, '' On Sin after Baptism,"
 
 IN CONTACT WITH TRACTARIANISM. 17 
 
 and tlie contest which arose in liis mind from his sense 
 of the fervor and sincerity of religious feehng which 
 marked the Tract school, and his own instinctive recoil 
 from the doctrines which they held, resulted in a state 
 of deep mental depression. But depression never at 
 any time of his life was permitted to pass the point 
 where it merges into intellectual or spiritual slgthful- 
 ness ; and now, as always, it spurred him into activity. 
 He began immediately to study critically the Acts of 
 the Apostles, and he wrote to his father to say that he 
 had not gone through the book before he felt satisfied 
 that, on the subject of baptism at least, the Tractarian 
 school was in error. With a calmer mind than before, 
 he now endeavored to make himself master of Mr. New- 
 man's opinions, and to refute them. His copy of Tract 
 90, and of Dr. Pusey's letter to the Bishop of Oxford, 
 are largely annotated by his answers to their argu- 
 ments. He seems to have read carefully about this 
 time, as books bearing on the whole subject. Collier's 
 History, Calvin's Institutes, Ranke's History of the 
 Popes, and many of the replies published at Oxford 
 in 1838-39. 
 
 From the main conviction with regard to Mr. New- 
 man's opinions which he then attained he never after- 
 wards swerved. But he did not join then, or at any 
 time, in the persecution and slander with which the 
 Tractarians were assailed. He invariably spoke bravely 
 — and that when brave speaking was dangerous to his 
 position — in behalf of their manliness, devotion, and 
 practical work. 
 
 Nor was he content with convincing himself of the 
 errors of the prominent school at Oxford. He endeav-
 
 18 STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 ored to counteract its influence among his personal 
 friends, by setting on foot a society for the purpose of 
 prayer and conversation on the Scriptures. It was or- 
 ganized, and consisted of seven members, but after Hn- 
 gering through a term or two it died in 1839. 
 
 The necessity of an accurate and critical knowledge 
 of the Bible became more clear to him from this con- 
 tact with various forms of religious thought. It was 
 his habit, wdien dressing in the morning, to commit to 
 memory daily a certain number of verses of the New 
 Testament. In this way, before leaving the University, 
 he had gone twice over the English version, and once 
 and a half throuo-h the Greek. With his eminent 
 power of arrangement, he mentally combined and re- 
 combined all the prominent texts under fixed heads of 
 subjects. He said long afterwards to a friend, that, 
 owing to this practice, no sooner was any Christian 
 doctrine or duty mentioned in conversation or sug- 
 gested to him by what he was writing, than all the 
 passages bearing on the point seemed to array them- 
 selves in order before him. 
 
 No change took place in his doctrmal views, which 
 were those of the Evangelical school, with a decided 
 leaning to moderate Calvinism. They were mingled 
 with a rare charity and tolerance, which seem, however, 
 in the excitement of argument, to have sometimes 
 failed him. He took a large interest in missionary 
 work, especially in that among the Jews. The society 
 mentioned above, for the short term of its existence, 
 became one of the centres of correspondence which were 
 established in England with the leading foreign mission 
 stations. He strove to interest others in Christian en-
 
 VIEWS AND RELIGIOUS INTERESTS. 19 
 
 terprise ; but liis enthusiasm, though not frozen, was 
 chilled by the apathy and coldness of Oxford. To his 
 excitable and eager temperament, the trim system, the 
 " donnishness," which gave the tone to the Hfe and 
 studies of reading men, were dreary and sleepy, and too 
 hedged in by unelastic rules. With the Utopianism of 
 a young man, he could not at first see that a large and 
 varied society must be governed not by love, but by 
 law ; that if the intellect is to be well trained, it must 
 be restricted to a few subjects, and forbidden to travel 
 over wider fields till it has gained sufficient power. 
 
 His Christian fervor, for which he found so little food 
 in Oxford, he maintained by bold speaking and brave 
 action. 
 
 I rejoice to think of him (writes one of his friends) as I 
 knew him at Oxford, — warm, and generous, and noble- 
 hearted ; conspicuous for talent, irreproachable in conduct ; 
 and, what was most of all valuable, and the most cheering 
 subject of retro.-pect now, one who carried the banner of the 
 Cross without fear, and was not ashamed of Christ in a place 
 which, though professedly consecrated to His service, offered 
 perhaps more hindrances than helps to a decidedly Christian 
 profession. 
 
 He read steadily, though not severely, the usual 
 course. On every side his imagination seems to have 
 lured him away from the confined sphere of university 
 reading to subjects suggested by his studies. This, and, 
 I imagine, a want of enthusiasm for collegiate life and 
 reading, born of regret for the loss of the real profession 
 of his heart, with the addition, perhaps, of his constitu- 
 tional diffidence, were the reasons why he never aspired 
 to collegiate honors. At first, however, he plunged
 
 20 READING. 
 
 eagerly, too eagerly, into work. He attended lectures 
 for sixteen hours in the week. He mingled with his 
 necessary labors the recreation which natural history 
 afforded him. He listened with pleasure to the wit, 
 learning, and imagination with which Dr. Buckland 
 charmed his geological class. Plato fascinated him. 
 The poetry, the idealism, the complete power with which 
 the Greek philosopher used the most perfect organ of 
 human thought, delighted a mind essentially imagina- 
 tive, and a taste which demanded that thought should 
 be expressed not only in accurate, but in polished lan- 
 guage. Yet he saw the defects of Plato, and turned 
 to Aristotle, to balance the scale of his thought. He 
 studied both with untiring labor, and he declared many 
 years afterwards that their writings, with those of Ed- 
 wards, " had passed like the iron atoms of the blood 
 into his mental constitution." Aristotle gradually won 
 a gi'eat influence over his intellect, and it is possible 
 attain and ao-ain to trace in his sermons niceties of 
 mental distinction which owe their subtlety to his in- 
 timate knowledge of the " Ethics." "With the study of 
 these he combined that of Bishop Butler's works, whose 
 sermons and "Analogy" he seems to have completely 
 mastered. Yet he never lost his passion for Plato. He 
 mentions him as — 
 
 One of the poets who, when his brain was throbbing, and 
 his mind incapable of originating a thought, and his body 
 worn and sore with exhaustion, made him know what it was 
 to feel the jar of nerve gradually cease, and the darkness in 
 which all life had robed itself to the imagination become 
 light, discord pass into harmony, and physical exhaustion 
 rise by degrees into the consciousness of power.* 
 
 * Lectures on Poetry. Delivered at Brighton.
 
 AKNOLD. 21 
 
 These words are sufficient to mark how much he 
 owed to the writers whom he revered, and explain 
 much of the deep depression and strong excitement 
 which characterized at once his hfe and his preaching 
 in after years. If many a time his own imao;ination 
 was refreshed and kindled by that of another, only too 
 often also for health and mental power his imagination 
 dominated, not over his will, but over his nerves. He 
 was not subdued by the sad and bitter creations of his 
 own heart, but he suffered, and suffered terribly, in 
 conquering them. 
 
 During the beginning of his college life, the poets 
 which seem most to have attracted him were Shelley 
 and Coleridge ; but the more his thoughtfulness deep- 
 ened, the more he gave to Wordsworth a veneration 
 which increased as life wore on, and which gained addi- 
 tional depth from the respect which he felt for the po- 
 et's character. The following quotation from one of 
 his lectures on Wordsworth will show that this rever- 
 ence took root at an early period in his mind. It bears 
 testimony also to the influence which Dr. Arnold's life 
 had exercised over him : — 
 
 I remember myself one of the most public exhibitions of 
 this change in public feeling. It was my lot, during a short 
 university career, to witness a transition and a reaction, or 
 revulsion of public feeling, with respect to two great men, 
 whom I have already mentioned and contrasted. The first 
 of these was one w^ho was every inch a man, — Arnold, of 
 Kugby. You will all recollect how in his earlier life Arnold 
 w^as covered with suspicion and obloquy, how the wise men 
 of that day charged him with latitudinarianism, and I know 
 not with how many other heresies. But the public opinion 
 altered, and he came to Oxford, and read lectures on modern 
 history.
 
 22 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Such a scene had not been seen in Oxford before. The 
 lecture-room was too small ; all adjourned to the Oxford 
 Theatre ; and all that was most brilliant, all that was most 
 wise, and most distinguished, gathered together there. He 
 walked up to the rostrum with a quiet step and manly dig- 
 nity. Those who had loved him when all the world despised 
 him felt that, at last, the hour of their triumph had come. 
 But there was something deeper than any personal triumph 
 they could enjoy ; and those who saw him then will not soon 
 forget the lesson read to them by his calm, dignified, simple 
 step, — a lesson teaching them the utter worthlessness of un- 
 popularity or of popularity as a test of manhood's worth. 
 
 The second occasion was when, in the same theatre, Words- 
 worth came forward to receive his honorary degree. Scarcely 
 had his name been pronounced than, from three thousand 
 voices at once, there broke forth a burst of applause, echoed 
 and taken up again and again when it seemed about to die 
 away, and that thrice repeated, — a cry in which — 
 
 Old England's heart and voice unite, 
 
 Whether she hail the wine cup or the fight, 
 
 Or bid each hand be strong, or bid each heart be light. 
 
 There were young eyes there filled with an emotion of which 
 they had no need to be ashamed ; there were hearts beating 
 with the proud feeling of triumph, that, at last, the world had 
 recognized the merit of the man they had loved so long, and 
 acknowledged as their teacher ; and yet, when that noise w^as 
 protracted, there came a reaction in their feelings, and they 
 began to perceive that that was not, after all, the true reward 
 and recompense for all that Wordsworth had done for Eng- 
 land : it seemed as if all that noise was vulgarizing the poet : 
 it seemed more natural and desirable to think of him afar off 
 in his simple dales and mountains, the high-pi'iest of Nature, 
 weaving in honored poverty his songs to liberty and truth, 
 than to see him there, clad in a scarlet robe, and bespattered 
 with applause. Two young men went home together, part
 
 SPEAKING AT THE UNION. 23 
 
 of the way in silence, and one only gave expression to the 
 feelings of the other, when he quoted those well-known, trite, 
 and often-quoted lines, — lines full of deepest truth : — 
 
 One self-approving hour whole worlds outweighs 
 Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas, 
 And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels, 
 Than Csesar with a senate at his heels. 
 
 This extract will give an insight into the manner of 
 his life, and the tendency of his thought during his col- 
 lege career. What he felt for "Wordsworth he felt for 
 himself. Popular noise and fame were not his objects. 
 He lived almost in seclusion. He w^as not extensively 
 known at Oxford. He made but few friends ; but 
 those whom he made he clung to tenaciously, and when 
 the circle of his intimacies was completed he did not 
 seek to enlaro-e it. Few exercised much influence over 
 him ; he was rather the centre to which men con- 
 verged, the magnet by which they were attracted. 
 His acquaintance might have been extended had he 
 joined in the manly sports of Oxford, but he was pre- 
 vented from doing so by an injury which he received in 
 his knee at an early period of liis residence. The weak- 
 ness so induced continued for some months, and he nev- 
 er mingled in the athletic exercises of the University. 
 
 He joined the Union, however, on his entrance, and 
 spoke frequently. In these speeches he manifested no 
 great oratorical power. They were chiefly argumenta- 
 tive. But the style of speaking then in vogue at the 
 Union did not admit of any display. Mr. Davies once 
 accompanied him to one of the debates, and his account 
 of it is interesting : — 
 
 On one of the occasions on which T paid Robertson a short 
 visit at Oxford, I went with him to the Union. He was to
 
 24 ESTIMATE OF POPULARITY. 
 
 speak that evening. The subject of debate was the moral 
 tendency or otherwise of the Theatre. Robertson opened 
 the discussion. I sat next to him, and he was somewhat 
 nervous, it being about the second time that he had spoken. 
 Before he got up to speak, pressing his hand upon my 
 knee, he whispered in my ear, " Davies, pray for me." The 
 tenor of his observations was opposed to the idea that theat- 
 rical representations could legitimately be made the channel 
 of conveying any really good moral influence or instruction. 
 Robertson was answered by Mr. Ruskin in a very ingenious 
 and somewhat sarcastic speech, which excited much laughter 
 in the room. With considerable circumlocution and innuendo 
 he was describing a certain personage to whose influence he 
 probably thought Robertson had, in his observations, given 
 too much consideration, when Robertson said in my ear, 
 " Why ! the man is describing the Devil ! " 
 
 It is not strano-e that lie did not seek oratorical dis- 
 tinction, for it was his habit to check the dominant ten- 
 dency of his mind when it led to outward brilliancy, 
 and he felt at this time that it was necessary to subdue 
 imagination in order to gain accuracy in argument. 
 Neither did he make any attempt to compete for the 
 prizes which Oxford held out for those things in wliich 
 he had succeeded in Edinburgh. Once he sent in a 
 poem for the Newdigate, but it was unsuccessful. Yet 
 beneath all this reticence, his enthusiasm, his vigor, his 
 overflowing imagination, and exceeding vivid sense of 
 life, flo^ved like a stream of fire. 
 
 It is probable that the clearness, force, and fulness of 
 thought which marked his later eloquence, were owing 
 to this wise self-restraint. He did not waste energy 
 when his energy had not sufficient materials to enable 
 him to exhaust a subject. Moreover, even at that time
 
 HIS LIFE AT OXFORD. 25 
 
 he dreaded tlie temptations of public honor and popular 
 applause. How clearly he saw these dangers, and how 
 sensitively he shrank from them, may be seen in a let- 
 ter to his mother, written from Brazenose, on hearing 
 of the great success of one of his friends as a preacher 
 at Clieltenham. It reads like a presentiment of the po- 
 sition in which he himself was to be placed. The opin- 
 ions he expresses were held by him afterwards with ten- 
 fold force at Brighton : — 
 
 Brazenose, 1839. 
 My dear little Mother, — I hear of M 's enthu- 
 siastic reception at Cheltenham. I do believe the station of 
 a popular preacher is one of the greatest trials on earth : a 
 man in that position does not stop to soberly calculate how 
 much, or rather how little is done when there appears a 
 great effect, nor to consider how immense is the difference 
 between deeply affecting the feelings and permanently chang- 
 ing the heart. The preacher who causes a great sensation 
 and excited feeling is not necessarily the one who will receive 
 the reward of shining as the stars forever and forever, be- 
 cause he has turned many to righteousness. Misery is a 
 trial, but it makes this world undesirable, and persecution 
 estranges a man from resting on earthly friends, and forces 
 him to choose One whom he would never have chosen if any 
 other had offered ; but prosperity makes earth a home, and 
 popularity exalts self, and invites compliance to the world. 
 It is the old story of one winter in Capua effecting a ruin 
 for Hannibal, which neither the snow of the Alps, nor the 
 sun of Italy, the treachery of the Gauls, nor the prowess of 
 the Romans, could achieve. 
 
 So passed his life at Oxford, a silent, self-contained, 
 progressive life. There are no materials for a more ex- 
 tended notice, and those who have loved him in life and 
 
 2
 
 26 OPINION ON READING FOR HONORS. 
 
 who love him now in death must fill up the void from 
 the few extracts from letters which follow this chapter, 
 and from the scattered hints which will be found in the 
 letters which he wrote from Brighton. Two of these 
 letters, written to a young friend who was about enter- 
 ing college, are so valuable as his own judgment on his 
 academical career, and so interesting as the view which 
 his manhood took of his youth, that they are inserted 
 here in full : — 
 
 9 Montpelier Terrace, Brighton: June 8, 1851? 
 Mr DEAR Kenxion, — It is with some reluctance that I write 
 to you on the subject of your studies ; as, in the first place, I 
 have no right to give an opinion ; and, in the next, I quite 
 feel the truth of what you say in your letter to your mother, 
 that none can decide for you a question with all the bearings 
 of which none but yourself can be acquainted. She is ex- 
 tremely anxious, however, that you should decide rightly, and 
 has written to me to ask what I think. So I am sure you 
 will not think that I am intruding advice. The chief point 
 seems the question of reading for honors. Now, I believe 
 with you, that honors make little or nothing in practice, so 
 far as they bear upon a man's future success. That is, the 
 prestige of them does little in life, — is forgotten, or slightly 
 looked upon, by the large world. But the mental habits 
 got insensibly during the preparation for them is, I think, 
 incapable of being replaced by anything ; and this quite 
 independently of whether a man succeeds or fails in his 
 attempt. To my idea the chief advantage is the precluding 
 of discursiveness. For three years or four, a man has an 
 aim, — a long-distant, definite aim. I defy any young man 
 to create this aim for himself. " Histoiy, with contemporary 
 authors," is a very vague plan, at best. But grant it well 
 mapped out, still he has chosen his own aim, cannot be cer- 
 tain he has chosen well, becomes distrustful of the wisdom
 
 ADVICE ON COLLEGE WORK. 27 
 
 of the plan, because his own ; will infallibly find that ripened 
 experience will not approve the line chosen, inasmuch as, be- 
 ing untravelled by him, he only selects it by guess. Diffi- 
 culties break his ardor ; he cannot struggle with a difficulty 
 w^hile half sceptical as to the unalterable necessity of over- 
 coming it ; and at last, having read de omnibus rebus et 
 quibusdam aliis, he finds that, whatever he may have got of 
 bitter experience, one thing he has not got, and that is the 
 steady habit of looking forward to a distant end, and unalter- 
 ably working on it till he has attained it, — the habit, in short, 
 of never beginning anything which is not to be finished. At 
 college I did what you are now going to do, — had no one to 
 advise me otherwise ; was rather encouraged in it by re- 
 ligious people, who are generally — at least, the so-called 
 religious — the weakest of mankind ; and I now feel I was 
 utterly, mournfully, irreparably wrong. The excitement of 
 theological controversy, questions of the day, politics, gleams 
 and flashings of new paths of learning, led me at full speed 
 for three years, modifying my plans perpetually. 2^ow I 
 would give 200/. a year to have read on a bad plan, chosen 
 for me, but steadily. 
 
 3, Oriel Terrace: March 16, 1852? 
 
 My dear Kennion, — It seems to me that your plan 
 would be a good one for passing your vacation. I have no 
 doubt whatever that French will be, on the w^iole, more val- 
 uable to you than German ; indeed, German literature and 
 theology, as they are at present, open out to the mind such 
 dark vistas of doubt and Pyrrhonism, that I think you would 
 be wise in postponing the study for some years. I am sure 
 you are right in devoting yourself to mathematics. More 
 than, perhaps, any other study, I believe, they form a mascu- 
 line and healthy tone of mind. But I fancy that you will 
 find no lectures in Paris on the subject, — if by lectures you 
 mean public ones. Private lessons from professors may, of
 
 28 DO NOT AIM AT TOO MUCH. 
 
 course, be obtained ; only it seems to me you would get these 
 more satisfactorily through the medium of English, as part of 
 your mathematical time would be expended in mastering the 
 French terms. 
 
 One thing, however, I would strongly recommend, not to 
 put yourself down in Paris, or anywhere else abroad, aIo?ie. 
 I tried this once in Oxford, during a long vacation, thinking 
 to have more uninterrupted time for study, and found the 
 plan a perfect failure. The mind loses its tension for want 
 of society, its interest in its studies, and that healthy feeling 
 of freshness w)iich comes from alternating study with conver- 
 sation. And I do not think that it would be good for a mind 
 like yours. The best way of learning French is to get domi- 
 ciled in a respectable French family,* where there is not an- 
 other Englishman. Not in one of those pensions which are 
 common in Paris, and filled with English ; but a private 
 house, where you are forced into the expression of your ideas 
 and wants in French, if they are to be expressed at all. If 
 this plan should suit you, I would write to a friend in Paris 
 who could give me information on this subject, and would 
 afterwards give you an introduction to Mr. Lovett, the English 
 clergyman there, an excellent man. Pray let me know this. 
 
 At the same time this occurs to me as a piece of truth 
 which I myself learned too late. Your object at the Univer- 
 sity is mental discipline, — not merely the acquisition of 
 knowledge. Do not aim at too much. Mathematics, classics, 
 and theology, are your work for three or four years to come, 
 and I would bend my energies rather upon acquiring these 
 thoroughly than scattering my efforts over a large surface. I 
 well know the discouragement which there is in feeling how 
 little of all that can be known is within our grasp, and the 
 temptation which there is to try a hundred new fields of 
 knowledge. But the man who succeeds in life is, allowing 
 
 * He had himself spent some months in a French family in Paris while 
 waiting for his commission in the army.
 
 EVIL OF OVER-FASTIDIOUSNESS. 29 
 
 for the proverbial exaggeration, generally the man unius U- 
 hri. Life is very short ; and the painter must not hope to 
 be a good seaman ; nor is the clergyman to pine because he 
 cannot be the man of literature. I would not be anxious 
 about German at all, but put it resolutely aside till my col- 
 lege career should be over. It can be acquired in after life. 
 Hebrew, Italian, and German I learned after leaving the 
 University, and now that I have them, I do not set much 
 value on them. As to French, if you can conveniently spend 
 some months in the country now, in conjunction with your 
 pursuit of other things, I can see no reason why you should 
 not. Only, do not be too anxious about these things. It is 
 surprising how little they tell on the great work of Hfe. I 
 am at this moment preparing for a lecture, or lectures, which 
 I am to give on poetry and the poet's character at the Phi- 
 losphical Institution. It is true it is only the gathering up 
 of ideas that have been in my mind unspoken for years ; but 
 I have sighed again and again to feel how much I have to 
 reject as unfit for even an enlightened audience, and in a lec- 
 ture expressly on the topic, and how many days and years 
 have been spent in acquiring and pondering over thoughts 
 that will never tell in this world, and, perhaps, never will be 
 even communicated. If I were to put what I mean in the 
 shape of advice, derived, too, from experience, I would say 
 this : Take care that the mind does not become too fastidious 
 and refined. It is not a blessing, but a hinderance m the 
 work of life. For a clergyman who has to deal with real 
 beings of flesh and blood, I believe it perfectly possible for 
 too much of a Hterary turn to mar his usefulness, at the same 
 time that it gives him more keen sensitiveness in perceiving 
 that it is marred. For this reason, if I were in your place, 
 I should be anxious to give to life as much the aspect of re- 
 ality as possible, which a student's life is apt to keep out of 
 sight. I would read for honors, and sacrifice everything 
 which interfered with this. But in the vacations I would
 
 30 FERMENT OF MIND. 
 
 s 
 
 vary this with systematic visiting of the poor, which, more 
 than anything else, brings a man into contact with the actual 
 and the real, and destroys fanciful dreams. 
 
 Thank you very much for your warm and kind remarks 
 about myself. I would gladly think them true. 
 
 As a contrast to tlie above letters, so defined in view 
 and expression, and exliibitlng a mind settled on a firm 
 foundation of fact and thought, the following letter, full 
 of the ferment of a young man's heart, is interesting, 
 and especially so in the dearth of all materials out of 
 which a clear conception of his college life can be 
 formed. It suggests more than it says. It makes 
 plain that he could not have, at the time when it was 
 written, pursued those plans of study which his matured 
 manhood looked back to as the -wisest. It is at once 
 touching and strange to find in it the old passion for 
 arms developing itself in such an impractical and ro- 
 mantic compromise between his destiny and his desire. 
 It shows how near had been his escape from the school 
 of Mr. Newsman, which at first had not only allured his 
 tastes, but had also ministered fuel to his passionate in- 
 stinct for self-sacrifice. In its evangelical fervor may 
 be seen how hable during his youth he was to strong 
 reactions. The almost fierceness with w^hich he speaks 
 against the Tract School is proof in him of the strength 
 of the attraction it possessed for him, just as afterwards 
 at Brighton his attacks on Evangelicalism are proof of 
 the strength with which he once held to that form of 
 Christianity, and the force of the reaction wdth which 
 he abandoned it forever. Out of these two reactions, 
 — when their necessarily ultra tendencies had been 
 mellowed down by time, emerged at last, the clearness
 
 OPINIONS ON THE TRACT SCHOOL. 31 
 
 and the just balance of principles with which he taught, 
 during 1848 and the following years, at Brighton. He 
 had probed both schools of theological thought to their 
 recesses, and had found them wanting. He spoke of 
 what he knew when he protested against both. He 
 spoke also of what he knew when he publicly recog- 
 nized the Spirit of all Good moving in the lives of those 
 whose opinions he believed to be erroneous. 
 
 Brazenose, Oxford. 
 (Clearly 1840: two or three months before he was ordained.) 
 
 My deak Father, — I have just received your letter, 
 and take the first opportunity of answering it, as I shall be 
 very much occupied the next few days. Mr. Keary's kind 
 offer'*' is a very tempting one, as he is a man I should much 
 like to learn from. But for several reasons I believe I must 
 decline it decidedly. In the first place, if I am to be in Eng- 
 land, I should prefer being nearer home, unless there were 
 some very decided reason to think so distant a place as Hull 
 my appointed post. But the chief objection which rose in 
 my mind on receiving the offer, was a feeling which I have 
 long had, but never decidedly been called upon before to ex- 
 press. I am willing to look on it as in part merely a sort of 
 romance, which must give way to any sober consideration 
 that mio-ht be offered. But I seem this term to have in 
 measure waked out of a long trance, partly caused by my own 
 gross inconsistencies, and partly by the paralyzing effects of 
 this Oxford delusion-heresy, for such it is I feel persuaded. 
 And to know it a man must live here, and he will see tlie 
 promising and ardent men sinking one after another, in a 
 deadly torpor, wrapped up in self-contemplation, dead to their 
 Eedeemer, and useless to his 'Church, under the baneful 
 breath of this accursed upas tree. I say accursed, because I 
 believe that St. Paul would use the same language to Oxford 
 * Of his curacy at Hull.
 
 32 DESIEE FOR A MILITARY CHAPLAINCY. 
 
 as he did to the Galatlan Church, — "I would they were 
 even cut off which trouble you " ; accursed because I believe 
 that the curse of God will fall on it. He has denounced it 
 on the Papal heresy, and He is no respecter of persons, to 
 punish the name and not the reality. May He forgive me if 
 I err, and lead me into all truth. But I do not speak as one 
 who has been in no danger, and therefore cannot speak very 
 quietly. It is strange into what ramifications the disbelief of 
 external justification will extend ; we will make it internal, 
 whether it be by self-mortification, by works of evangelical 
 obedience, or by the sacraments, and that just at the time 
 when we suppose most that we are magnifying the work of 
 our Lord. St. Paul had scarcely reached Corinth, before the 
 Galatians whom he had left behind in a promising state, were 
 " entangled again with the yoke of bondage," though they had 
 stood in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free. 
 But this is rather a long digression, and lest the thread of 
 connection should be broken, I must return before I have 
 come to the conclusion of my digression. I was going to say 
 that after a season of long, utter, and inexpressible darkness, 
 caused principally by my own worldly-mindedness, and not 
 peculiarly enlightened by an examination of the Tract opin- 
 ions, I have had some weeks of peace which I had never ex- 
 pected to know again, and the desire once more, such as I 
 knew when I first learned the freedom of the Gospel, to live 
 to my Master's glory. May He only grant the wish perma- 
 nence ! But connected with this there is a feeling of a 
 marked path ; perhaps merely fanciful, yet our desires must 
 be surely some of the means by which God points out our 
 sphere. When I quitted the army, it was with an inward 
 feeling of a connection with it still unbroken, that the step 
 which, if it had been taken at my own instance, would have 
 been a cowardly desertion of an appointed post, was, even 
 under the circumstances in which it did take place, too re- 
 markable to leave me quite at liberty. Somehow or other I
 
 DEGREE EXAMINATION. 33 
 
 still seem to feel the Queen's broad arrow stamped upon me, 
 and that the men whom in my vanity I imagined I wished to 
 benefit in a red coat, I might now with a better founded hope 
 of usefulness, in the more sombre garb of an accredited am- 
 bassador of Christ. In short, if it were practicable, I feel a 
 strong desire for a military chaplaincy. But, however, I am 
 not certain that this would form a title for ordination. On 
 this point I should much like to gain information, — but if 
 -not, I should prefer a curacy in a situation which would give 
 me an opportunity for fitting myself for this line. 
 
 I have had another battle to fight about my not going up 
 for honors. The new tutor sent for me after an essay which 
 I sent in, and battled with me for half an hour, being in 
 
 great wrath with , who, he said, ought to have shown 
 
 more interest. And Whitaker Churton was so eloquent on 
 the subject, that my resolution was wellnigh broken. But I 
 am persuaded it is best as it is. The translation of Rom. ix. 
 22, is quite literal. If wiU compare the parallel pas- 
 sage Jer. xviii. from which it seems plain that this was taken, 
 she will see that here as there, the leading idea is God's en- 
 durance, and sovereign right of making the clay which was 
 originally a marred vessel, a perfect one ; and that it would 
 be a perversion to infer from the expressions " fitted to destruc- 
 tion," and they were so fitted by Him. At least, that is my 
 view ; but the original is quite as diflScult to understand as 
 the translation. The letters I will send the first opportunity, 
 or bring, if I come home. 
 
 Best love to my dear little motherette and the young ones. 
 
 It remains to notice the circumstances which marked 
 the passing of his degree examination. He did not go 
 up for a class ; but his scholarship was so sound, and 
 his knowledge of his subjects so accurate, that on the 
 first day the examiners wrote to his tutor, Mr Churton, 
 to request that he would induce his pupil to compete 
 
 2* C
 
 34 READING FOR ORDINATION. 
 
 for honors. By some mistake, the letter did not reach 
 its destination soon enough, and he finished his exami- 
 nation in ignorance of the desire of the examiners. 
 They then urged him to undergo a fresh examination 
 for a class. He refused, and was given a day to re- 
 sume his refnsal. He again refused, but the examiners, 
 according to the Oxford custom in such cases, put him 
 into the fourth class. 
 
 For some time before his degree, and for a short time 
 afterwards, he read for his ordination examination. 
 Writing to his mother, he says : — 
 
 Brazenose: 1840. 
 I am now reading pretty steadily for ordination, and feel 
 every day more and more the depths of ignorance. I am 
 persuaded that the surest way for a man to be satisfied with 
 Lis own attainments is to read little ; for the more he reads, 
 the more he sees the boundless extent of what there is to be 
 known, and the circumscribed nature of his own attainments. 
 However, perseverance and prayer may do much. I am now 
 reading the early Church history with Golightly, which is a 
 very great advantage, as he has a fund of general informa- 
 tion, and is a close reader. Jones and I also read together. 
 This plan, if not too exclusively followed, is a very useful 
 one. The conversation which arises on the points of interest 
 strikes, sometimes one, sometimes the other ; as you go on, 
 tends to fix the subject more deeply on the mind, and besides 
 gives habits of accuracy. I have had several communica- 
 tions (official) from the Bishop of Winchester, and all at 
 present seems settled for me ; but even now, if it be not my 
 fate, I hope I may be prevented going there. 
 
 A letter from Mr. Churton, liis tutor, to Captam 
 Robertson, gives an account of his studies, and his sub- 
 jects of thought at this time : —
 
 STUDIES BEFORE ORDINATION. 35 
 
 My chief acquaintance with your son was in the summer 
 of '40 or '41, being together in Oxford, and having then 
 much personal intercourse with him : no letters passed be- 
 tween us, though I can even now recall many interesting con- 
 versations. AYe were all alone; frequently, besides our college 
 servants, there was no one else but he and I within its walls. 
 Many an hour, morning and evening, we paced its quadrangle, 
 in discourse and inquiries as interesting, I believe, to myself, 
 thouo-h many years his senior, as to him. Tlie subjects which 
 then'came before us, besides others of a more directly relig- 
 ious character, were chiefly the following : — 
 
 1. The deference and amount of imphcit obedience due to 
 college authorities, even by parties already of age, but sub- 
 jecte^l to college discipline ; and the presumption that our 
 elders are right in such and such injunctions, inasmuch as we 
 may ordinarily assume that years and longer experience en- 
 sure greater practical wisdom. 
 
 2. The position and foundation of the Tractarian move- 
 ment, as to how far such views and practices were to be 
 found in, or were sanctioned by, the primitive and early 
 Church ; and whether the Church of the first three centuries 
 was a safe and sufficient guide to the leaders and writers of 
 that movement. Hereupon, we not only read together Tay- 
 lor's Ancient Christianity, and verified and compared his pas- 
 sages and quotations from the Fathers, but also read several 
 whole treatises from which his extracts were derived. Be- 
 sides these points, and others involved in these, I can call to 
 mind many interesting inquiries, critical and practical, as to 
 various texts of Scripture, and many conversations on mat- 
 ters of Christian trial and temptation. I should say that the 
 salient points and features in his character at that period were 
 earnest diligence and eagerness towards the object and end 
 of life ; a thirsting inquiry after truth, especially moral and 
 sacred truth ; a highly active mind, metaphysical and yet 
 practical; and a devout disposition of heart, openmg not
 
 86 VIEW OF THE POSITION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 only to its own wants, but also to the wants of others. I 
 remember in particular his expressing to me his delight in 
 Bishop Andrewes's devotions, as opening before him a new 
 and wide field of both intercessory supplication and indi- 
 vidual self-abasement. 
 
 During this period lie ^vas seeking for a title ; and 
 part of a letter to his old friend, Mr. MoncriefF, fitly 
 closes the sketch of his college career. 
 
 Brazenose: May 26, 1840. 
 My dear Moncrieff, — .... I am glad to hear that 
 your ministerial labors are begun. May the Lord of the 
 harvest prosper your work, and ripen the sheaves for his 
 floor ! I cannot conceive a more exalted joy than the being 
 permitted to see the fruit of our toil in the conversion of 
 the thoughtless to our dear Master. The prospect we have, 
 as far as human eye can judge, is a stormy one, and predicts 
 more controversy than edification. It is impossible to look 
 round on the strange aspect of all things, — the Church reel- 
 ing to her centre with conflicting opinions ; in all circles, 
 whether political or religious, minds unsettled and antici- 
 pating at crisis ; " men's hearts failing them for fear, and for 
 looking for those things which are coming upon earth," — 
 without feeling that our path will be a rugged one, and that 
 the hour of trial is at hand. Do not you think so, even with- 
 out any excess of foreboding despondency ? To me every 
 day brings increasing conviction of it, especially when I see 
 the rapidly developed working of the Tract views, which 
 amount to nothing less than a direct, or, as Hooker would 
 call it, an " indirect denial of the foundation." Our motto 
 must be, morning and evening, and converted into a prayer, 
 " Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath 
 made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of 
 bondage." But how strangely that yoke steals round our 
 necks, even when we think we are most entirely free from 
 any idea of self-justification !
 
 OXFORD "DONNISHNESS." 37 
 
 LETTEKS FROM MAY, 1838, TO JUNE, 1840. 
 
 I. 
 
 Brazenose : May, 1838. 
 
 I HAVE become quite an owl, staying at home all day, and 
 not moving till the evening. Still I get very little done in 
 the day, though my rapidly approaching little-go examination 
 should make me read hard. Scarcely a word yet have I pre- 
 pared for it. Not even logic, which is but just begun. Plato 
 is the fascination, and a magnificent fellow he is, — not quite 
 
 so great though as the school would make him out. I 
 
 expect that we shall, in a few years, have him much more 
 studied than he ever has been here yet, — Aristotle being all 
 in all. Sewell is giving public lectures on " The Republic " 
 (which is the work I am reading), contemplating it as an an- 
 ticipation of the Christian Church ! He labored very hard 
 one day to prove that the study of Plato had always preceded, 
 or been contemporaneous with not only the rise of intellect, 
 but the revival of the Christian religion : another time he 
 said that the esoteric method of Plato was on the same prin- 
 ciple as that which influenced the Divine mind to reveal his 
 truths in the Bible in an unconnected form ; with several 
 other wonderful discoveries, " Quce" as the Latin Gr. poeti- 
 cally says, " nunc perscrihere longiim est.'* My friends tell me 
 I am on the high road to Puseyism, loving Plato, and reading 
 Wordsworth. Mj; yevoiro ! There is something excessively 
 chilling in the donnishness of Oxford, which insinuates its 
 unlovely spirit everywhere, — lecture, chapel, pulpit, union, 
 conversation, retirement, — one feels inclined to say, " Shall 
 I ever love a human being again with anything warmer than 
 a vegetable attachment ?" It is just like the contents of my 
 gigantic brown pitcher last winter, — though within eigh- 
 teen inches of the fire all day, one globe of ice. Not very 
 elegant or classical, you will say. Well, then, Medusa's head, 
 
 83427
 
 38 DESIRE FOR THE COMING OF CHRIST. 
 
 rockifying all that comes near it. Clmrton took me down, 
 about a fortnight ago, to Ilsley, the rectory of his brother-in- 
 law, where he did duty. The family were away, and we, 
 with two other Oxford men, had the house to ourselves. 
 We all agreed that the distance of eighteen miles had a 
 marvellous effect in unpetrifying us, — so much as scarcely to 
 recognize one another. Thanks to God, there are a few 
 spirits of a very different cast here ! They must be indeed 
 on fire with a heavenly flame to preserve the warmth they 
 do. Two or three of my most intimate and valuable friends 
 especially. And they will soon see their Master coming 
 to emancipate theui from this unintelligible world. If we 
 could but all say, with heart and soul, " Even so, come, 
 Lord Jesus ! " 
 
 11. 
 
 Brazenose, Oxford : May 28, 1838. 
 My dear Father, — .... I had wished to reply more 
 fully to your two letters for which I am in your debt, both 
 of which, especially the last, gave me much comfort and 
 pleasure. His ways are indeed wonderful, — how wonderful, 
 eternity alone can show, where we shall see the connection 
 of what we are pleased to call trivial events with His most 
 stupendous schemes, and all that is dark and difficult and 
 melancholy in this unintelligible world, all that gives our 
 presumptuous reasoning hard thoughts of God, all that has 
 grieved and disappointed and misanthropized, will be fully 
 explained, and merged in one unclouded blaze of glory. 
 The time may be much nearer than we expect. The last 
 words of our Lord to his Church, uttered by the feeble lips 
 of his last apostle, grayheaded, and already bending over the 
 tomb, were, — " Behold, I come quickly." I wish we could 
 with our whole heart and soul repeat the answer, " Even so, 
 come. Lord Jesus." But we are most of us too devotedly 
 buried in the shadowy nothings of time and space, and too
 
 CONVERSATION ON MIRACLES. 39 
 
 deeply attached to them, to avoid feeling, in the very spirit 
 of unbelief, that it is a day whose postponement is to be de- 
 sired, since they will be torn from our grasp forever 
 
 I am now endeavoring to read hard, since I have to take 
 or try to take my " little go " this term, and as I had not a 
 word prepared at the commencement, and have only just 
 begun, it will be rather hard work, especially the logic, 
 agreeable as it is. Plato too, which I am reading in lecture 
 together with other occupations, takes up not a little of my 
 time. 
 
 III. 
 
 B. N. C. : October 13, 1838. 
 My DEAR Davies, — I write in a hurry, and shall, there- 
 fore, be concise. On the coach to-day was an infidel, with 
 whom I got into conversation. His views were neological in 
 regard to Scripture, and utilitarian in regard to morals. After 
 much discussion, in which, thank God, I was much helped by 
 books I have been reading lately, he introduced the subject of 
 supernatural appearances. These, he said, could be accounted 
 for on three grounds ; but there was a fourth class which 
 cannot be so accounted for, but this we have no right to call 
 supernatural, as we know nothing, and future scientific dis- 
 coveries might prove it to be quite in the course of nature. I 
 knew what was coming, but determined that he should make 
 the application himself, and begged him to be more explicit. 
 He spoke of ghosts. I told him I had never seen one, and 
 was not particularly interested to prove their existence. Af- 
 ter a silence, I told him that if he would not require a Quix- 
 otic expedition on behalf of ghosts, he might have an apparent 
 advantage ; but fiiirly avow that he wanted to deny the fact 
 of recorded miracles openly, as a man, we might talk over the 
 question. He seemed ashamed, and said a few words about 
 his not meaning exactly that. The conversation dropped till 
 we got to Oxford, when I suddenly spoke seriously to him.
 
 40 SEPARATION FROM HIS BROTHER. 
 
 He was affected, and shook hands, saying he would give the 
 world to believe it all ; that his father was a religious man, 
 and that his dying wish had been that he should follow his 
 steps. I asked if he had ever asked a blessing on his inqui- 
 ries, for he had read much and controversially. He replied 
 that he had, but that it had had as much effect as if he had 
 prayed to a stone. At parting, he asked me earnestly to 
 recommend him any book I could, and he would promise to 
 read it. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Brazenose : November 4, 1838. 
 
 My dearest Brother, — First, I must tell you that you 
 would have had a letter from me in the last packet, but that a 
 party of banditti took upon them to intercept it in its passage 
 through Rodney House, Cheltenham, on the plausible pretext 
 of its being written on thick paper. After I, of all correspond- 
 ents the worst, had actually summoned resolution to write 
 and despatch a letter, it was very hard to lose the credit of it. 
 I will try to make amends now. Your packet was sent to me 
 yesterday, — a delightful surprise. I cannot tell you how I 
 felt, as if with you in your expressions of loneliness and 
 sorrow at our bitter parting. I felt as if I had never loved 
 you till that moment, when we saw the Sovereign bearing 
 noiselessly away across the apparently boundless expanse, till 
 she was lost to us forever in the distance. My poor dear 
 mother, it must be trouble for her to look forward to five 
 years' separation, when one appears to me an age. Such 
 moments remind us with irresistible eloquence that we have 
 no abiding-place of rest here. I wish it were not a mere vain 
 reminding, but a practical lesson, which might lead us to 
 secure another home. 
 
 The reading your letters, which seemed fresh from your 
 hand, recalled, with a cold feeling of sadness, the long weary 
 miles of water which separate us, how long God alone knows ;
 
 SEPARATION FROM HIS BROTHER. 41 
 
 perhaps forever in this world. But let us both pray earnestly 
 that the separation may not be long, and that even in this 
 world we may renew the dearer relationship than that of 
 earthly brotherhood. I am getting now a very delightful 
 little circle of friends around me at Oxford, and hope soon not 
 to number among my acquaintance one man whose society 1 
 could afford to give up. There is one in whom I have been 
 deeply interested ; a married man with a family, his wife a 
 very superior woman. He has been reading very hard, hoping 
 to take his degree : but, to my sorrow, failed in his examina- 
 tion, — to him a severe trial on many accounts. I called, he 
 was out ; but I found her very much overpowered, and suf- 
 fering intense anxiety for her husband's bitter disappointment. 
 I sat some time, hoping to soothe ; his tread was heard at the 
 front door, and the whole woman was changed. I did not 
 hear another sigh, and she calmly and quietly spoke on the 
 subject, and held up a brighter view of it than she herself 
 saw. The hour of weakness was past, and the deep strong 
 current of a woman's affection bore her up. It was the reed 
 rising from the storm when the oak was shattered. 
 
 This is a strain of romance almost like the expressions of 
 boyish days, instead of my brown seared tint of three-and- 
 twenty. Alas ! how changed the spirit of our dream, our 
 pleasant Pittville walks, only the remembrance of the hap})y 
 hours we spent there with the , &c. But joy's recol- 
 lections are no longer joys ; yet sorrow's memory is sorrow 
 still. Now I wish the thousand leagues that separate us 
 could be traversed as rapidly in body as in fancy ; for I 
 should be happily with you this instant. But our only 
 absent one is not forgotten. We do and will remember him 
 in our prayers. God bless you, my dearest brother.
 
 42 DIFFICULTIES ANTICIPATED. 
 
 V. 
 
 July, 1839. 
 IMy dear Davies, — .... Thank you — most sincerely 
 thank you — for your kind offer and invitation ; but I may 
 not accept it. I am endeavoring to make up for the reading 
 which I have lost in the restless and unsettled state of mind 
 of the last year and a half. I confess that every coach which 
 passes through to Cheltenham gives me an involuntary 
 pang, — partly from remorse for misspent hours, partly from 
 thoughts of the future, partly, and not least, from a wish to 
 be at home. But it may not be ; and, besides, I wish to have 
 some solitude to calm myself to a contemplation of the rapidly 
 approaching time when, if ever, I must declare that I feel 
 moved by the Spirit of God to be his ambassador. To do 
 this, with all the whirl and throbbings of an unbridled imagi- 
 nation, and worldly feeling rife in my breast, is a thing too 
 horrible to be thought of steadily — fxfj ycvoiro ! I do not pro- 
 pose remaining in Oxford the whole vacation, though I be- 
 lieve it would be better for myself to do it. Part of the 
 time I intend to pass with a friend, who failed last examina- 
 tion for his pass. It was from deficiency in Latin writing ; 
 and it has been so strongly put before me that I might be of 
 some service to him, that I think I shall go over there. Do 
 not, of course, mention this, as it would seem very indelicate 
 
 if he were to learn the reason which decided me I 
 
 am much interested in your account of the difficulties of Miss 
 
 ; but how much better they are for her spiritual life 
 
 than a smooth and easy path. The Christian's aim is victory, 
 not freedom from attack ; and a soldier cannot learn to fight 
 by pondering over maps and plans of campaigns in his bar- 
 rack-room. It must be on the field of blood, and in the 
 lonely bivouac ; without real trial, how soon we find rust 
 upon our arms, and sloth upon our souls, and the paltry difii- 
 culties of common life weigh like chains upon us, instead of 
 being brushed away like cobwebs.
 
 A FKIEND'S BIRTHDAY. 43 
 
 VI. 
 
 September, 1839. 
 My dear Hatchard, — .... Now, then, in a very few- 
 words (for I have not really time for more), to express the 
 immediate object of my letter. And yet it is rather hard, for 
 a set epistle of congratulation, like one of condolence, is likely 
 to be very stiff. However, each year as it rolls by seems to 
 rivet with a more enduring importance a day of anniversary, — 
 more especially one of an event which was the ushering into 
 an eternity of either misery or joy a responsible creature. 
 As boys we have looked forward to them, as the occasion of a 
 holiday and juvenile ball. As men, we look back on them, as 
 so many waymarks on which are noted the sins and mercies 
 of successive years. They were seasons of unmingled pleas- 
 ure, — now of self-reproach and melancholy retrospect. Op- 
 portunities irreparably suffered to slip by, — years of self- 
 indulgence, — bad habits formed, — friends alienated, — others 
 wantonly grieved, — in some instances the hour of reparation 
 and reconciliation lost forever, because they have gone to 
 their long home. Two lines in the frontispiece of a little 
 hymn-book, which I have not seen since five years old, seem 
 branded with letters of fire on my memory : 
 
 *' Oh ! if she would but come again, 
 I think. I 'd vex her so uo more! " 
 
 United with all this, the reflection that we were not only 
 not forwarding the eternal interests of those with whom we 
 were, but actually blocking up for them the entrance to the 
 already narrow path, — with all this coming in a torrent on 
 the memory, what can a birthday be to a reflecting being but 
 a season of deep humiliation and abasement before his Crea- 
 tor, his Benefactor, and his Judge ? But, blessed be God, 
 these are not his only titles, or there would be nothing for 
 us but the blackness of darkness forever. I trust and pray, 
 that we both may feel and know, with respect to the fearful
 
 44 FAREWELL TO OXFORD. 
 
 catalogue of past years, that He has, as a Redeemer, " blotted 
 out the handwriting of ordinances which was against us, and 
 taken it out of the way, nailing it to His cross." If so, your 
 twenty-second birthday cannot but remind you of a closer 
 and loftier union than that which you entered on as to-mor- 
 row, a connection with dear but earthly parents ; it will tell 
 you of a more real commencement of existence, — a TraXtyyc- 
 v€(ria, by which you were permitted to call God your father, 
 Jesus Christ your brother, an innumerable company of angels 
 and the spirits of just men made perfect your society, and 
 heaven your home. Then, as the best wish I can offer you, 
 let me send the concluding verses of the third chapter of 
 Epistle to the Ephesians as a birthday prayer. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Brazenose : June 24. 
 My Dearest Brother, — I sit down to give an hour 
 or two to conversation with you, although so far away ; so 
 I shall just let my pen run on, as perhai)S it will, without 
 point or connection. It is now the long vacation, yet I am 
 staying up here, within the hoary walls of Brazenose, all 
 alone, partly for the purpose of reading, partly for the sake 
 of gaining the natural tone of mind after a time of great ex- 
 citement ; no less than twenty-five ladies in my room, — only 
 conceive. One day we went to Blenheim, a beautiful, but 
 melancholy place ; for it is fast going to decay from the neg- 
 lect of its ruined owner, the Duke of Marlborough. The 
 grounds are magnificent and extensive, the house contains 
 some of the finest pictures in England, especially a Madonna 
 by Carlo Dolci, which alone would afford hours of enjoy- 
 ment."* There is an indescribable tranquillity, with an un- 
 earthly look of rapt contemplation, in the countenance and 
 the whole effect, which makes you feel an involuntary awe ; 
 
 * This picture is alluded to in his Lectures on Poetry.
 
 FAREWELL TO OXFORD. 45 
 
 and it is curious to observe how the most talkative groups 
 of visitors, one after another, were stilled into silence before 
 it. In the evening, we went down to the river, it being the 
 last night of the boat-races, in order to see the Brazenose 
 boat come up in triumphal procession, as the head of the 
 river for the year, all the others raising their oars and 
 cheering as we passed. The next day was the commemo- 
 ration. Honorary degrees were conferred upon Wordsworth 
 and Herschel, who were immensely cheered : then the prize 
 essays and poems were recited. The next day we all rowed 
 down to Newnham in an eight-oar : the day lovely. Newn- 
 ham, the seat of the Archbishop of York, is a beautiful place, 
 rendered still more so by the many picnic parties, who had 
 gone down, like ourselves, to show the lions to their lady 
 friends, who, with their light dresses, formed a lovely con- 
 trast to the greensward and sylvan shade. We came back 
 by night, the plash of our oars keeping regular time to the 
 more musical strains of the Canadian Boat-Song and La 
 Dame Blanche^ with which the ladies solaced our toil. On 
 Friday they again breakfasted with me, — the vice-principal 
 of my college, and nine ladies. My room, decorated with 
 flowers, in silver vases, before each lady an elegant bouquet ; 
 and, as I was allowed the use of the college plate, the table 
 exhibited a gorgeous display. The rest of our time was spent 
 in seeing Oxford. But, alas ! the time came for parting, and 
 a melancholy party we were on the last morning : we had 
 been so entirely together ; every one resolved with all their 
 heart to please and be pleased, that we seemed like old 
 friends, instead of which, as in several instances to myself, 
 the brothers of the ladies were not known before. So we 
 shook hands, spoke not a word of sorrow, and I returned to 
 my lonely den, rendered doubly so by the shadowy outline 
 of bright forms and lovely faces, which so lately beamed in 
 it, and still, to fancy, seemed to hover round. I have received 
 the kindest invitations to spend the vacation in different places
 
 46 FAREWELL TO OXFORD. 
 
 — Germany, Isle of Wight, Lancashire, London, Cumber- 
 land, Malvern, Islay, Monmouth, — forcing the grateful con- 
 viction that somehow or other, if I am a friend to no one, I 
 have many friends to me. 
 
 I 've heard of hearts nnkind ; kind deeds 
 
 With coldness still returning: 
 Alas ! the gratitude of man 
 
 Has oftener left me mourniug. 
 
 That is the genuine, manly feeling of dear old Words- 
 worth.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Passage from Collegiate to Active Life. — Growth of his Christian Faith. 
 
 — Early Sadness of his Heart. — Ordination. — Curacy at Winchester. 
 
 — First Appearance in the Pulpit. — Difficulties of his Work. — Letter 
 recalling his Life in Winchester. — Success as a I\Iinister. — Descrip- 
 tion of him by a Friend. — Spiritual Life. — Devotional Reading. — 
 Prayer. — Preaching. — Despondency arising from Illness. — Examina- 
 tion for Priest's Orders. — Close of Ministerial Life at Winchester. — 
 Continental Tour. — Geneva and its Parties. 
 
 Letters from September 17, 1840, to August 3, 1841. 
 
 MR. ROBERTSON passed out of collegiate into 
 active life, out of youth into manhood, with a 
 grave and awful sense of responsibility. His character 
 and Cliristian principles, though unannealed as yet, had 
 been partially moulded into form, and it is necessary to 
 trace their formation up to this point, if his after-life 
 and more complete development are to become intel- 
 ligible. 
 
 It was but slowly that his faith, always more intui- 
 tive than dependent upon "evidences," had become, 
 consciously to himself, a power in his hfe. Various out- 
 ward events and influences had assisted in developing 
 its germ into flower and fruit. At Saxmundham, while 
 yet a boy, he had been wonderfully preserved from a 
 sudden death ; and deep gratitude to God was awakened 
 in his heart. There also one of his sisters had died, 
 and her happiness and peace in dying had impressed 
 him strongly. At Bury St. Edmund's, the seclusion in
 
 48 HISTORY OF HIS RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 which he had hved had driven him in upon himself, 
 and the form of his sohtary thought had been deter- 
 mined bj the perusal of Abbott's " Way to do Good," — 
 a book he valued so highly, tliat afterwards, at Brighton, 
 Avhen he felt the hardening eft'ect of constant preaching, 
 he reread it, as a healthy incitement to activity. At 
 Paris, wdiither he went for a few months, after his with- 
 drawal from the law as a profession, his preservation' 
 from the " gross pollution " of that city — a preservation 
 which he calls incomprehensible — increased his faith 
 in the personal watchfulness and love of God. At Chel- 
 tenham, he imputes to the preaching of Mr. Boyd and 
 Mr. Close, and to the society of many Christian friends, 
 the fervor as well as the sober resolution for the service 
 of Christ with which he began his college career. 
 
 Consistently and actively among the temptations of 
 Oxford, he had lived a Christian life, and grown in 
 Cl'ristian experience, and now his realization of Christ 
 as his Saviour and his personal friend was as deep and 
 vivid as the love and labor which grew out of it into 
 ministerial fruitfulness. This was the cumulative result 
 of many years of prayer and struggle. 
 
 To this resting-place God brought him, not only 
 through the means of external influences, and of his 
 own thirst after righteousness, but also through the 
 natural drift of his character. In boyhood and youth, 
 his reliction, before it had consciouslv taken a distinc- 
 tively Christian form, manifested itself in two ways, — 
 as hatred and resistance of evil, and as a reverence and 
 effort for purity. He wrote in after years, and it was 
 true of his whole life, — 
 
 There is something of combativeness in me wliich prevents
 
 EARLY IMPRESSIONS ABOUT PRAYER. 49 
 
 the whole vigor being drawn out, except when I have an an- 
 tagonist to deal with, a falsehood to quell, or a wrong to 
 avenge. Never till then does my mind feel quite alive. 
 Could I have chosen my own period of the world to have 
 lived in, and my own type of life, it should be the feudal ages, 
 and the life of a Cid, the redresser of wrongs. 
 
 This side of his religion, the old religion of chivalry, 
 made him at school the defender of the oppressed, the 
 bold denouncer of all that was untrue, and the cham- 
 pion of justice among his fellows. There was mingled 
 with this, during his youth, that slight tinge of noble 
 superstition which made at once the strength and the 
 weakness of ancient religious chivalry. In a letter 
 written from Brighton, he relates and comments on an 
 instance of this. 
 
 I remember when a very, very young boy, going out shoot- 
 ing with my father, and praying, as often as the dogs came to 
 a point, that he might kill the bird. As he did not always 
 do this, and as sometimes there would occur false points, my 
 heart got bew^ildered. I believe I began to doubt sometimes 
 the efficacy of prayer, sometimes the lawfulness of field sports. 
 Once, too, I recollect, when I was taken up with nine other 
 boys at school to be unjustly punished, I j)rayed to escape 
 the shame. The master, previously to flogging all the oth- 
 ers, said to me, to the great bewilderment of the whole school, 
 — " Little boy, I excuse you ; I have particular reasons for 
 it," and, in fact, I was never flogged during the three years I 
 was at that school. That incident settled my mind for a long 
 time ; only I doubt whether it did me any good, for prayer 
 became a charm. I fancied myself the favorite of the Invisi- 
 ble. I knew that I carried about a talisman unknown to 
 others which would save me from all harm. It did not make 
 me better ; it simply gave me security, as the Jew felt safe 
 
 3 D
 
 50 YOUTHFUL ROMANCE. 
 
 in being the descendant of Abraham, or went into battle un- 
 der the protection of the Ark, sinning no less all the time. 
 
 The other side of his boyish religion — the adoration 
 of purity — he symbolized for himself in Womanhood. 
 Under this symbol he worshipped, with a boy's unques- 
 tioning worship, his Ideal. Like a boy, too, he trans- 
 ferred to the Form all the excellence of the Idea. 
 RecaUing afterwards these early days of chivalrous im- 
 agination and romance, he writes in one of his letters : — 
 
 The beings that floated before me, robed in vestures more 
 delicate than mine, were beings of another order. The 
 thought of one of them becoming mine was not rapture but 
 
 pain At seven years old, woman was a sacred dream, 
 
 of which I would not talk. Marriasje was dej^rradation. I 
 remember being quite angry on hearing it said of a lovely 
 Swede, — the loveliest being I ever saw, — that she was 
 likely to get married in England. She gave me her hair, 
 lines, books, and I worshipped her only as I should have done 
 a living rainbow, with no further feeling. Yet I was then 
 eighteen, and she was to me for years nothing more than a 
 calm, clear, untroubled fiord of beauty, glassing heaven, 
 deep, deep below, so deep that I never dreamed of an at- 
 tempt to reach the heaven. So I lived. I may truly say 
 that my heart was like the Rhone as it leaves the Lake of 
 Geneva. 
 
 As he grew up, he surrounded the conception of 
 woman with all the sacredness of his highest religious 
 aspirations, while his reverence for this conception 
 tended in itself to exalt his desire for holiness of life, 
 and to keep him true to his ideal. In one of his lec- 
 tures at Brighton, he says : — 
 
 It is feelings such as these, call them romantic if you will,
 
 PURITY OF HEART. 51 
 
 which I know, from personal experience, can keep a man all 
 his youth through, before a higher faith has been called into 
 being, from every species of vicious and low indulgence in 
 every shape and every form. 
 
 And this youthful chasteness of spirit was never stained 
 in life. It is impossible not to feel that to this he owed 
 his keen insight into moral truth, the lucid power with 
 which he solved spiritual problems and points of heart's 
 casuistry, that clear analysis of apparently conflicting 
 truths, which men said came upon them like a revela- 
 tion, and the bright and tender sympathy and penetra- 
 tion with which he recognized the good, and by which 
 he recoiled from the evil of the men he met. And 
 now, at his entrance into manhood, both these ideas, 
 which formed, as it were, his natural religion, became, 
 and continued always to be, the foundations of his 
 spiritual religion. He found them realized for him in 
 Christ the perfect Man. His writings teem with glow- 
 ing descriptions of Christ as the great Vindicator of all 
 wrong ; of Christ in his contest with the spirit of the 
 world, of oppression, of hypocrisy. To Christ also as 
 the spotless Purity, he transferred his young belief 
 in the entire stainlessness of womanhood. He saw in 
 Him not only perfect manhood, but perfect woman- 
 hood. One of his ablest sermons, on the Glory of the 
 Virgin Mother,* is devoted to the elaboration of this 
 thoucjlit. 
 
 The prevailing tone of his mind on entering the min- 
 istry was a tone of sadness. This was due partly to his 
 imao-ination, — an imamnation so creative that it gave 
 form and color to every thought, to everything he 
 
 * Vol. II., Sermons.
 
 62 EARLY SADNESS OF HEART. 
 
 saw and read, and which, when permitted to roam un- 
 checked, wandered on for hours, thought suggesting 
 thought, and feehng feehng, till a whole wild land- 
 scape of ideas and their forms grew up before his eyes. 
 He could not live in so ideal a world in which he be- 
 came vividly conscious of a fuller life of genius than he 
 could embody, without becoming at times the victim 
 of a vacrue sadness, the vagueness of which was its 
 greatest pain. 
 
 Add to this an extremely sensitive organization, and 
 it is no wonder that both feelino^ and thouo;ht, in this 
 continual battle between his nature and his will, were, 
 when he was far too young, preternaturally excited, 
 and that he rapidly lost the vigorous health and strength 
 of his boyhood. His spirit consumed his body. 
 
 Such an organization increased, if it did not half cre- 
 ate, a religious sadness, — the sadness of one whose spir- 
 itual ideal was always infinitely beyond his practice. 
 He never was content ; he never thought that he had 
 attained, rather that he was lagging far behind in Chris- 
 tian life. Everywhere this is reflected in his letters. 
 His feeling of it was so strong, that it seemed rather to 
 belong to a woman than to a man ; and at certain times 
 the resulting depression was so great, that he fell into 
 a morbid hopelessness. 
 
 In addition to these sadnesses, he had some real 
 grounds for melancholy. Events had occurred during 
 his college career which had shaken him terribly. He 
 speaks in one of his later letters of a shock received in 
 youth, from which he never altogether recovered ; but 
 which, as it was the first, carved its story most deeply 
 into his heart. And yet all his characteristic sadness
 
 HIS ORDINATION. 53 
 
 was balanced by the fulness of life and appreciation of 
 the beautiful which afterwards more fully distinguished 
 him. The result of this was often, joyousness of spirit, 
 an elasticity of heart which enabled him to rebound 
 from sorrow, a power of realizing all the happy points 
 of existence, and a delight in all that was fresh and pure 
 in humanity and nature, so keen, so delicate, and so 
 self-forgetful, that, till the terrible pain of the disease 
 which killed him began to torture him day and night, 
 he never lost youthflilness of heart. " The woof of life 
 is dark," he says, " but it is shot with a warp of gold." 
 
 With this character he went up for ordination, and 
 in the very fact of his ordination Is partly, also, to be 
 found the cause of the sorrowful sternness with which 
 he began his ministerial work : for it was the final and 
 irrevocable seal set to his self-devoted sacrifice of the 
 profession of the army to that of the Church. 
 
 On Sunday, July 12, 1840, he was ordained by the 
 Bishop of Winchester, who, on presenting his papers to 
 him, gave him as his motto the text from which Mr. 
 Nicholson, his future rector, had preached the ordina- 
 tion sermon, "Endure hardness as a good soldier of Je- 
 sus Christ." He had himself chosen as his text for the 
 short sermon which the candidates write, " Awake, 
 thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ 
 shall give thee light." " It was chosen," he says, " as 
 peculiarly characteristic of a minister's distinctive mis- 
 sion." The motto of the Bishop and his own choice of 
 a text, were certainly clmracterlstlc of the frame of 
 mind in which he commenced his duties. The enthu- 
 siasm which he felt bordered on the stern devotion of 
 Loyola, and had, like his, a soldier's spirit at its root.
 
 54 HIS ORDINATION. 
 
 The trumpet sound of that selected verse may, perhaps, 
 have stirred the lieart with an association of the reveillS 
 he had so often heard as a boy. It is necessary to say, 
 once more, because it is one of the key-notes of his 
 character, that all his life long he was a soldier at 
 heart. Again and again he expresses his conviction 
 that, in a military life, the highest self-sacrifice he was 
 capable of could alone have been accomplished. Those 
 who have heard him speak of battle — battle not as an 
 incident of mere war, but as the realization of death for 
 a noble cause — will remember how his lips quivered, 
 and his eyes flashed, and his voice trembled with re- 
 strained emotion. Unconsciously to himself, the ring 
 of his words, the choice of his expressions, his action 
 even in common circumstances, his view of the Uni- 
 verse and of Humanity, were influenced and colored by 
 the ideal he had formed of a soldier's life, by the pas- 
 sionate longing of his youth to enter it, and by the bit- 
 terness of the rem-et with which he surrendered it. 
 
 It must not be thought, however, that that bitterness 
 diminished in the least his Christian devotion or his ea- 
 gerness in Christian work. It was, on the contrary, 
 transmuted into energy for Christ. The strength of 
 character which made him feel so keenly the surrender 
 of one profession, made him adopt another with fervor. 
 He transferred the same spirit of sacrifice with which 
 he would have died for men in battle, to a more hid- 
 den and a diviner warfare. His feeling of the solemni- 
 ty of his duty was profound. One who knew him well 
 says : — 
 
 He took on himself the office of a minister with the keen- 
 est sense of responsibility and the most perfect devotion of
 
 CURACY AT WINCHESTER. 55 
 
 will. He desired to emulate the spirit of St. Paul. I was 
 not present when he was ordained, but I heard from those 
 who were that his agitation was overpowering. When I saw 
 him the day after, he looked as if he had been through an 
 illness. He seemed quite shattered. 
 
 He had been given a title by Mr. Nicholson, rector 
 of the united parishes of St. Maurice, St. Mary Kalen- 
 dar, and St. Peter Colebrook, Winchester. These par- 
 ishes had been unfortunate. The predecessor of Mr. 
 Nicholson had been suspended for drunkenness. There 
 were not a hundred people wdio attended the church. 
 But with Mr. Nicholson's arrival, a new spirit came 
 into the place, and the parish church had been enlarged 
 and rebuilt when Mr. Robertson, July 19, 1840, en- 
 tered on his ministerial duties. The impression w^hich 
 his earnestness made is detailed in the followincr letter 
 from one who was then a teacher in the Sunday school. 
 
 I met Mr. Robertson for the first time on the morning of 
 July 19, 1840, in the Sunday school. His bearing on this 
 occasion made such an impression on my mind, that I shall 
 ever vividly remember it. In place of the stiffness and 
 timidity usually observable in the first ministrations of a 
 young clergyman, he fell into his place with the ease and 
 freedom of one who has worn his armor long. I recollect 
 that after Mr. Nicholson had formally introduced him to all 
 the teachers as fellow-laborers, he seated himself on the stool 
 by my side, and after some remarks to myself on the different 
 systems of education, in the course of which he expressed 
 his deep sense of the value of Sunday schools, he leaned for- 
 ward and addressed my class (about a dozen big, rough boys), 
 urging them, in his own peculiar strain of loving earnestness, 
 to live as Christians, concluding with these words : " Believe 
 me, there is nothing else worth living for, is there, Mr. ?"
 
 56 HIS FIRST SERMONS. 
 
 turning to me for confirmation. This was his first address as 
 a minister, and his matter and manner were both equally re- 
 markable. 
 
 He preached his first sermon in the evening, on the text, 
 " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters," &c., 
 Isa. Iv. 1. He was at once perfectly at home in the pulpit. 
 His sermon, a fervid echo of the prophet's invitation, was not 
 merely read, but preached, with an eloquence, confidence of 
 power, and self-possession I have never witnessed in any 
 similar instance. On the following Sunday he preached on 
 " Thus saith the high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity," 
 &c. ; and his confidence as a preacher had so increased, that 
 he used considerable action. On the third Sunday he preached 
 on " And he brought him to Jesus." In this sermon he re- 
 peated several times as the burden of his discourse, " he 
 brought his brother to Jesus." The selection of these three 
 texts for his first sermons will afford some clew to the pre- 
 vailing tone of his mind at that time. They were made the 
 occasions for a full and forcible declaration of Evangelical 
 views, though unusually free from the peculiar phraseology 
 of the school which has been so named. 
 
 It was not, however, all smooth sailing. There were 
 still, among a very poor population of three to four 
 thousand, much infidelity and immorality, — the chil- 
 dren of a long neglect. Violent opposition was made 
 to the building of a new church, and still more violent 
 to the establishment of parochial schools, not only by a 
 number of small shopkeepers, who were bitterly preju- 
 diced and ignorant, but also by the old High Church 
 gentry of the parish, who looked upon schools as dan- 
 gerous innovations. 
 
 Among such rough elements did the young minister 
 begin his work. The difficulties of his position were
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF HIS WORK. 57 
 
 his stimulus. He labored with all liis heart ; and espe- 
 cially among the poor and working men, was so ear- 
 nest, so courteous, so eager to serve, that in a great 
 measure he overcame their prejudices. He was self- 
 devoted, but repelled the praise which named him so. 
 
 I would rather be doing my little nothing (he writes to 
 Mr. Davies) in Christ's vineyard, than enjoying the wealth 
 or honor of the country. It is a weary wandering this, but 
 it is a great comfort it will not last long, and there will be an 
 end of battling with a sinful heart, when the resurrection of 
 the Lord is perfected in the resurrection of his members. I 
 have been reading lately " Brainerd's Life," which, to my 
 taste, stands alone as a specimen of biography. " To be- 
 lieve, to suffer, and to love," was his motto, like that of the 
 early Christians ; but with us, if a minister gives himself a 
 little exertion, a hundred voices flatter him with an anxiety 
 for his life, as if a fireside, plentiful table, and warm cloth- 
 ing were compatible with the idea of suicide. Brainerd did 
 spend himself in his Master's service, and his ivas self-denial, 
 — and a self-denial which there was none to witness or ad- 
 mire. 
 
 He seems thus from the beginning to have felt the 
 depression arising from the unthankful nature and se- 
 verity of his work ; but he found in his rector a faithful 
 fi'iend, whose sympathy cheered and whose experience 
 guided him. The following letter written to Mrs. 
 Nicholson, on hearing of her husband's death, recalls 
 the writer's hfe at Winchester : — 
 
 Cheltenham, May 26, 1844? 
 
 My dear Friend, — I do not hesitate for one moment 
 whether I ought to intrude upon your sadness or not, for we 
 are mourners together. In your most affectionate husband I 
 3*
 
 58 FRIENDSHIP WITH HIS RECTOR. 
 
 have lost a friend, and It is my sad privilege to write to you 
 in your bereavement. I was startled and solemnized by 
 hearing who had been taken from us, — for I never dreamed 
 that I should be his survivor, — and all our happy Sunday 
 evenings, and country walks, and ministerial union, came 
 rushing over my recollection. Oh, what days those were, 
 — and what kindness did you both show to me, as a brother 
 and sister and more ! After a moment of bitterness, almost 
 the very first thought that rose on my heart was, his work is 
 done, and done well ; and I felt roused and invigorated, in- 
 stead of depressed, by the remembrance that we have a work 
 to do, and the night cometh when no man can work. I can- 
 not look back to all the past without feeling that his memory 
 is a soothing thing to us all, and almost longing that our own 
 course was as fairly run, and all as safe and secure as it is 
 with him. I preached immediately after I heard the news 
 on 1 John ii. 15, 16, 17, and there was not a little reality 
 and earnestness imparted to what I said from recollecting 
 how powerfully that lesson had just been impressed upon 
 my heart, "The world passeth away and the lust thereof" ; 
 but the next words forced on my mind the feeling that 
 nothing now can quench his immortality. Work done, — 
 that lasts, and nothing else, through the wreck of hopes, and 
 the dissolving of this strange universe, — " he that doeth the 
 will of God abideth for ever." 
 
 What soothing, ennobling recollections yours will be when 
 the first stunning sensation is over ! We want such recol- 
 lections to nerve and brace us for our work. Struggling, 
 battling, conquering, and those that have passed into eternity 
 looking on, — the cloud of witnesses. I too have just lost a 
 dear one, and we weep together; but one feeling must be 
 uppermost with us both, that we have deliberately chosen 
 the Cross for our portion, and it is no marvel if some of its 
 blood is sprinkled on us. The Cross is dear, come how and 
 where it ^vill.
 
 SUCCESS AS A MINISTER. 59 
 
 And now, my dear Mrs. Nicholson, will you ever come and 
 spend some time with us, and try the kindest welcome of 
 one who revered and loved your departed husband ? It will 
 be a joy to us if you will ; I do not mean just now, for your 
 wound is perhaps too fresh for that ; but whenever you will. 
 Pray let us hear from you as soon as you can write without 
 pain. 
 
 The friendship which this letter proves supplied him 
 with the external sympathy he needed to meet the dif- 
 ficulties of his w^ork. His success in conjunction with 
 Mr. Nicholson was as great as he could expect. 
 
 We have just had (he writes in November, 1840) to open 
 two churches at once, instead of one, in which my rector and 
 myself exchange duties, and they are both crowded, literally 
 to overflowing. We have a lecture in the week, and two 
 adult classes for men and women, the attendance at which 
 increases weekly, and our communicants have been doubled 
 in the last three mouths. So that amidst much dislike and 
 disgust from the old High Church gentry of the town, many 
 of the common people hear us gladly, and some of the upper 
 classes are beginning to manifest curiosity and interest. My 
 rector is everything I could wish, as a guide and as a friend. 
 
 His kindness and that of his wife are unbounded Both 
 
 he and I are occupied at once to the utmost, and cannot spare 
 a day away from the parish. 
 
 He devoted much of his time to the Sunday schools, 
 and made the teaching systematic and useful by train- 
 ing the teachers himself. He supplied them with ques- 
 tions on the Epistle for the day, the answers to which 
 they w^ere to work out for themselves. He then went 
 over the results w^ith them during the week. In this 
 way he preserved their power of individual thought, — - 
 a point on wdiich all through his life he laid the greatest
 
 60 A FRIEND'S DESCEIPTION OF KLM. 
 
 stress. In October, 1840, lie wrote to a friend as if he 
 were well satisfied with his work : — 
 
 With regard to ray own work, I trust it is not entirely un- 
 blest, though it might well deserve to be so. We have much 
 in this parish to encourage, and I beheve the only discour- 
 agement is the sloth of my own heart, which too often pro- 
 duces despondency. Still every day convinces me more and 
 more that there is one thing, and but one, on earth worth liv- 
 ing for, — and that is to do God's work, and gradually grow 
 in conformity to his image by mortification, and self-denial, 
 and prayer. When that is accomplished, the sooner we 
 leave this scene of weaiy struggle the better, so far as we are 
 ourselves concerned. Till then, welcome battle, conflict, vic- 
 tory ! 
 
 As a picture of his general way of life, the following 
 extract from a letter from one of his Winchester friends 
 is interestino; : — 
 
 When I first knew Mr. Robertson, he was certainly both 
 in appearance and manner the most refined and gentleman- 
 like young man I had ever seen. His smile and address 
 were winning. He was quite free from any of the gaucherie 
 and effeminacy which now and then characterize men of let- 
 ters. Enthusiastic, and aspiring after impossible perfection, 
 he was grave generally, and a vein of melancholy ran through 
 his character. He could scarcely derive pleasure enough at 
 this time from small and common things. Small pleasures 
 were scarcely pleasures to him. Not much society was of- 
 fered to him, and he did not wish for it. He was rather too 
 much disposed to regard general society as a waste of time. 
 
 His powers of conversation were most remarkable, and so 
 were his acquirements. He was no contemptible scholar, 
 and of general information he had a large store. His knowl- 
 edge of French and Italian literature was far beyond the
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE. 61 
 
 common. His power of quotation, especially of poetry, was 
 remarkable. During the first months of his clerical life he 
 was a close student in the mornings, getting up early, and 
 eating almost no breakfast in order to be able to apply him- 
 self to his work. He chiefly at that time devoted himself to 
 the study of Hebrew and Biblical criticism, though he read 
 all kinds of books. His retentive memory made him a sort 
 of synopsis criticorum in his own person. He seemed to 
 know what had been written by most of the great authorities 
 on all difficult texts. His views were entirely " evangelical," 
 but even then puzzles suggested themselves. He was always 
 trying to discover wherein lay the dijBference between " a 
 saving faith " and a merely historical belief in Christ as the 
 Saviour. 
 
 His way of life was most regular and simple. Study all 
 the morning ; in the afternoon, hard fagging at visitation of 
 the poor, in the closest and dirtiest streets of Winchester ; his 
 evenings were spent sometimes alone, but very often with his 
 rector. 
 
 Such was his outward life ; but the history, so far as 
 it can be gathered from his papers, of his spiritual life 
 remains to be told. He had entered, as we have seen, 
 upon his ministry partly in sadness and partly under 
 the influence of an ascetic enthusiasm. But he soon 
 met with temptations and hinderances to a severe Chris- 
 tian life which arose from his pecuhar temperament. 
 At Winchester he endeavored to overcome these temp- 
 tations by austerities. He restricted himself to all but 
 necessary expenses, and spent the rest of his income on 
 the poor. He created a system of restraint in food and 
 sleep. For nearly a year he almost altogether refrained 
 from meat. He compelled himself to rise early. Thus 
 he passed through the domain of the law, before he en-
 
 62 DEVOTIONAL READING. 
 
 tered on the fi-eer region of the Gospel. His motto 
 always was, " If any man will follow me, he must deny 
 himself, and take up his cross daily." But at Winches- 
 ter self-denial was partially expressed in self-imposed 
 and outward observances ; at Brighton, it was the 
 spontaneous and natural expression of his whole in- 
 ward life. 
 
 He refrained also from much society. In some pa- 
 pers which he wrote long afterwards, he speaks of this 
 with approbation. 
 
 I am conscious (he says) of having developed my mind and 
 character more truly, and with more fidelity, at Winchester 
 than anywhere. Looking back, I think I perceive reasons 
 for this. First I went out little, and lience perfected what I 
 undertook before fresh impulses started up to destroy the 
 novelty and interest of the impulse already set in motion. 
 For example, I read Edwards completely and mastered him. 
 The impulse came to its limit, unexhausted. 
 
 It will be seen, by contrasting this with his letters, 
 how clearly he saw the mistake he had made by desul- 
 toriness at college, and how determinedly he corrected 
 a fault. 
 
 He found, he said, devotional reading of great use to 
 him. He read slowly " The Imitation of Christ " ; but, 
 when he could, he chose, as his books of devotion, the 
 hves of *' eminently holy persons, whose tone was not 
 merely uprightness of character and high-mindedness, 
 but communion with God besides." It made his sense 
 of the reality of religious feeling more acute when he 
 found it embodied in the actions of the men who ex- 
 pressed it. He read daily the lives of Martyn and 
 Brainerd. These books supplied a want in his mind,
 
 SYSTEMATIC PRAYER. 6S 
 
 and gave him Impulse. " I recollect," he writes at 
 Brighton, " how much more peaceful my mind used to 
 be when I was in the regular habit of reading daily, 
 with scrupulous adherence to a plan, books of a devo- 
 tional description." 
 
 Prayer was his constant resource. In his hours of 
 gloom he would often retire and pray alone till he real- 
 ized God's presence. 
 
 It seems to me now (he writes, in 1841), that I can always 
 see, in uncertainty, the leading of God's hand, after prayer, 
 when everything seems to be made clear and plain before the 
 eyes. In two or three instances I have had evidence of this 
 which I cannot for a moment doubt. You can have little 
 idea of the temptations in the ministry, to despond and let the 
 hands hang down ; and the many hours of doubt and difficulty 
 which come upon the soul. And if to these were added the 
 uncertainty, whether the position itself were one in which we 
 had placed ourselves without God's direction, they would be 
 indeed intolerable. 
 
 He Invariably felt the necessity of forms to support 
 spiritual life, and that all the more, perhaps, from his 
 natural aversion to them. Prayer, always customary 
 with him, had become the habit of his life at Oxford.* 
 
 * The following prayer was written at Oxford and used at Winchester. 
 It proves the sternness of his opposition to the school of Mr. Newman: — 
 
 " The enemy has come in like a flood. We look for Thy promise. Do 
 Thou lift up a standard against him. Lord, here in Oxford we believe 
 that he is poisoning the streams which are to water Thy Church at their 
 source. Pardon us if we err. 0, lead us into all truth. But, our God, 
 if we are not mistaken, if the light which is in us is darkness, — how great 
 is that darkness! Lighten our darkness in this University with the pure 
 and glorious light of the Gospel of Christ. Help, Lord, for the faithful are 
 minished from among the children of men. My Father, I am like a child, 
 blown about by every wind of doctrine. How long shall I walk in a vain 
 shadow, and disquiet myself in vain? Let not my inconsistent, selfish
 
 64 HIS PREACHING, 
 
 He systematized prayer at Winchester. He set apart 
 certain subjects for each day in the week. "Sunday: 
 Parish ; outpouring of the Spirit. Monday : Act of 
 devotion. Tuesday : Spread of the GospeL Wednes- 
 day: Kingdom of Christ. Thursday: Self-deniaL 
 Friday : Special confession. Saturday : Intercession." 
 The prayer in which all these centred, the one 
 prayer of his whole life, was that he might have an 
 " objective, disinterested love of Christ," and that he 
 might have '^ that possession of God which arises from 
 love for others." 
 
 Bring into captivity (he prays) every thought to the obe- 
 dience of Christ. Take what I cannot give : my heart, body, 
 thoughts, time, abilities, money, health, strength, nights, days, 
 youth, age, and spend them in Thy service, my crucified 
 Master, Redeemer, God. Oh, let not these be mere words ! 
 Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? and there is none upon 
 earth that I desire in comparison of Thee. My heart is 
 athirst for God, for the Hving God. When shall I come and 
 appear before God ? 
 
 The preaching which resulted from this prayerful 
 spirit was imbued by it. Speaking of sermon-writing, 
 he says : — 
 
 The most valuable book I possess is a remembrance of 
 
 conduct be a pretext for blasphemy against Thy saints and persisting in 
 heresy. Hear me, my Lord and Master." 
 
 But as his ministerial experience grew, he began to think less of " her- 
 esy," Tractarian or otherwise, and to see that it was redemption from sin, 
 and not so much from untrue opinions, which the world required. He 
 writes from Winchester, — "I have too much of stern iniquity and hell 
 rampant to grapple with, to give much time to reading or Church ques- 
 tions; indeed, even the Tractarian heresy has vanished from my mind 
 amid the sterner conflict with worldly passions and open atheism ; for we 
 have some of these madmen here."
 
 SELF-DISSECTION. 65 
 
 trials at which I repined, but which I now find were sent in 
 answer to my prayer to be made a minister. Oratio, medi- 
 tatio, tentatio. And those sermons in which these have 
 had much share, I have found tell most ; and I trust that 
 God will bring in his flock by such a thing as I. I am sure 
 if He does it will be strength made perfect in weakness in- 
 deed. 
 
 Those who are acquainted with his later career will 
 feel astonished at the contrast it presents to this period. 
 The austerities, the seclusion from society, even the 
 reading of that class of devotional books which rather 
 tend to w^eaken than to strengthen character, were all 
 put aside at Brighton. The sermons preached in that 
 town speak continually of the unprofitableness of asceti- 
 cism, of the necessity of living, as Christ did, among 
 men in the world, and of the dangerous tendency of 
 mere devotional reading. It is plain that if he had 
 lived more naturally at Winchester, he would not only 
 have retained his health, but also given a manlier vigor 
 to his intellect. But trained in a very restricted school 
 of thought and religion which was dominant thirty 
 years ago, he could not emerge fi'om it without first 
 going down into its depths. It seems to have weakened 
 everything that he wrote. His letters of this time are 
 scarcely worth reading. His thoughts are not marked 
 by any individuality. The only thing which did not 
 suffer was his work. The dasire to die, partly sug- 
 gested by ill health, seemed to him to be a spiritual de- 
 sire. The sensitiveness of his conscience unduly exag- 
 gerated every failure into a sin. He fell into a habit 
 of unwise self-dissection. It is painful to read his diary 
 in which all his inward life is mapped out into divisions, 
 his sins and errors labelled, selfishness discovered in all
 
 66 STYLE OF HIS EARLIER PREACHING. 
 
 his efforts and resolves, and lists made out of the graces 
 and gifts which he needed especially. It is impossible 
 not to feel, when he got rid of all this, and felt its fruit- 
 lessness and its antagonism to the true spirit of the Life 
 of Christ, how he sprang from a dwarf into a giant. 
 
 And yet all this self-torture and self-inquiry gave 
 him, to a certain degree, an insight into the hearts of 
 men, though, generally speaking, only into the evil of 
 their hearts. He gained a great command over the 
 feelings of those who felt them selves, oppressed with the 
 same weio-ht of sin and strussle. His sermons touched 
 such men to the quick. They were delivered with 
 great ease and self-command. His beautiful voice, his 
 dignified yet vivid action, and the impassioned earnest- 
 ness of his manner, made every word tell. In them- 
 selves, the sermons preached at Winchester do not ex- 
 hibit much power. Contrasted with those delivered at 
 Brighton, they are startlingly inferior. They do not, 
 to the reader^ even foretell his future excellence. They 
 are overloaded with analyses of doctrine. They are 
 weakened by the conventionalities of University theol- 
 ogy. They are, however, full of forcible appeals to the 
 consciences of men, and of deeply-felt descriptions of 
 the love of God in Christ. 
 
 They contain all the characteristic doctrines against 
 which he afterwards so deliberately protested at Brigh- 
 ton. They contain also many passages which are in 
 reality records of his own spiritual struggles ; for in 
 preaching he could not argue abstractedly. He saw 
 things by the light of his own heart, and he preached 
 unconsciously his own pain and his own effort. 
 
 I think (writes one of his friends, who heard him preach
 
 ANTICIPATIONS OF EARLY DEATH. 6T 
 
 every Sunday at Wmcliester) that bis sermons did prophesy 
 of liis future excellence. I am disposed to say that they were 
 never at any time more impressive. He then wrote them 
 throughout with great rapidity, always on Saturday, the time 
 between breakfast and one o'clock sufficing for a sermon. 
 He did not use much action, but there was a restrained pas- 
 sion in him which forced people to listen. Though there was 
 much thought in all that he said, yet in those days he had, 
 so to speak, scarcely begun to think, and of course had come 
 to no conclusions. He had not then thrown off his leading- 
 strings. 
 
 This friend of his continues : — 
 
 About one year of simple life and hard work, during which 
 I think he was really happy, passed. A personal trial then 
 befell him, which he felt very bitterly, and which affected his 
 health and spirits. He thought himself attacked by the mal- 
 ady which had carried off so many of his family, and therefore 
 would have no medical advice, and use no remedies. He 
 imagined that if he once told his feelings, he would be laid 
 aside at once, and he was determined to preach as long as he 
 could stand. This he literally did, and never were his words 
 more telling. He did preach, as one who thought himself 
 dying, to dying men. He did not then care to live long, and 
 had a sentimental pleasure in the thought of an early death. 
 He afterwards said so, adding, that he did not then know 
 how much God had for him to learn before he should be fit 
 to die. 
 
 The following letters mark the gradual rise of these 
 feelings : — 
 
 March, 1841. 
 My work does not prosper as you anticipate, — at least it 
 appears at a standstill, and my own energy and heart for the 
 work seem gone for the present. It will not, I trust, be al-
 
 68 INCREASING ILLNESS. 
 
 ways so ; but after a time I shall be braced up to renewed 
 
 exertion There is much to be learned which cannot be 
 
 obtained alone, — to say nothing of the responsibility of hav» 
 ing so many souls intrusted to the charge of a young begin- 
 ner. 0, it is a heavy, heavy weight ! I begin to think and 
 tremble as I never did before ; and I cannot live to Christ. 
 My heart is detached indeed from earth, but it is not given to 
 Him. All I do is a cross and not a pleasure, — a continual 
 struggle against the current : and all I effect is to prevent 
 being hurried back as rapidly as I might be, — but I make 
 no way. I know I shall soon have some heavy blow to star- 
 tle me from my lethargy. Even so, come. Lord Jesus ! 
 
 May the Holy Spirit warm you to greater self-denial, and 
 holiness, and love, and devotedness than I can feel or im- 
 agine. 
 
 Winchester: April, 1841. 
 I trust, my dear J., you will be taught unceasing diligence. 
 If you could but feel those words, " the night cometh when 
 no man can work," as you will feel them when it comes, 
 there would be an end of trifling in you, and me, and all of 
 us, forever. Things now of apparent importance shrink up 
 into nothing in sight of that hour. And there is a work to 
 be done for Christ : how little time to do it in ! Surely 
 there is nothing here worth living for, but to be conformed 
 to Him in deed, and word, and thought, and to die really to 
 the world. 
 
 Winchester: May 31, 1841. 
 
 My ever kind and considerate rector is pressing me much 
 to go home for relaxation, which in all probability I shall do 
 soon. Indeed, I believe I must ; for, almost immediately af- 
 ter seeing you at Oxford, I became very unwell, and what- 
 ever it may be, it seems to increase instead of diminishing in 
 unfavorable appearance. Periods every now and then of 
 extreme lassitude come on, together with cough and pain in 
 the side. Of course this may be nothing at all ; but I write
 
 INCREASING ILLNESS. 69 
 
 to you in confidence of friendship, that I begin to suspect my 
 life will not be a long one. Not that I think there is any 
 immediate danger, but a very few years would seem to be the 
 utmost limit. I fear I am too earnestly longing to depart ; 
 perhaps this has partly contributed to make me form this 
 opinion of myself, and there is a great difference between a 
 desire to be with Christ, and a mere wish to be released from 
 the weariness of the flesh. Which of these two is my feeling, 
 only God knows. Do not mention what I have told you, as 
 
 it is merely my own surmise My dear sister is very ill, 
 
 though my family seem lately to have become sanguine as to 
 her ultimate recovery. O, if we could only learn that hard 
 lesson, " Thy will be done ! " To say this in every dispensa- 
 tion, be it what it may, is the whole of religion ; for what 
 have we to do but to have our wills entirely merged in that 
 of our Father ? and when this is done, we are ripe for the 
 garner. 
 
 The medical advice vi^hich he at first refused, lie was 
 induced at last to seek. 
 
 Winchester: June 17, 1841. 
 I have been for the last week under medical care in town, 
 for cough and pain in the side, and other unpleasant symp- 
 toms, arising from inflammation of the mucous membrane of 
 the lungs and bronchial tubes. I am thankful to say that 
 further mischief is arrested for the present ; but the medical 
 men insist on my giving up duty for some time. I concealed 
 this from my family as long as it was uncertain, as I told you 
 in confidence ; of course it is a secret no longer, especially as 
 it is not so bad as I expected. 
 
 Again, on July 5, 1841, he writes: — 
 
 I have been strongly advised to try a change of scene and 
 air in Switzerland, and I think it will probably end in my 
 following this counsel, though I feel much indisposed towards
 
 70 EXAinNATION FOR PRIEST'S ORDERS. 
 
 it. But I must make some effort to escape from this lethargy 
 of body and apathy of mind, and perhaps this will be the only 
 means I can devise. With this exception, I do not think inere 
 is now very much the matter with me, only I cannot fix my 
 mind, or interest myself in one single thing on earth. I 
 know it is a morbid state which must be overcome by vigor- 
 ous effort, but the difficulty is to make it. 
 
 Before his departure for the Continent, lie passed the 
 examination for priest's orders. He writes from Fam- 
 ham to Mr. Nicholson : — 
 
 Mrs. has very kindly offered me letters of introduc- 
 tion to Geneva, which wdll considerably contribute to fix my 
 plans of travel, as I shall proceed there at once, with only a 
 delay of a few days at remarkable spots on the Rhine, and 
 then make small excursions from Geneva as my head-quar- 
 ters. I find a strange contrast in the views of this July 
 and those of last, — when all seemed a bright field of con- 
 quest before the eyes, and there had been no experience of 
 the painful truth that the professional opposition to others' 
 sin does not release a minister from the struggle with his 
 own. This time, I have had little but shame to feel, bitter 
 shame, and God alone can judge how inadequate to the cause. 
 All this I do not hesitate to say to you, though to others it 
 would be egotistical and indelicate ; but I have just been 
 giving vent on paper to the thoughts which rose uppermost, 
 without much considering either order or connection. To- 
 morrow I am to be irrevocably in outward ritual set apart 
 to the work of God. I would that it were as easy to be 
 separated forever from the earthliness within.* 
 
 * It was the custom of the Bishop of Winchester to ask the candidates 
 for priest's orders to write an account of their diaconate. The account 
 given by Mr. Robertson seemed to the Bishop so valuable for its sugges- 
 tions, teaching, and experience, that he retained it, and frequently gave 
 it to future candidates to read, as a noble expression of the spirit and 
 mode in which a diaconate should be fulfilled.
 
 CONTINENTAL TOUR. 71 
 
 With tills mournful retrospect and sense of failure 
 closed his ministerial hfe at Winchester. His young 
 experience had passed out of enthusiasm into despond- 
 ency. Looking back, three months afterwards, from 
 the death-bed of his sister upon that time, he says : — 
 " She is fast wearing away, and her short career will 
 soon be at an end. Three months ago, how I should 
 have envied her calm decay, and longed to share her 
 quiet shroud, and her departure to be with Christ." 
 
 But this sadness was soon remedied by change of 
 scene and the excitement of healthy exercise. 
 
 He travelled on foot through the Continent. He 
 entered at once, and fully, into continental life, and 
 manners, and politics. He endeavored to see all sides 
 of foreign questions, by conversing with men of all 
 classes. 
 
 Nor did he shrink from speaking of religion as it ever 
 presented itself to him as a life in Chiist. Few would 
 have dared to have spoken to men as he did on spiritual 
 subjects ; few could have so succeeded if they had dared. 
 Even Englishmen do not seem to have been oiicnded. 
 Such was his earnestness and his delicate courtesy, that 
 no one ever drew^ back in injured dignity. Men w^ere 
 rather induced to open their hearts to him. He had a 
 way of half revealing himself, — of giving freely all he 
 could give of himself, while the sacred depths of feel- 
 ing were undisclosed, which insensibly lured men to 
 unfold themselves in turn. The whole was done un- 
 consciously. He neither knowingly gave nor withheld. 
 He was carried away to say what he did say by the 
 impression which the person he conversed with made 
 upon him. His instinct told him where to stop. Hence
 
 72 mnDEL fellow-travellers. 
 
 arose the wonderful reality of his words, the strano;e, 
 entire absence of self-consciousness, which gave such a 
 personality to all he said, and such an impalpable force 
 to every action and impression. Old men consulted 
 him ; strangers disclosed to him the difficulties of their 
 spiritual and worldly life. 
 
 On the other hand, when he met men who despised 
 Christianity, or who, like the Roman Catholics, held to 
 doctrines which he believed untrue, this very enthusi- 
 asm and unconscious excitement swept him sometimes 
 beyond himself. He could not moderate his indignation 
 down to the cool level of ordinary life. Hence he was 
 wanting at this time in tlie wise tolerance w^hich formed 
 so conspicuous a feature of his maturer manhood. He 
 held to his own views with pertinacity. He believed 
 them to be true ; and he almost refused to allow the 
 possibility of the views of others having truth in them 
 also. He was more or less one-sided at this period. 
 With the Roman Catholic religion it was war to the 
 death, not in his later mode of warfare, by showing the 
 truth which lay beneath the error, but by denouncing 
 the error. He seems invariably, with the pugnacity of 
 a young man, to have attacked their faith ; and the 
 mode in which this was done was startllngly different 
 from that which afterwards he adopted. 
 
 With the Neolooianism of Germanv — to make use 
 of his own term — he also came into contact. 
 
 I travelled several days with a young Prussian of Elber- 
 feld. He gave a dreadful picture of Krummacher both as to 
 his life and doctrine, evidently colored by extreme hatred to 
 religion. Indeed, the account was its own refutation. It 
 was one of the many proofs that we daily meet wdth, that
 
 GENEVA AND ITS PARTIES. 73 
 
 they who will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer perse- 
 cution. He was well informed in English and German his- 
 tory, much inclined to ridicule Scripture and holy things. 
 At last it came to a discussion. He mentioned, as usual, 
 some difficulties in Scripture ; and, after a long argument, I 
 told him our hope?, our belief, and our conviction. Direct 
 assertion did partially what discussion had failed to do. He 
 ceased bantering, and, after a few minutes' silence, said 
 gravely, " C'est une belle croi/ance, — I would that I could 
 believe it too." Poor fellow ! he was afterwards reinforced 
 by two Swiss of Geneva, — one an avowed infidel, the other 
 a blasphemous Socinian. He was unbounded in his mock- 
 ery of Malan, Merle, &c., whom he called madmen. " Mo- 
 miers " is the general popular appellation applied to them. 
 " They are a new fashioned set," he said, " who are tired of 
 
 old people. They have deserted the old " (he meant 
 
 God the Father), "and will have nothing to do with any one 
 but His Son." He walked off on being reminded that the 
 " new fashioned set " was not these men, but those who had 
 deserted the doctrines of Calvin. So I was left to the fear- 
 ful libertinism of the infidel, backed, I fear, by the approval, 
 but now silent approval, of my Prussian acquaintance. We 
 parted, I fear, without any good done. I hope to get from 
 Merle or Malan some account of the church here, to-day, or, 
 at least, soon. 
 
 From the Rhine, he passed into Switzerland, through 
 the Jura. He had introductions at Geneva, where he 
 continued to stay for some time. He plunged at once 
 and eagerly into the various church and religious ques- 
 tions Avhich then agitated the city. The vigor, the 
 life, the bright enthusiasm which he brouo;ht to bear on 
 all subjects, delighted and astonished the circle in which 
 he moved. Friends sprang up around his path. It 
 seemed as if he had become a Genevese, so close was 
 
 4
 
 74 LETTER ON ENTERING THE MINISTRY. 
 
 his interest and Ins sympathy with the despised Chris- 
 tians of Geneva, and the impetuosity and determination 
 of his mode of argument are both characteristic of him 
 at this period. 
 
 The following letters and extracts of letters written 
 from Winchester and the Continent, are inserted as 
 containing in themselves: a history of his thought, and 
 feelings, and opinions. One especially, dated August 3, 
 H6tel de la Couronne, is remarkable for a positive state- 
 ment of his doctrinal views during the second year of 
 his ministiy, and also for the prophecy of Malan, so 
 sternly fulfilled afterwards, — " Mon tres-cher frere, 
 
 LETTERS FROM SEPTEMBER 17, 1840, TO AUGUST 3, 1841. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 September 17, 1840. 
 
 The ministry is not to be entered lightly, nor without much 
 and constant prayer for direction ; but if a man's heart be set 
 to glorify his Lord with the best service his feeble mind and 
 body can offer, there can be nothing comparable to the min- 
 istry. I have already known some ministerial trials, and I 
 foresee more, much hardness and much disappointment ; but I 
 may tell you from experience, that you would take nothing 
 that earth has to offer in exchange for the joy of serving Christ 
 as an accredited ambassador. Your kind hopes expressed for 
 my sister are, I fear, in vain. From the moment that I saw 
 that fatal hectic, which I know too well, I felt assured her 
 hours on earth were numbered. May God give us grace to 
 say from the heart, " The Lord hath taken away : blessed be 
 the name of the Lord." I am going to see her as soon as I 
 can.
 
 LETTER TO HIS BROTHER. 75 
 
 IX. 
 
 Rodney House, October, 1840. 
 Mt DEAREST DuESBERY, — Mj date will show you that 
 I am now at home for a little relaxation, which is very ac- 
 ceptable after continued work I am sorry, and yet 
 
 half glad, to find by your letters that you are still unrecon- 
 ciled to Bermuda. I am glad, because it shows your heart 
 is still at home with us, un cooled by absence, and because it 
 shows that you are unsatisfied with anything that is to be 
 found below. I think there is something implanted in man's 
 heart, fallen creature as he is, which defies him to be content 
 with anything but God alone. It is a trace of original ma- 
 jesty, which leaves a mark of what he was before the fall. 
 He is always panting for something fresh ; and that is no 
 sooner attained, than it palls upon his ta.-te. And this strong 
 necessity of loving something makes a man form idols for 
 himself, which he invests with fancied perfections, and when 
 all these fade away in his grasp, and he finds their unsub- 
 stantiality, he must either become a misanthrope or a Chris- 
 tian. When a man has learned to know the infinite love of 
 God in Christ to him, then he discovers something which will 
 not elude his hold, and an affection which will not grow cold ; 
 for the comparison of God's long-suffering and repeated par- 
 don, with his own heartless ingratitude, convinces him that it 
 is an unchangeable love. And I hope in God that your dis- 
 quieted feelings will terminate in this discovery of the ful- 
 ness of peace purchased by the cross of Christ. All goes on 
 satisfactorily at Winchester, the attention and attendance, I 
 think, gradually deepening and increasing ; and I hope many 
 are becoming more and more in earnest about their souls. 
 My treatment I only complain of on the score of exuberant 
 kindness. I live almost at Mr. Nicholson's, and we go on 
 hand and heart together. I had to officiate lately at the 
 funeral of a poor man, for a clergyman who was unable to 
 attend. The burial-ground is on the top of a hill which
 
 76 ENTHUSIASM IN HIS PROFESSION. 
 
 overlooks "Winchester, about half a mile off. I was engaged 
 with my own duty until very late ; and night was just clos- 
 ing in as we set off from the church. An old man came and 
 walked by my side ; we went along, and engaged in a very 
 interesting conversation. There was something very roman- 
 tic as the procession slowly wound round the hill, — the deep 
 shadows gradually closing in ; and it rose to the sublime 
 when we stood at the side of the grave on the top of the ex- 
 posed hill. It was nearly dark ; and the dark, silent figures 
 closing in around me, with their white hat-bands streaming 
 in the wind, which moaned drearily, gave a solemn and un- 
 earthly aspect to the scene, especially when the coffin was 
 lowered down into the grave, only distinguishable by its 
 dark contrast with the snow around. Oxford term has be- 
 gun. Only fancy ! It seems the dream of another life ; 
 everything has been so entirely changed in a few months. 
 Gowns, and lectures, and proctors, and all the conventional 
 language and feelings of that august place, will erelong fade 
 from the imagination. No wonder, for the work of reading 
 has been succeeded by a sterner struggle with sin in its 
 loathsome dens of iniquity. However, with a few excep- 
 tions, I have been well received in the worst places. It is a 
 heavy thing, the weight of souls, — hard, uphill work. Now 
 and then, little things come out by accident which give 
 hope. I heard that a poor woman said every word of one 
 sermon went to her heart, and she thought I was preaching 
 at her. It is necessary to hear these things sometimes, or it 
 would be more than faith could bear. Yet faith would bear 
 it. I again make the resolution to write again soon. 
 
 X. 
 
 Winchester, November 24, 1840. 
 My dear Hatchard, — I hasten to answer your letter, 
 which I received on Sunday morning. Most sincerely I 
 congratulate you on your prospect of a curacy, but much
 
 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 77 
 
 more on the approach of the highest earthly honor, — the 
 privilege of working for Christ, — and welcome you to a par- 
 ticipation of its joys and sorrows. Perhaps the latter pre- 
 dominate here, but they are not worthy to be compared to 
 the joys which shall be revealed in us, if we suffer with 
 Him, I think the strictness of self-examination for minis- 
 terial fitness is contained in that solemn, searching question 
 of our Lord, thrice repeated, " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest 
 thou me more than these ? " And if we can, from our in- 
 most souls, say as Peter did, " Lord, thou knowest all things, 
 thou knowest that I love thee," I believe the injunction 
 which follows, and the warning of martyrdom, would be re- 
 ceived with equal joy as our Master's will. I am sensible 
 that it is a test that makes me humble ; still, notwithstanding 
 backwardness in the work, and much yielding to sloth and 
 self-gratification, instead of sowing in faith without longing 
 to see the fruits, I do feel that if the labor, the hard toil in 
 the vineyard, were taken from me, I have nothing left on 
 earth to live for. And I trust that you may have this spirit, 
 less dulled and clouded by earthly motives and low views 
 
 than it is in me J. has not succeeded in his attempt 
 
 at the fellowship, and I do not know that I am sorry for it, 
 as I believe that it would ruin him altogether to live an 
 Oxford fellow's selfish, dronish life. 
 
 XL 
 
 March 4, 1841. 
 
 My dear Da vies, — .... I received the sermons which 
 you so kindly sent me, with much pleasure ; that especially 
 on justification seems, under God, calculated to do good. I 
 believe there is at this time a determined attack made by 
 Satan and his instruments to subvert that cardinal doctrine 
 of our best hopes, — justification by faith alone ; and how far 
 he has already succeeded let many a college in Oxford testify. 
 It is the doctrine which, more than any other, we find our
 
 78 ASPIRATION AFTER GREATER SELF-DEVOTION. 
 
 own hearts continually turning aside from and surrendering. 
 Anything but Christ, — the Virgin, the Cliurch, the sacra- 
 ments, a new set of our own resolutions ; any or all of these 
 will the heart embrace as a means to holiness or acceptance 
 rather than God's way. You may even persuade men to 
 give up their sins if they may do it without Christ ; as tee- 
 totalism can witness. And the Apostle's resolution, in spite 
 of all we say, is one which we are again and again making, 
 and yet forever breaking, to know nothing but Jesus Christ, 
 and Him crucified 
 
 xn. 
 
 May 22, 1841. 
 My sister seems to grow weaker day by day ; and though 
 they seem inclined to flatter themselves that she is better, her 
 extreme languor and continued cough tell a different tale. 
 Alas ! there is no home here, and no abiding comfort ; and 
 yet I do not know why I should say alas ! for it is better to 
 have one tie to earth severed after another till we have noth- 
 ing left to live for but Christ. What emphatic energy must 
 have been in the feeling of St. Paul when he wrote those 
 
 words : rfiv imOvfiiav excou els to dvaXvaaL, Koi avv Xpia-ra eivaiy 
 
 when even we, in the midst of self-indulgence, can yearn 
 for it ! I do not wonder at the feelings you express in 
 reading St. Martyn's letters ; what a glorious instance he 
 was of what God can make such a thing as man, — little less 
 than a seraph burning in one deathless flame of love from 
 the moment when, as he expresses it, the last thing left on 
 earth was taken from him, till the last burning words were 
 traced at Tocat. It is a book that may well be blistered by 
 hot tears of shame. Sometimes one is inclined to fancy that 
 if a path of special usefulness could be pointed out, we 
 might devote ourselves as he did ; but I suppose this is only 
 the usual feeling of readiness to bear any cross. but that 
 which God has put upon us. I am now reading a book of
 
 M. MALAN'S OPINIONS ON "ASSURANCE." 79 
 
 much devotional and self-denying fervor, Thomas a Kempis's 
 Imitation of Christ. I love to feel the oneness of feeling 
 which pervades the sons of God amidst vitally opposed com- 
 munions. To see such men as Martyn and a Kempis at the 
 right hand of Jesus in his kingdom, will be a joy that might 
 almost compensate for a menial post there as the lowest of 
 the low 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Hutel de la Couronne, Geneva: August 3, 1841. 
 My dear Strtj, — I have already sent three letters. You 
 come fourth in the family ; therefore this is directed to you. 
 I begin from where I left off. This morning I went to call 
 on M. Malan, without introduction, except that of many 
 mutual acquaintances. I sat talking with him about two 
 hours. The chief subject of discussion was that of assur- 
 ance. He says that a Christian cannot be without assur- 
 ance, except sinfully. This I agreed to, though not ex- 
 actly on the same ground as that on which he puts it. The 
 proof of adoption is a changed heart, — 2 Cor. v. 17. If a 
 man see this change in himself, it is a proof to him that he 
 has believed, because the work of regeneration is begun, — 
 the work which God performs in the heart of all whom He 
 has chosen, conforming them to the image of his Son, — Rom. 
 viii. 29. If he does not see this change, it is evidently 
 because of the predominance of sin ; and therefore the want 
 of assurance springs from sin. But Malan makes it sin, not 
 indirectly, but directly. His argument, simply stated, is this : 
 AYhosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born to God. 
 You acknowledge that. Is He the Christ ? Have you any 
 doubt? You are sure He is? or do you mean to say you 
 do not believe that He is ? But if you tell me you do believe 
 that He is, how can you doubt your safety ? Would you 
 make God a liar ? for He says that " every one who believes 
 is born of God." I do not think this satisfactory, because
 
 80 M. MALAN'S PROPHECY. 
 
 I believe many who never will be saved are convinced of 
 it, and so in a certain sense believe it, as the devils do who 
 tremble, or as Simon did, — Acts viii. 13, — who was yet in 
 the bond of iniquity. And it is this possibility which can 
 make a Christian doubt his own state even when he says, I 
 believe. Still I admit that want of assurance is the mark of 
 very low attainments in grace : because if sanctification were 
 so bright as to be visible, there would be no doubt. Though 
 a subject on which I have thought much, he gave me many 
 new ideas. I have only mentioned one for the present. 
 
 Yesterday I dined with M. . They were very atten- 
 tive, and the conversation on all manner of .subjects extremely 
 interesting, till we came to discuss the advantages of creeds 
 for a Church. He was for admitting all shades of opinion. 
 I represented the object of our Church, to admit all whose 
 opinions differed on subjects not fundamental, and exclude 
 others. But it soon turned out that our views of fundamental 
 questions differed entirely, and I told him we could not con- 
 sider one who denied the Deity of Christ a Christian. I 
 used this term, because I knew he would admit the "di- 
 vinity." He then told me he did not hold the Deity. I said 
 I could not retract, and must tremble for him. This led to 
 
 a hot and long discussion. Poor misquoted Scripture, 
 
 and would make no answer to the texts I brought forward. 
 My chief point was to prove the death of Clirist not merely 
 a demonstration of God's willingness to pardon, on repent- 
 ance and obedience, but an actual substitution of suffering ; 
 and that salvation is a thing finished for those who believe, 
 — not a commencement of a state in which salvation may be 
 gained; insisting especially on Heb. x. 14. But to this he 
 would scarcely even listen, and protested against single texts, 
 requiring the general tone of* Scripture as the only argu- 
 ment. It would be long to go through it all. He un- 
 derstood fully that the denial of his right to the name of 
 Christian was not necessarily intolerant, but might be even 
 charity.
 
 DISLIKE OF CONTROVERSY. 81 
 
 I have just returned from another long discussion with 
 Malan, before several persons, which I do not like, because 
 calmness in argument is then always difficult. You think 
 of your own victory instead of the truth. However, I only 
 parried, and allowed him to cross-question me. He does it 
 in the most aflPectionate and earnest manner ; but I could not 
 yield, because I believe all I said based upon God's truth. 
 He said, " Mon tres-cher frere, vous aurez une triste vie et 
 un triste ministere." It may be so ; but present peace is of 
 little consequence. If we sin we must be miserable ; but 
 if we be God's own, that misery will not last long; the 
 evidence is lost only for a time, but I do feel sure it is lost. 
 But God's promise is so clear, — " Sin shall not have do- 
 minion over you," — that the evidence must become bright 
 again by victory. Misery for sin is better worth having 
 than peace. I love old Malan from my very soul, and hate 
 disputing with him, even though it is the dispute of Chris- 
 tian brothers. Now we must yearn for the day when truth 
 shall not only be, but also be felt to be one. 
 
 4*
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Marriage of Mr. Robertson. — Death of his Sister. — He takes the Curacy 
 of Christ Church, Cheltenham. — Character and Influence of his Preach- 
 ing. — His Despondency and its Causes. — His Influence in Society. — 
 His Conversation. — His daring Character. — His Reading. — Extracts 
 and Letter throwing Light on his Spiritual Development. — Influences 
 which contributed to the Change in his Opinions. — Progress of this 
 Change. — Its Crisis. — He leaves Cheltenham for the Continent. 
 Letters during his Journey. 
 
 MR. ROBERTSON did not travel farther than 
 Geneva. He met there, and, after a short ac- 
 quaintance, married Helen, third daughter of Sir George 
 "William Denys, Bart., of Easton Neston, Northampton- 
 shire. Almost immediately after his marriage he re- 
 turned to Cheltenham. He was cheered by a farewell 
 visit to Winchester, — 
 
 Where (he says) many of my old congregation received me 
 with great afifection, and I preached to a very crowded 
 church my last sermon. From what I learnt I have reason 
 to beUeve that more than I had thought were savingly 
 brought to Christ during my ministry there. If this be so, 
 it is more than a requital for a whole life of labor. 
 
 For some months, owing to his ill health, he was for- 
 bidden to do any regular duty. During this interval 
 of passiveness, his mind wrought, and forged out some 
 results from his past experience. Even at this period 
 his freedom from party spirit, and his individuahty of 
 character began to be recognized. He says, writing in 
 January, 1842 : —
 
 DEATH OF HIS SISTER. 83 
 
 How much some systematic preparation for the ministry 
 is needed in our Church ! We enter it almost without chart 
 or compass ; and I suppose the Anglican Church alone ex- 
 hibits the strange spectacle so common amongst us of a 
 deacon intrusted with the sole charge of souls. I hope not 
 to be alone for some years to come, if God should spare 
 me so long. I have preached here several times, and been 
 set down sometimes as a Tractarian, sometimes as an ultra- 
 Calvinist. I trust the accusations neutralize each other, for 
 they are most certainly incompatible. If a man will really 
 endeavor to avoid Popery, either that of Rome or that of 
 a party, and practically hold the real Protestant doctrine 
 of the supremacy of Scripture, I suppose he must be con- 
 tent to come into collision with conventional phraseology, 
 and several received views. Yet it is somewhat hard to 
 unflinchingly incur the suspicion of those whom, on the 
 whole, you believe to be God's people, although it is so easy to 
 keep out of sight what is unpalatable. I am much tempted 
 to it sometimes in the pulpit, and in conversation. 
 
 In February of the same year, his sole surviving 
 sister, Emma, died. She had long been lingering into 
 death. He watched her with a brother's affection, and 
 the w^iole image of her patience crept into " his study 
 of imagination," and impressed him with a more solemn 
 sense of duty and eternity. He writes in February : — 
 
 Dear, dear girl! you cannot dream the holiness which 
 filled her young mind, increasing daily and rapidly till she 
 departed to be perfect. There had been a subdued calm- 
 ness about her for years, which made the earneshiess with 
 which she sometimes expressed her opinion on vital trnti.^ 
 more striking and more lovely. She had left us all behiiid, 
 far ; and when I think of her, I am disgusted with the fri- 
 volity and worldliness of my own heart. Is it credible that
 
 84 SOLEMNITY OF LIFE. 
 
 a man can have known Christ for six years, and believed 
 that there is in store an inheritance whose very essence is 
 holiness, and yet be still tampering with the seductions, and 
 follies, and passions of this wretched place? I trust this 
 solemn scene may make us all who have witnessed it more 
 in earnest, and more single in heart and purpose. The 
 days are fleeting away, and there is little done for Christ, 
 much for self and sloth. And I sometimes shudder, when 
 I wake, as it were, for a moment, to remember that while 
 we are dallying, the wheels of the chariot of the Judge do 
 not tarry too, but are hurrying on with what will be to some 
 among us fearful rapidity. My dear Hatchard, what need 
 we have to pray for an ever serious, solemn mind, and an 
 unresting sense of the presence of God within and around 
 us ! The startling silence in the room where the last of my 
 darling sisters lies, has chilled my heart with a cold feeling 
 of certainty that most of our life and profession is mockery. 
 To serve the Eternal so! 
 
 Before his sister's death occurred, he had been in- 
 quiring for a curacy. He wrote to Mr. Hatchard in 
 January, 1842 : — 
 
 I am grieved to hear your account of yourself Take 
 care. Depend upon it, you will gain nothing by a press of 
 steam, as I now acknowledge with bitterness : indeed, I do 
 not expect ever to be worth much again. Can you tell me 
 of a curacy which combines diametrically opposed qualities, 
 — sufficiency of stipend and easiness of work ? By easiness, 
 I mean half services, that is, I cannot take any duty single- 
 handed, but must have either a resident rector, or a stipend 
 sufficient to procure regular assistance. I have had a dis- 
 trict church mentioned to me. Such a thing would just 
 suit me. 
 
 The curacy of this district church, the incumbent of
 
 CURACY AT CHELTENHAM. 85 
 
 which was the Rev. Archibald Boyd, now rector of St. 
 James, Paddington, was offered to him and accepted. 
 He entered on his duties in the summer of 1842, and 
 performed them for nearly five years. The only exter- 
 nal events which marked these years of his life were the 
 birth of three children and the death of one. 
 
 It was fortunate for him at this time that he had 
 formed a high estimate of his rector. It was all-impor- 
 tant for him, in a place like Cheltenham, that a great 
 reverence for another should keep him humble, and that 
 eager emulation after an ideal should prevent him from 
 being carried away by the excitement of mere society. 
 
 Writing to Mr. Hatchard in the beginning of his sec- 
 ond year at Cheltenham, 1843, he says : — 
 
 28 Park Place, Cheltenham : February 9, 1843. 
 
 My dear Hatchard, — Many thanks for your kind con- 
 gratulations, and long letter. I feel considerably antiquated 
 by being invested with the honor of paternity, and already 
 experience a sort of foretaste of its cares and responsibili- 
 ties. I am thankful to say both my dear charges are going 
 on far better than I could have hoped, and I only trust 
 that I may be enabled to realize the promise inseparably 
 annexed to " training," for otherwise I should feel indeed a 
 heavy sinking at the prospect of my boy's future career. 
 
 I am sorry to read your account of your rector's ill health. 
 What you quote from Bishop Hall is very true in some cases. 
 God grant that when we are called our work may be done. 
 Poor Grotius's motto lies sometimes heavy at my heart, — 
 " Vitam perdidi operose nihil agendo'' You tell me nothing 
 of your work. Mine is far less satisfactory than at Win- 
 chester, partly from the superficial nature of this place, in 
 which I would not remain another day but for the sake of 
 my coadjutor and leader ; partly from the effect of the temp-
 
 86 CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 tations and the frittering away of time almost inseparable 
 from a residence here. 
 
 Mr. Robertson always preached in the afternoon. 
 He soon began to exercise upon his congregation his 
 peculiar power of fascination. It was the fascination, 
 not only of natural gifts of voice, and speech, and man- 
 ner, but also of intellect warmed into a vivid life by the 
 deepest earnestness. Mr. Dobson, formerly the princi- 
 pal of Cheltenham College, says of him, in a letter to 
 his father : — 
 
 I well remember the first sermon I ever heard him preach 
 at Cheltenham. It required little sagacity to discover, even 
 from a single specimen, that he was no ordinary man. Even 
 at this moment I can see him, then in almost youthful 
 beauty, raising his hand above his head as he closed his ser- 
 mon with the words, "The banner of the cross, without 
 taking up which," he said, "no man could be a Christian," 
 This generation will not look upoij his like again. 
 
 Another friend, wdio has given much information as 
 to his Cheltenham life, writes : — 
 
 I had taken a prejudice against him, through no fault of 
 his, when it was my good fortune to hear him preach. At 
 this time he had just become curate to Mr. Boyd. I was not 
 merely struck, but startled by the sermon. The high order 
 of thought, the large and clear conception, the breadth of 
 view, the passion held in leash, the tremulously earnest tone, 
 the utter forgetfulness of self in his subject, and the abun- 
 dance of the heart out of which the mouth spake, made me 
 feel that here, indeed, was one w^hom it would be well to 
 miss no opportunity of hearing. 
 
 From the first he largely swayed tho.-e minds which had 
 any point of contact with his own. In spite of what he 
 says himself of Cheltenham, in its depreciation, he had very
 
 OF HIS PREACHING. 87 
 
 many hearers there who knew how to rate him at his proper 
 value, before a larger public had endorsed it. Nor was it 
 among the lay men and women of Cheltenham alone that 
 he made his influence felt. I have been told that at the 
 clerical meetings he attended, he would, for the most part, 
 remain silent, but that sometimes, when many of his brethren 
 were in difficulty about the meaning of a text, he would 
 startle them by saying a few simple words which shed a 
 flood of new light upon the passage. He never put him- 
 self forward on these occasions, but his talents were none 
 the less recognized and held in honor by the foremost of his 
 brother clergymen. For all this admiration, as admiration, 
 he did not care. He could not be contented with anything 
 short of the visible influence of his preaching on the life of 
 men. This is plainly shown in the following letter, which 
 I enclose you. 
 
 "My DEAR , — I do not conceal from you that it 
 
 gave me pleasure to hear that what I said on Sunday had 
 been felt, not that it had been admired. God knows that 
 is not the thing that would give me joy. If I wanted that, 
 I should write and act very differently from what I do. But 
 it comes, like a gleam of fitful sunshine now and then across 
 a very bewildered path, to find that there are chords from 
 which one can strike harmony, albeit with a rude and un- 
 skilful hand. Such things startle and thrill me now and 
 then, as I suppose the strange melody would have done, 
 coming so unexpectedly when the first sunbeams fell on 
 Memnon's statue, — for to say the truth, it comes often very 
 heavily upon my heart what is meant by that, — 
 
 As it i?, I ]'"ve and die unheard, 
 "With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. 
 Or: — 
 
 ex^tOTT/ obvvf] TToWa (f>poveovTa ^rjbevos Kpareeiv. 
 
 " Yours ever, &c., &c." 
 This letter suggests one of the reasons of his great
 
 88 DESPONDENCY AND ITS CAUSES. 
 
 despondency during his stay at Cheltenham, — he be- 
 lieved his sermons to be unintelhgible. There were 
 some causes for this belief, but they were not peculiar 
 causes. There are always some in every congregation 
 who will depreciate a curate, and contrast him, howev- 
 er superior, with an incumbent ; and there are always 
 others who can understand nothing which is original, 
 whom an aro-ument couched in novel terms bewilders. 
 But common as these things are, they touched this 
 uncommon nature in a special manner. Through the 
 mist which his own sensitiveness and his consequent 
 morbidness created, he saw the misconception of a few 
 magnified into a phantom of failure. 
 
 One Sunday (writes the same friend), he had been Uj^ing 
 all his eloquence to show that this world w^ithout religion is 
 a riddle, and that the Christian religion is the only key to 
 it. The next day he received an anonymous letter from one 
 of those lady hearers whom he was wont playfully to call 
 his "mushn episcopate," in which he was told that Chris- 
 tianity made all the difficulties he spoke of plain. " So much," 
 he said to me, in a tone of bitterness, " for the good effects 
 that follow from my preaching." To the end of his life it 
 was the same. He always would look upon the misfortune 
 of want of intellect in others as a fault of his own. That 
 he was not so unintelligible as his fancy deemed even when 
 he had simple, untaught intellects to deal with, is plain 
 from this circumstance, that when he had taken charge of 
 a rural parish in one of his Cheltenham vacations, the 
 church, almost empty when first he came, was rapidly filled 
 by illiterate country people who showed the same breath- 
 less interest in his sermons as the most cultivated hearers 
 to whom he preached at Brighton. On another occasion I 
 well remember, when spending part of a summer holiday 
 with him, how the newly-built church, w^hich stood apart
 
 WANT OF EXEECISE. 89 
 
 from the village in a park, became more and more frequented 
 every Sunday by goodly farmers and rustic laborers, who 
 listened to him, all eyes and ears, with a pleasant mixture 
 of delight and astonishment. To whatsoever class he spoke, 
 the language of his sympathies made him intelligible. 
 
 Owing to his clerical profession he thought himself, 
 at this period at least, debarred from all participation in 
 any of the manlier sports which, by bracing his physi- 
 cal fi'ame, would have counteracted his over-excitable 
 mental temperament. He allowed himself none of the 
 healthful exercises which he so passionately loved, ex- 
 cept an occasional walk and ride into the country. The 
 w^ant of these exercises tended to deepen his despon- 
 dency ; but the chief cause of his want of heart w^as his 
 belief that his work at Cheltenham w^as a failure. 
 
 This melancholy fancy (continues his friend) took more 
 and more possession of him during the latter part of his 
 curacy, but even at the very outset it darkened round him. 
 It was partly created by his extraordinary admiration of 
 his rector. It was a great disadvantage to him that he had 
 to take the afternoon sermon, when an hour before he had 
 been listening to one that his partial judgment perhaps over- 
 rated. So difficult was it for him to believe that anything 
 he said was worthy of the place where his incumbent had 
 preached, that during the whole of his Cheltenham career 
 he never seemed at ease in the pulpit, he never did justice 
 to himself, he never spoke with satisfaction to himself. He 
 overshadowed himself by his creation of an ideal which he 
 did not hope even to approach. Another cause of the 
 melancholy fancy I have spoken of was his scrupulosity 
 of conscience. It led him to regard as duties left undone 
 those which others might deem only too well performed. 
 Often in coming home at night he would walk with me for 
 hours, and talk of the little good that he was doing. And
 
 90 "SAD AND DISPIRITED." 
 
 when I have tried to comfort him by saving that he was 
 sowing seed which would germinate in the future, and bring 
 forth fruit a hundred-fold, he has pointed to the pavement on 
 which we were walking together, and asked "if I thought 
 he might reap a harvest there ? " 
 
 " Sad and dispirited," — such is an entry in his diary, 
 1845, — "from feeling my own utter uselessness and 
 want of aim. Surely man's misery is want of work. 
 I mourn not that I cannot be happy, but that I know 
 not what to do, nor how to do it." He threw the shad- 
 ow of these thoughts round Cheltenham itself, and pro- 
 fessed in his letters from Brighton that, but for a few 
 friends there, he would never visit it again. In all this 
 he wronged himself, as well as many of his friends. 
 He speaks in later letters from Brighton of the pleasure 
 he felt in finding so many time hearts in Cheltenham. 
 But wdierever his morbid fancy as to his own work in 
 life comes into play, he must not be judged out of his 
 own mouth. He arraigns himself, in a letter to a 
 friend, " for poor unvisited, and duties left undone " : — 
 
 And yet (says this friend), I recollect his calling on me 
 just before his going abroad, as late as ten o'clock at night, 
 and taking me with him a distance of three miles, through 
 such a storm as Lear was out in, to visit a poor, disconso- 
 late old man, who seemed to have shut himself out from 
 human sympathies, and therefore all the more enlisted his. 
 I never knew one whose care and constant kindness to the 
 poor could compare with his. 
 
 In a private diary kept in 1845, there are long lists 
 of poor and sick whom he visited, and accounts of sums 
 paid out of a small income to clear off the debts of 
 struggling workmen ; and no man who could write the
 
 VISITS TO THE SICK AND POOR. 91 
 
 following letter to one of liis early friends could in real- 
 ity be backward in labor for Christ : — 
 
 Cheltenham: November 28, 1843. 
 Mj DEAR Davies, — Your affectionate letter has lain long 
 unanswered. But I was away on a tour on the Continent 
 of some duration when it arrived, and since I have been much 
 engaged in preparing candidates for confirmation. What a 
 solemn charge the ministry is ! I feel it more day by day, 
 and my own unfitness for it. Surely a man would almost 
 give it up if he dared. We do things, most of us at least, 
 60 badly, so half-heartedly, and self creeps in amidst it all 
 so much, that it all seems one great mass of impurity, which 
 would weigh us down with a sense of intolerable guilt, if it 
 were not that we have something to interpose between our 
 demerits and punishment. It is a privilege to know this. 
 There is nothing but this which can give serenity. At the 
 same time it is a great privilege, too, to know that the Gos- 
 pel is a system of resources by which we are to become 
 purer and better day by day. It is a grand thing to be a 
 Christian. It is a magnificent hope that we ' are ever to 
 become partakers of the Divine Nature. 
 
 Not only in public but in private was his influence 
 felt. He was cordially welcomed everywhere ; but it 
 was in the circle of his own immediate friends that his 
 fascination was most apparent. It had all the charac- 
 ter of genius. He was utterly unconscious of it. He 
 never spoke for display ; and yet "I have seen him," 
 said a friend, " take a flower, and rivet the attention of 
 liis listener with a glittering stream of eloquent and 
 glowing words, which he poured forth without premedi- 
 tation and almost as a soliloquy." The spirit he pos- 
 sessed sanctified the influence he gained from these gifts 
 of nature. He clothed them with the c;races of a
 
 92 HIS INFLUENCE IN SOCIETY. 
 
 Christian. His daily and hourly life, — his little acts 
 as well as his greater, — his words in society, were all 
 regulated, balanced, and checked by his ceaseless re- 
 membrance of the life of Christ as the highest life, and 
 by his continual sense of the presence of God. All 
 was done " ever as in his great Taskmaster's eye." 
 His graceful courtesies did not merely spring from nat- 
 ural kindness of heart, but were matter with him of 
 Christian duty. In the drawing-room, he would sepa- 
 rate himself from those he liked best to converse with, 
 and spend a great part of the evening by the side of 
 the most neglected, sacrificing himself to brighten a 
 dull existence. Perhaps his influence on society was 
 more powerful, as more insensible, than his influence in 
 the pulpit. 
 
 Society, in its turn, had a power over him. He easi- 
 ly received impressions. Some of his highest and best 
 thoughts were kindled by sparks which fell from the 
 minds of his friends. His intercourse, even with those 
 inferior to himself, was always fruitful. He took their 
 ideas, which they did not recognize as such, and, as 
 first discoverer, used them as his own ; but they were 
 always made more practical and better for the use. 
 Even of thoughts which he received from those to 
 whom they belonged by right of conscious possession 
 he made himself the master. One from whom he bor- 
 rowed says of him, " It was not that he appropriated 
 what belonged to others, but that he made it his own 
 by the same tenure as property is first held, — by the 
 worth he gave it." To such a man society was neces- 
 sary. He needed its impulse, its clash of opinions, 
 and, in some degree, its excitement; and he always 
 spoke best, wrote best, and acted best, w^hen he was
 
 HIS CONVERSATION. 93 
 
 kindled either into combativeness or admiration by the 
 events which stir the heart of humanity. 
 
 He was a marvellously bright and eloquent talker. 
 His sermons give no Idea of the uninterrupted river of 
 his speech. It had all the variety of a great stream, — 
 quick, rushing, and passionate when his wrath w^as 
 awakened against evil ; running in a sparkling glitter 
 for many a mile of conversation, over art, and poetry, 
 and science, and the topics of the day, with power at 
 will to stay its course, and collect itself into a quiet 
 seriousness of waters, again shooting impetuously, yet 
 without a false curve of its crlancino; water when It 
 got into the gorge and among the rocks of an argu- 
 ment ; and flowing with a breadth and depth, a fulness 
 and strength of stream, with a thousand eddies of illus- 
 trations and thoughts bubbling out of the opulence of 
 its depths, when it expanded and went statellly forward 
 over a great subject. He conversed or rather spoke 
 best in the open air. He liked to walk or ride when he 
 talked, that he might put Nature under contribution to 
 illustrate his ideas. Physical exercise gave nerve to 
 his thinking, and health to his views of things. He 
 took deep pleasure In the scenery which surrounded 
 Cheltenham. The aspect of Nature's life, the freshness 
 of summer air, took possession of him, played in his 
 blood, and quickened Into excitement all the daring and 
 courage which, at times, transformed him from the cler- 
 gyman of the nineteenth century Into the bright, young 
 knight of the Middle Ages. One day, riding with his 
 wife and some friends, he put his horse at a lofty hedge. 
 It was a dangerous leap. The horse refused It again 
 and again. His friends, who saw all the hazard, for the 
 ground was hard on the other side, dissuaded him ear-
 
 94 LOVE OF HEALTHY LIFE. 
 
 nestly from another effort. But he could not bear to 
 be conquered ; and he did not beheve in danger. The 
 horse urged, at last cleared the hedge, but came down 
 with such a crash on the other side, and with his rider 
 under him, that the lookers-on thought both must have 
 sustained serious injury. Robertson got up smiling; 
 but afterwards owned he had been too rash. His cour- 
 age was always greater than his love of life. It is no 
 wonder, with such a spirit, matched with so chivalrous 
 a heart, that he often thought that he had mistaken his 
 profession, and said to his friends, " that he would rath- 
 er lead a forlorn hope, than mount the pulpit stairs." 
 He believed in his own courage, and honored it with- 
 out a shade of vain delight in it. Once, when walking 
 with a friend at Cheltenham, his little boy became 
 frightened from some slight reason. On his friend re- 
 marking it, and saying that perhaps the child lacked 
 courage, he turned sharply round and said, " Cour- 
 age, — want courao;e ! he should never be a son of 
 mine ! " 
 
 On one occasion (writes a gentleman who knew him well 
 at Cheltenham), he had been asked to preach at a church 
 where the congregation was chiefly composed of those whom 
 Pope describes as passing from " a youth of frolics to an old 
 age of cards." I accompanied him, and listened curiously 
 for his text. It was this, " Love not the world, nor the 
 things of the world. If any man love the world, the love 
 of the Father is not in him." The sermon was most im- 
 pressive and eloquent, and bold in its denunciation. Re- 
 turning home, he asked me if I thought he was right in 
 jDreaching it. I answered, " that it was very truthful ; but, 
 considering the character of the clergyman whose pulpit he 
 occupied by courtesy, and the character of the congregation,
 
 HIS DARING CHARACTER. 95 
 
 not a discreet sermon. It might have been as truthful -with- 
 out apparently setting both mmister and people at defiance.'' 
 " You are quite right, quite right," be answered ; '" but the 
 truth was this : I took two sennons with me into the pulpit, 
 uncertain which to preach ; but, just as I had fixed upon the 
 other, something seemed to say to me, ' Robertson, you are 
 a craven, you dare not speak here what you beheve ' ; and 
 I immediately pulled out the sermon that you heard, and 
 preached it as you heard it." 
 
 This anecdote, as well as that of the leap, displays 
 more rashness than true courage. He learnt after- 
 wards that for loftier courage which has no necessity to 
 prove its own existence to itself. 
 
 Diu'ing this life at Cheltenham, his intellectual power 
 became rapidly greater, in proportion as his individu- 
 ality of character increased. As he freed himself from 
 conventional forms of thought, he secured a mental 
 grasp and vigor which he had not at Winchester. He 
 began now to hew out his own path to his convictions. 
 His continuous reading of Carlyle marks the state of 
 intellectual ferment in which he now lived. " I have 
 gained good and energy from that book," he savs, 
 speaking of "Past and Present." He read a great 
 many historical books ; and it is curious to find that, in 
 preparing for his class on the books of Samuel, he had 
 not recourse to commentaries, but to Niebuhr's Rome and 
 Guizot's work on civilization, and to books on political 
 economy. Tennyson and Dante seem to have been the 
 poets whom he chiefly read, though his reading of this 
 class of literature must have been large, since the lec- 
 tures on poetry which he delivered at Brighton were 
 first delivered, thoucrh not so fully, at Cheltenham. 
 Dante he seems to have read every day, and to have
 
 96 EXTEACTS FROM HIS DIAEY. 
 
 committed the whole of the "Inferno" to memory diu'- 
 ing 1845. German metaphysics took up some of his 
 time, and usefully. He had the rare power of extract- 
 ing out of them what was practical, and of rejecting, 
 while his subtle intellect played with, pleasurably, their 
 fine woven gossamer of ideas. He still kept up his 
 early interest in scientific pursuits, especially chemistry : 
 and he relieved his leisure with the study of physical 
 geography. He had a useful habit of reading on the 
 questions of the day. When the Maynooth grant was 
 being contested, he made notes of all the debates, 
 and read, in order to form a clear opinion, Burke 
 on the Irish Laws, Lingard, and Hallam. This was 
 his constant practice ; and owing to it he was always 
 ready with a well-considered view of all the subjects 
 which had agitated the country during his career. 
 
 With regard to his inner life while at Cheltenham, 
 the silent agony and labor of his spirit in much gloom 
 and anxiety, there is little to record. The following 
 extracts, not having anything peculiarly private about 
 them, and throwing light upon his spiritual life, are 
 given. One is dated 1843, the other 1845 : — 
 
 1843. 
 
 Meditation for Prayer. — To plead the glory of God mani- 
 fested to others in the preservation of his people, and the 
 perpetuating, at the same time, of his fear in their own 
 breasts, as an argument to be used before his throne, that 
 He would conduct me into peace. Joshua iv. 24, viii. 9 ; 
 Exodus xxxii. 12; Daniel xix. 19; Joel ii. 17. 
 
 To ask for love which I have not, as a free gift, that which 
 I cannot force upon myself, see 1 John iv. 8. Communion 
 with God is not to be attained by abstraction and asceti- 
 cism, but by the development of Christian sympathies. 1 John 
 iv. 12.
 
 EXTRACTS FROM HIS DIARY. 97 
 
 Self-denial in Eating. — Motives : my body is the temple 
 of the Holy Ghost. Excess will incapacitate me from glori- 
 fying Him ; it will produce listlessness, discontent with self, 
 and therefore with others. Hence the Christian graces 
 cannot shine in me. It will give earthly and grovelling 
 views, and cause me to forget my state of pilgrimage. It 
 will be a precedent for fresh indulgence, generally, as well 
 as particularly, in the same temptation. It will prevent 
 reading and meditation, weaken my sense of God's presence, 
 and my own acceptance, by losing the evidence of integrity. 
 It will close my lips in speaking to others of Christ's self- 
 denial. If observed, it will give a handle for reproach, and 
 a right to enemies to accuse me of inconsistency, and give 
 to them a handle to strengthen them in persisting against 
 an unworldly life. It is a paltry trial for a cliild of glory 
 to fail in. It is a base return for the washing of the blood 
 of Christ. It is a temptation expressly mentioned as un- 
 fitting for the awoKapaboKia of the second coming of Christ. 
 
 TTpocrex^Te fie eavTo2s, prjirore ^apvvdaxriv vpwv al Kapdiai lu Kpai- 
 nakr] Koi piOj] Ka\ p(pip,vais ^kotikqIs, kol alcpvldios ecp' vpas eniar^ 
 T] Tjpepa eKilvrj. — Luke xxi. 34. 
 
 In sleeping, early rising is to commence the day with an 
 act of self-denial, which, as it were, gives the mind a tone 
 for the whole day. It redeems time for early prayer, there- 
 by dedicating the first warm aspirations to God, before the 
 dull, and deadening, and earthward influences of the world 
 have had time to impair the freshness of early feeling. It 
 gives calmness to the day. Late rising is the prelude to a 
 day in which everything seems to go wrong. 
 
 1845. 
 Resolves. — To try to learn to be thoroughly poor in spirit, 
 meek, and to be ready to be silent when others speak. 
 To learn from every one. 
 To try to feel my own insignificance. 
 
 VOL, I. 5 o
 
 98 EXTRACTS FROM HIS DIARY. 
 
 To believe in myself, and the powers with which I am 
 intrusted. 
 
 To try to make conversation more useful, and therefore to 
 store my mind with facts, yet to be on my guard against a 
 wish to shine. 
 
 To try to despise the principle of the day, " every man 
 his own trumpeter " ; and to feel it a degradation to speak 
 of my own doings, as a poor braggart. 
 
 To endeavor to get over the adulterous-generation-habit 
 of seeking a sign. I want a loud voice from Heaven to 
 tell me a thing is wrong, whereas a little experience of its 
 results is enough to prove that God is against it. It does 
 not cohere with the everlasting laws of the universe. 
 
 To speak less of self, and think less. 
 
 To aim at more concentration of thought. 
 
 To try to overcome castle-builJing. 
 
 To be systematic in visiting ; and to make myself master 
 of some system of questions for ascertaining the state of the 
 poor. 
 
 To listen to conscience, instead of, as Pilate did, to in- 
 tellect. 
 
 To try to fix attention on Christ, rather than on the doc- 
 trines of Christ. 
 
 To preserve inviolable secrecy on all secrets committed to 
 me, especially on any confidential communication of spiritual 
 perplexities. 
 
 To take deep interest in the difficulties of others so com- 
 municated. 
 
 To perform rigorously the examen of conscience. 
 
 To try to fix my thoughts in prayer, without distraction. 
 
 To contend, one by one, against evil thoughts. 
 
 To watch over a growing habit of uncharitable judgment. 
 
 The following letter, though immature in thought 
 and weak in expression, bears witness to the delicacy
 
 CHRISTIAN SYMPATHY. 99 
 
 and strength of his sympathy, and muTors his Christian 
 thought : — 
 
 1845. 
 
 My DEAR Mrs. , — The sight of your handwrit- 
 ing was a most warm pleasure to me. It brought back old 
 days, — days which it would be very strange if I could for- 
 get. But I was much saddened by the contents of your 
 note, because its tone, though subdued and calm, evidenced 
 a long, dark struggle with anguish, which has almost been 
 too keen to bear. And, oh ! how little we know one an- 
 other's bitternesses, — how little we suspect the hours of secret 
 agony and cold struggle that every earnest, loving heart has 
 to go through in this most uninteUigible world ! Sometimes 
 it seems to me a marvel how we can ever smile again, so 
 often does life seem to shrivel into a failure and a nothing- 
 ness. ' I think I can conceive your trial, and partly imagine 
 that worst feature of all suffering, its incommunicable, lonely 
 sensation. To be where we and those around us are living 
 in two different worlds of feeling, is tenfold more intolerable 
 than to be where a foreign language, not one word of which 
 we understand, is spoken all day long. Those have always 
 seemed to me words from the very brink of the infinite of 
 feeling : " The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a 
 stranger intermeddleth not," &c. I would with all my heart 
 that I could feel for you as I could wish to feel, or even 
 that I could distinctly express such feeling as I have. To 
 a certain extent I should have a right to do this, for I know 
 something of what you have lost. A most warm, affection- 
 ate, and unselfish friend was taken from me when God be- 
 reaved you. But I do feel that sympathy from man, in 
 sorrow such as yours, is almost mockery. None can feel it, 
 and, certainly, none can soothe it except the Man Christ 
 Jesus, whose infinite bosom echoes back every throb of 
 yours. To my own heart, that marvellous fact of God en- 
 duing Himself with a human soul of sympathy is the most
 
 100 INFLUENCES CONTRIBUTING TO 
 
 precious, and the one I least could afford to part with of 
 all the invigorating doctrines which everlasting truth con- 
 tains. That Christ feels noio what we feel, — our risen as- 
 cended Lord, — and that Pie can impart to us, in our fearful 
 wrestlings, all the blessedness of His sympathy, is a truth 
 which, to my soul, stands almost without a second. I do 
 pray, that in all its fulness, this may be yours, — a truth to 
 rest and live upon. 
 
 Next to that stands the deep meaning of the cross, that 
 we are perfected through suffering. What worthy crown can 
 any son of man wear upon this earth, except a crown of 
 thorns? Sore struggle, darkness, loneliness, — but with all 
 that the true battle of an earnest soul in its terrible strug- 
 gle into light and clearness, up to God, — that is your portion 
 now. And, oh ! may God stand by you, and teach you that 
 a Christian's motto everywhere and always is Victory. I 
 look forward anxiously to seeing you. My wife sends her 
 very kind wishes. 
 
 On the whole, these years were years of advance, 
 but every step of the path was over a conquered enemy. 
 It was during this period that the basis of his theo- 
 logical science was entirely changed ; his principles of 
 thought attained, but not as yet systematized ; his sys- 
 tem of interpreting the Bible reduced to order ; his 
 whole view of the relation of God to man and man to 
 God slowly built up into a new temple on the ruins of 
 the old. When he began his ministry at Cheltenham, 
 many common and many peculiar religious experiences ; 
 many elements of belief conquered out of doubt ; many 
 elements of doubt itself, enthusiasms, speculations, mem- 
 ories of strange feelings, and secret feelings, which led 
 him into either too poetical or too despairing a view of 
 life, were, as it were, floating in solution. When his
 
 CHAXGE IN HIS OPINIONS. 101 
 
 ministry at Oxford began, his character and his prin- 
 ciples were fixed for life. 
 
 The outward influences which most contributed to 
 his development were the friendships he formed, and 
 the circumstances of his ministry at Cheltenham. The 
 warmth of his affections made him take the highest 
 view of the duties of friendship. Even while he was 
 proclaiming in his letters some tiling like misanthropy 
 and indifference to his friends, he was always ready to 
 spend everything in their service. His heart con- 
 quered easily, and in a moment, his philosophy. The 
 chivalry of his nature made him believe all things of 
 those he loved. " I recollect almost irritating him 
 once," said a gentleman, " because I maintained with 
 regard to a friend that his moral qualities outshone his 
 intellectual." Hence his affection sometimes vitiated 
 his judgment, and he idealized his friends into a perfec- 
 tion which often did not belong to them. One result 
 of this was that when a fi'iend failed him, and his idol 
 fell from its pedestal, the shock almost broke his heart. 
 Another, and the most important, was, that the greatest 
 changes in his life and modes of thought were wrought 
 in a large degree through the influence of his friends. 
 Not that he was ever a passive instrument on which 
 they played, but that the chords they struck made him 
 conscious of the music in himself: their sympathy drew 
 him out, and sometimes quickened his whole nature 
 into an almost preternatural activity of thought and 
 feeling, during which any swift reflection or quick re- 
 turn of his own or a cognate thought, even any deep 
 interest on the part of another, kindled so intense a fire 
 of creative force that his words seemed to pour forth 
 red-hot with the rapicUty and earnestness of an imagi-
 
 102 INFLUENCES CONTRIBUTING TO 
 
 nation which gathered fresh fuel from its own consump- 
 tion. 
 
 Above all, he needed the sympathy, the reciprocity 
 of thought, the consciousness of being understood, 
 which a true and deep friendship gives. And yet this 
 was the man who afterwards, at Brighton, was driven 
 into the deepest solitariness of heart; whom God saw 
 right to separate from all, and to surround with slander 
 and misunderstanding, that he might learn to *' stand 
 alone, in the strength of manlier independence " ; that, 
 divided from human sympathy, like his master, Christ, 
 he might be able to enter into and to teach as none 
 else have done so well in this generation, the character 
 of the human life of the Saviour. It is a truth always 
 new from its strangeness, — that the prophet must be a 
 man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; despised and 
 rejected of men ; that the consoler must be one who 
 feels all that is human keenly, but who is unfelt for 
 himself by men. 
 
 He had boyish friendships, which he characterized as 
 " full of sudden impulses ; of impetuous, passionate at- 
 tachment; of protestations, vows of constancy, prodi- 
 gality of promises." The friendship of the years of 
 manhood he defines *' as not mere intimacy, but as 
 exclusive, personal regard, mingled with reciprocity of 
 feeling, as founded on the communion of Hke with like, 
 or of unlike with unlike " ; and a passage in one of his 
 unpublished semions at once gives the depth with which 
 he felt, and the opinion which he held with regard to 
 the origin of a friendship : — 
 
 Hearts are linked to hearts by God. The friend on whose 
 fidelity you count, whose success in life flushes your cheek
 
 CHANGE IN HIS OPINIONS. 103 
 
 with honest satisfaction, whose triumphant career you have 
 traced and read with a heart throbbing almost as if it were 
 a thing alive, for whose honor you would answer as for your 
 own ; that friend given to you by circumstances over w^hich 
 you had no control, was God's own gift. 
 
 One of these friends w^as, for a time, Mr. Boyd. 
 The admiration which he expresses for his rector in his 
 earlier letters from Cheltenham rapidly passed into an 
 affection which was rendered delicate by a veneration 
 almost childlike. Indeed, there was nothing more 
 beautiful in his nature than the innocent faith which 
 ahvays sought for and believed in the nobility of others. 
 He saw his friends through the atmosphere of his ow^n 
 love and truthfulness, and when, as sometimes hap- 
 pened, he w^as, against his will, convinced that wdiat he 
 saw was partially, at least, an air-built castle, the beauty 
 of which was his own creation, the blow fell heavily and 
 sorely on his heart. The influence of this friendship 
 was at this time, however, clearly marked. It bore fruit 
 in his sermons. Under the impulse given by those of 
 Mr. Boyd, they became entirely changed in character. 
 Instead of w^riting them in one morning, w^ithout prep- 
 aration, as he did at Winchester, he studied for them 
 on Thursday and Friday, and wrote them carefully on 
 Saturday. They were no longer so much disquisitions 
 on doctrine or mere impassioned descriptions of the love 
 of God in Christ. Their tone was more intellectual, 
 without being less earnest ; their generalizations more 
 daring, and their practical teaching wnder. Especially 
 he learnt to enter into the more minute and subtler 
 phases of Christian life. Through the ideal which 
 friendship created, much of his peculiar intellectual
 
 104 CHANGE IN HIS OPINIONS. 
 
 power In preaching was drawn to the light. It is true 
 at this time his ideal was not very high. He himself 
 excelled it, and he afterwards changed his opinion of 
 those sermons which then stirred him into mental ac- 
 tivity. 
 
 The other friendship which influenced him largely 
 was formed with a gentleman deeply read in meta- 
 physics, and well acquainted with the results of the 
 sudden outburst in this century of theological and phil- 
 osophical excitement in Germany. He had faced as 
 subjects of intellectual inquiry those questions which 
 Robertson had faced as subjects of personal spiritual ex- 
 perience. Both desired, with a most single purpose, 
 truth, as the end of their speculations. Their conver- 
 sations were frequent and interesting, and it was par- 
 tially, at least, due to this friendship that Mr. Robertson 
 escaped from the trammels which had confined his in- 
 tellect and his spirit. 
 
 The circumstances which, independent of friendship, 
 most tended to change his theological views, and his 
 principles of spiritual thought, were connected with the 
 state of religious feehng in Cheltenham, The contro- 
 versy of the " Tracts for the Times" was at its height 
 when he entered on his curacy. The town was a hot- 
 bed of religious excitement. There ^vere the usual 
 tests of orthodoxy applied to every new clergyman, and 
 the usual ban placed on those who could not repeat 
 their Shibboleth. Popular preachers were adopted as 
 leaders of party ; and to hold certain doctrines, and to 
 speak certain phrases, and to feel certain feehngs, w^as 
 counted equivalent to a Christian life by many among 
 their conm-eixations. This is common enouo;h, and Mr.
 
 HIS RECOIL FROM EVANGELICALISM. 105 
 
 Robertson came into contact with it at Brighton as well 
 as at Cheltenham. But coming from Winchester, 
 where there was little or none of this popular religion, 
 and where his work lay among the poor, who do not 
 make so great a parade of their spiritual life, he w^as 
 shocked by the contrast. At first, with his unquestion- 
 ing charity, he believed that all who spoke of Christ 
 were Christlike. But he was rudely undeceived. His 
 truthful character, his earnestness, at first unconsciously, 
 and afterwards consciously, recoiled from all the unre- 
 ality around him. He w^as so pained by the expres- 
 sions of religious emotion which fell from those who 
 were living a merely fashionable life, that he states him- 
 self, in one of his letters, that he gave up reading all 
 books of a devotional character, lest he should be lured 
 into the same habit of feelino; without actincr. His con- 
 ception, also, of Christianity as the religion of just and 
 loving tolerance, and of Christ as the king of men 
 through the power of meekness, made him draw back 
 with horror from the violent and blind denunciation 
 which the "religious" agitators and the "religious" 
 papers of the extreme portion of the Evangelical party 
 indulged in under the cloak of Christianity. " They 
 tell lies," he said, "in the name of God; others tell 
 them in the name of the Devil ; that is the only dif- 
 ference." 
 
 It was this, and other things of the same kind, which 
 first shook his faith in Evangelicalism. He was an up- 
 right, faithful follower of that school at college and 
 Winchester, and, strange to say, a rigid Sabbatarian. 
 The following letters mark the point of view he occu* 
 pied when he had been a year at Cheltenham : — 
 
 5*
 
 106 CHURCH VIEWS. 
 
 I quite agree with you about the Calvinistic doctrines. 
 I think we ought to preach them in the proportion in which 
 they are found in Scripture, connected always with election 
 unto holine.-s. The fact is, we have one thing, and only 
 one to do here on earth, — to win the character of heaven 
 before we die. This is practical, and simple to understand. 
 AVe cannot do it alone ; but the Spirit's agency is given us 
 under our present dispensation to mould us by his influ- 
 ences into the image of God. And with this great truth, 
 what madness it is to spend our time in speculating about 
 our election ! I preach it, I trust, uncompromisingly and 
 unmistakably ; but, as a topic of preaching, I desire to make 
 it very subordinate to the end towards which it converges, 
 the restoration of sinners to the heavenly purity which they 
 have lost. 
 
 Cheltenham : January 10, 1843. 
 
 It seems to me that at the Reformation, and, subsequent- 
 ly, the error of stickling about non-essentials, was shared 
 equally by both sides. If the High Church party were un- 
 pardonable for making them a matter of life and death, the 
 Puritans were surely not blameless in dividing the Church 
 upon such matters. It may be very true that, like the school- 
 boy who lived " once upon a time," they refused to say A, 
 because they knew that they would next be compelled to say 
 B, but still it would have been better to have waited for this, 
 and made the stand on a vital point instead of a ridiculous 
 
 one I think the principle is an important one at this 
 
 crisis, however the application may be dubious in detail. 
 We need to walk warily and circumspectly, " giving no occa- 
 sion." Offence there will be soon, because our principles 
 cannot amalgamate by any device, — not even a second edi- 
 tion of No. 90, — with the Tractarians it is helium interne- 
 cinum. But I would reserve the contest till principle is at 
 stake; and until it comes to genuflections at the altar, I
 
 DOUBTS AND QUESTIONINGS. 107 
 
 think there is scarcely any external matter that might not 
 be complied with. I wish we were together. You ask after 
 my plans. I have none, but am just waiting till my path is 
 pointed out. I fear there is no chance of my remaininof 
 liere. My life has been so full of changes, that I scarcely 
 look at anything now as if it were permanent ; perhaps I 
 have too much of this feeling; for it prevents my forming 
 plans till the opportunity is past. 
 
 1843. 
 .... Now for your questions. I think Dr. Pusey's doc- 
 trine on the Eucharist just as dangerous, but much more 
 incredible, than transubstantiation. I think the Vice- Chan- 
 cellor might have given him an opportunity of recanting, but 
 I am very glad he did not, for it would have only prolonged 
 a useless controversy. As to the Church of England, I am 
 hers, ex ammo. I do not mean to say that if I had written 
 her baptismal service, I should have exactly expressed my- 
 self as she has done ; but take her as she is, " "With all thy 
 faults, I love thee still." As to the state of the Evangelical 
 clergy, I think it lamentable. I see sentiment instead of 
 principle, and a miserable, mawkish religion superseding a 
 state which once was healthy. Their adherents I love less 
 than themselves, for they are but the copies of their faults 
 in a larger edition. Like yourself, I stand nearly alone, a 
 theological Ishmael. The Tractarians despise me, and the 
 Evangelicals somewhat loudly express their doubts of me. 
 
 These letters were written in 1843. In the follow- 
 ing years doubts and questionings began to stir in his 
 mind. He could not get rid of them. They w^ere 
 forced upon him by his reading and his intercourse 
 with men. They grew and tortured him. His teach- 
 ing in the pulpit altered, and it became painful to him 
 to preach. He was reckoned of the Evangelical school,
 
 108 THE CONFLICT. 
 
 and he began to feel that his position was becoming a 
 false one. He felt the excellence, earnestness, and 
 gladly recognized the work of the nobler portion of that 
 party ; but he felt also that he must separ^ite from it. 
 In his strong reaction from its extreme tendencies, he 
 understood, with a shock which upturned his whole in- 
 ward life for a time, that the system on which he had 
 founded his whole faith and work could never be re- 
 ceived by him again. Within its pale, for him, there 
 was henceforward neither life, peace, nor reality. It 
 was not, however, till almost the end of his ministry at 
 Cheltenham that this became clearly manifest to him. 
 It had been slowly growing into a conviction. An out- 
 ward blow, — the sudden ruin of a friendship which he 
 had wrought, as he imagined, forever, into his being, — 
 a blow from which he never afterwards wholly recov- 
 ered, — accelerated the inward crisis, and the result 
 was a period of spiritual agony so awftil that it not only 
 shook his health to its centre, but smote his spirit down 
 into so profound a darkness, that of all his early faiths 
 but one remained : " It must be ricrht to do nVht.'' 
 He had passed up the hill Difficulty with youthful ar- 
 dor ; h& had been glad in the Beautiful house, and seen 
 the Delectable Mountains from far ; he had gone down 
 the hill with enthusiasm and pleasant thoughts; but 
 Apollyon met him in the valley, and, broken by the 
 battle, but unsubdued, he w^alked in tenfold gloom 
 through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, wdth the 
 fiends whispering dark doubts in his ears, till he half 
 believed them to be his own, — stumbling and fainting, 
 but ever going onwards, — till at last, emerging victo- 
 rious, he went up upon the hiUs to see with clearer
 
 THE DARK HOUR. 109 
 
 vision than before, through the glass of faith, the shining 
 of the Celestial City. This is no mere fanciful paral- 
 lel. Abstracting some passages evidently put in to suit 
 the especial subject on which he spoke, and those to 
 whom he spoke, the following extract from his lecture 
 to working men, dehvered at Brighton, is a description 
 of his own experience at this period, when, leaving 
 Cheltenham, he wandered alone through the Tyrol : — 
 
 It is an awful moment when the soul begins to find that 
 the props on which it has blindly rested so long are, many 
 of them, rotten, and begins to suspect them all ; when it 
 begins to feel the nothingness of many of the traditionary 
 opinions which have been received with implicit confidence, 
 and in that horrible insecurity begins also to doubt whether 
 there be anytliing to believe at all. It is an awful hour, — 
 let him who has passed through it say how awful, — when 
 this life has lost its meaning, and seems shrivelled into a 
 ^pan ; when the grave appears to be the end of all, human 
 goodness nothing but a name, and the sky above this uni- 
 verse a dead expanse, black with the void from which God 
 himself has disappeared. In that fearful loneliness of spirit, 
 when those who should have been his friends and counsellors 
 only frown upon his misgivings, and profanely bid him stifle 
 doubts, which for aught he knows may arise from the foun- 
 tain of truth itself; to extinguish, as a glare from hell, that 
 which for aught he knows may be light from heaven, and 
 everything seemed wrapped in hideous uncertainty, I know 
 but one way in which a man may come forth from his agony 
 scathless; it is by holding fast to those things which are 
 certain still, — the grand, simple landmarks of morality. In 
 the darkest hour through which a human soul can pass, what- 
 ever else is doubtful, this at least is certain. If there be no 
 God, and no future state, yet even then, it is better to be 
 generous than selfish, better to be chaste than licentious,
 
 110 DISTRESS OF MIXD. 
 
 better to be true than false, better to be brave than to be a 
 coward. Blessed beyond all earthly blessedness is the man 
 who, in the tempestuous darkness of the soul, has dared to 
 hold fast to these venerable landmarks. Thrice blessed is 
 he who, — when all is drear and cheerless within and with- 
 out, when his teachers terrify him, and his friends shrink 
 from him, — has obstinately clung to moral good. Thrice 
 blessed, because his night shall pass into clear, bright day. 
 
 I appeal to the recollection of any man who has passed 
 through that hour of agony, and stood upon the rock at last, 
 the surges stilled below him, and the last cloud drifted from 
 the sky above, with a faith, and hope, and trust no longer 
 traditional, but of his own, — a trust which neither earth 
 nor hell shall shake thenceforth forever. 
 
 The friend to whom alone he confided his mental dif- 
 ficulties has given the following account. After stating 
 that Mr. Robertson belonged to the Evangelical party, 
 he proceeds : — 
 
 He was led to reconsider his views. But the reopening 
 of any vital question was, in his case, attended with infinite 
 pain. His liberality was so great that he allowed every 
 question to remain open for a time ; his earnestness was so 
 great that he brought his best judgment to bear upon it, and 
 very soon arrived at a conclusion. Then he considered the 
 question closed. He would not suffer its ghost to haunt him. 
 When he was forced, therefore, to reconsider a subject of 
 great religious importance, he was deeply distressed. The 
 examination of particular points of belief involved him in 
 the examination of a great deal more. When the rains de- 
 scended, and the floods came, and the wind beat upon his 
 house, he must needs go down and look at its foundation. 
 He suffered severely during the latter part of his stay at 
 Cheltenham. He did not willingly say much to me ; but 
 there was something which he could not hide from a friend,
 
 LEAVES CHELTENHAM FOR THE CONTIXEXT. Ill 
 
 which allowed him no rest for the sole of his foot. His 
 health so suffered that I urged the necessity of giving up his 
 curacy, and advised him to go abroad. I accompanied him 
 as far as Liege, where we parted, and he pursued his way to 
 the Tyrol. 
 
 At Ostend and Brussels he fell in with old friends, who 
 seemed to cheer him, but the real state of his mind at this 
 period may best be gathered from two letters written to me 
 from the Tyrol and from Heidelberg. I have thought it 
 right to send you these letters, because, while I would jeal- 
 ously guard his memory, it does not seem to me wise to let 
 the public have half-views of him, or think that anything is 
 kept back which may help them to form a true estimate of 
 the man. Their publication will do him no harm, and may 
 do. the truth-seeking part of the world much good. Any 
 false impression they may create will be corrected by him- 
 self in the letters of his later life. 
 
 During his stay at Heidelberg he plunged deeply into 
 German metaphysics and theology. So the holiday which 
 should have been given to health, was given to the solution 
 of those hard problems, by the consideration of which his 
 health had been undermined. It is no wonder that, laboring 
 thus night and day, he returned to Cheltenham less physi- 
 cally improved than his friends had hoped for, though calmer 
 ani more composed in mind. His soul had been stirred to 
 its very depths, and had not yet had time to settle. The 
 wine did not yet run clearly. He did not seek for sympathy. 
 He was accustomed, as he said, to consume his own smoke. 
 But he could not do this so entirely that his friends could 
 not guess what was going on within. One of these, I recol- 
 lect, who was with him at the English Lakes, said to him 
 one day with some sharpness, pointing to the summit of 
 Skiddaw, which was unseen the while for mist, " I would not 
 have my head, like the peak of that mountain, involved, as 
 we see it now, in cloud, for all that you could offer me."
 
 112 LETTEKS DURING HIS JOURNEY. 
 
 "I would," rejoined Robertson, quickly, "for, by and by, the 
 cloud and mist will roll away, and the sun will come down 
 upon it in all his glory." 
 
 He started for tlie Continent in September, 1846. 
 
 The interesting letters which follow reveal clearly his 
 state of mind. They are very, even passionately, mor- 
 bid in their view of life ; but morbid thoughts necessa- 
 ril}^ accompany a struggle for spiritual existence. He 
 was emergmg from this gloom into clearer light, when 
 he arrived at Heidelberg. There he took the pulpit for 
 the English chaplain, and so deeply interested many of 
 the men who heard him, that his six weeks' stay in this 
 place led to a large correspondence afterwards ; espe- 
 cially on the part of some Unitarians, wdio, struck by 
 his tolerance and his consistent support of the great 
 doctrine of the Church of England, w^ished to hear 
 more from him on the subject of their controversy. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Cortona: September 24, 1846. 
 
 My dear , — I have a spare hour, and I cannot 
 
 better employ it than by giving you a sketch of my proceed- 
 ings. I shall pass over all till the time when I got to 
 Innsbruck, where I arrived about five o'clock one glorious 
 afternoon. It lies in a valley about two miles broad, and 
 extending in length as far as the eye can reach. In the cen- 
 tre of this runs, or rather gushes, the Inn, on its way down 
 to the Danube. From the heights above, about four hours 
 before you reach Innsbruck, is a view w^hich, in its way, I 
 never saw equalled. A lovely plain studded with spires and 
 villages, with none of the disadvantages of a plain, such, for
 
 HOFER'S MONU^IENT. 113 
 
 instance, as is the plain of Gloucester, seen from Malvern, 
 flat and wearisome. The background to this plain rises gi- 
 gantic and abrupt, a long line of mountains, some of which, 
 when I passed, were covered with recently fallen snow. 
 Filled with all the disagreeable associations which belong to 
 a twenty-six hours' drive in a dirty diligence, I cannot de- 
 scribe the revulsion of feeling which is experienced when 
 this splendor breaks upon you, lighted up by the brilliancy 
 of a sunny day. It shone everywhere, except on my heart. 
 That night I wandered alone by the rush of the Inn, and 
 gave myself up unreservedly to the spirit of the place. I 
 love to do this always. I try to arrive at a place where I 
 sleep in good time, that I may get my stroll, after I am quite 
 refreshed, before the sun has set. Such a one I got last 
 night at Brunecken, and such a one I got three years ago at 
 the Grimsel, when I left my brothers in the Hospice and 
 strolled out alone. That evening almost stands alone in my 
 life. I shall never have such another, — so solemn, so awful, 
 so almost holy. That wild, savage scenery, made more wild 
 by storm-clouds which were just beginning to drift over the 
 peaks above me, conveyed sensations which come only once 
 in life. They say love comes only once. That is a sickly 
 school-girl's fancy ; but I do think nature, in all its mystery, 
 is felt but once. Yesterday, and at Innsbruck, my feelings 
 were not like those, — not so sweet, not so happy. The sen- 
 sation was one of laissez aller. Clouds were there, and rich 
 purple and blackening mountains, and coming night, — and 
 my feeling w^as a kind of indifference which is not indiflfer- 
 ence. It was all drifting on, — clouds, life, time, and I cared 
 not how fast I drift along with it. Crumbling mountains, 
 valleys strewed with rocks and ruin, and all this shrouding 
 itself fast in deepening darkness. I came back to another 
 world of feeling, — lighted streets, people crowding out from 
 vespers, noise, hurry, and uproar. Two things in Innsbruck 
 pleased me much : the Ilof kirche, in which is Hofer's monu- 
 
 u
 
 114 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 
 
 ment, and two singular lines of gigantic bronze figures, be- 
 sides the finest tomb in Europe — Maximilian's — and the 
 museum. In the latter is a complete collection of every- 
 thing in the Tyrol, — birds, vegetables, minerals, works of 
 art, sculpture, and paintings by Tyrolese artists; and one 
 compartment, as interesting as all the rest together, where 
 lie Hofer's and Spechbacher's swords ; some of the money 
 coined when Hofer was governor of the Tyrol, his gii-dle, 
 braces, sash, and a letter written for supplies. I drew his 
 sword, and almost felt that it was done with a soldier's feel- 
 ing. 
 
 Botzen: September 27. 
 I have been unable to finish this, from the impossibility 
 of procuring legible ink in the mountain places where I have 
 been the last few days. When at Innsbruck, I tried to get 
 a shot at a chamois, and for this purpose engaged a jager. 
 We walked out one day to a distant place in the hills, where 
 we slept. Next morning, at a little after four, the stars still 
 shining brightly, and the sky like midnight, we set off, and 
 saw the sun rise gloriously an hour and a half afterwards. 
 We climbed on and on for hours, watching the clouds curl- 
 ing beneath us and wreathing themselves in fantastic forms, 
 as if the morning light were torturing them, — on and on, 
 through pine forest, and heath, and rocks, till at three o'clock 
 we had reached our highest altitude ; but not even the trace 
 of a chamois did we see. By nine at night I got back, 
 ravenously hungry, and prepared to make up for the sleep- 
 less hours of the preceding night; but I was well repaid 
 by glorious views, — which few Englishmen can have seen, 
 — of the valleys of the Stubay, and Sill, and Inn, lying 
 far beneath us. The night before was a strange and pain- 
 ful one. I could not sleep. My companion had taken leave 
 of me with the usual respectful salutation, after supping on 
 trout and sour wine together, side by side, — turning down 
 my bed to see if the sheets were clean, &c., and all those
 
 SCENERY IN THE TYROL. 115 
 
 traits of respectful independence wliicli mark the lower 
 orders here. For some hours, excitement kept me awake, 
 — excitement from the scenery I had just passed through, 
 and the anticipations of the morrow to which I looked 
 forward. That passed away, and still I could not sleep. 
 Lassitude of heart came on, — a strange, melancholy sinking 
 of the spirit. Life rose before me like a thin shadow. I 
 felt that past years had been one vast failure, and I looked 
 on to future ones with a heart utterly adrift, wishing to be 
 wiser than heretofore, practically w^iser, but not knowing 
 how. I was wide awake when the jiiger came to summon 
 me. Night after night has been like this, — restless, whether 
 I sleep or wake ; and at five regularly I throw myself out 
 in the dark to drive away the spectres. Take one single 
 night as a specimen, — the night before last. I dreamed 
 that some one was telling me that all my friends were mourn- 
 ing over the deterioration of my sermons, &c., — their unin- 
 telligibility and emptiness. I woke, went to sleep again, and 
 then was arraigned for duties left undone, — sick unvisited, 
 schools untaught, &c., with a minuteness of detail, — names 
 I never heard of, &c., — all of which it would be childish 
 to record. I only tell you my dreams, to show you the un- 
 resting, unaltering state of my heart. Change of scene, hard 
 exercise, conversation with foreigners; all make no dijffer- 
 ence. But enough of this. 
 
 I set out on Monday last from Innsbruck with my knap- 
 sack, and walked across the Brenner, up the valley of the 
 Sill, down the valley of the Eisach, turned off at Mitten- 
 wald, passed along the valley of the Rienz, threaded the 
 pass of Ampezzo, and in three days and a half arrived at 
 Cortona, within twenty-four hours of Venice. The pass of 
 Ampezzo is glorious. The road winds through serrated and 
 striking mountains, in one place under a glacier. It was 
 a beautiful day when I passed, and I had the full enjoyment 
 of it, — at least the first half After that, rain fell in tor-
 
 116 SCENERY IN THE TYROL. 
 
 rents, and by the time I got to Cortona, I was drenched. But 
 even this, I think, only enhanced the grandeur. Gleams 
 from time to time revealed the more distant peaks, and the 
 clouds curling curiously and wildly round the nearer ones, 
 
 only made the thing more sublime Yesterday from a 
 
 place called Castleruth, beautifully perched upon an emi- 
 nence commanding views in every direction, and directly 
 under one of the finest of the grand dolomite crags, I began 
 to descend a most steep mountain down to Botzen. It was 
 the hardest part of the whole walk, — blistered me severely, 
 wrung my ankle by a slip, — but winds through scenery of 
 enchanting beauty, till, at the foot, it leads by a single wooden 
 arch thrown high across the Eisach into the road towards 
 Botzen, twelve miles above it, — the same road which I 
 had quitted when I turned off at Mittenwald to the Passier 
 Thai. Southern scenery was now making its appearance. 
 Luxuriant treUissed vines, pumpkins lying rich and yellow 
 on the ground, a more genial and almost sultry air told that 
 the land of sunny skies was not far off. Botzen, more south 
 than which I do not go, lies at the junction of two valleys, 
 the vale of the Eisach and that of the Adige, and is sur- 
 rounded by hills which overhang the town ; vines and fig- 
 trees, mulberries, pumkins, &c., clothe their sides. To-day 
 I met an English physician at table, who has lived twenty- 
 five years in Bohemia, — looks German, speaks English with 
 hesitation, — and from him I have got a good deal of infor- 
 mation respecting the Tyrol and German authors. He says 
 Jean Paul is despised, — has no claim to the title of a 
 thinker ; that the first Germans look down on all the meta- 
 physical school; and that the metaphysicians, almost to a 
 man, are defective in character.
 
 ACCOUNT OF MENTAL DIFFICULTIES. 117 
 
 XV. 
 
 Hotel du Prince Chai-les, Heidelberg: October 2i, 1846. 
 
 My dear , — Thank you for your affectionate and 
 
 kind letter which I received this morning, and which I hasten 
 at once to answer. Yet I scarcely know how to answer it. 
 I would not willingly conceal any part of my heart from 
 you, yet I fear I could not intelligibly tell you all, though 
 I can put it in very distinct English for myself. At least, 
 set your mind at rest on one point. Whatever mental trials 
 I may experience, you are not responsible for any. I have 
 heard you state difficulties, but never argue for them ; and 
 the difficulties could not come upon my mind for the first 
 time, — of a man who had read theological and philosophi- 
 cal controversy, — long before, with painful interest, — a 
 man, who, at different times, has lived in the atmosphere of 
 thought, in which Jonathan Edwards, Plato, Lucretius, 
 Thomas Brown, Carlyle, Emerson, and Fichte lived, — who 
 has steeped his soul and memory in Byron's strong feelings, 
 — who has walked with Newman years ago to the brink 
 of an awful precipice, and chosen rather to look upon it 
 calmly, and know the worst of the secrets of the darkness, 
 than recoil with Newman, in fear and tenderness, back to 
 the infallibility of Romanism. Such a man is not likely 
 to have been influenced by a few casual statements of diffi- 
 culties which he had read of a thousand times before. I 
 knew well what the state of your mind had been. I thought 
 I knew what it is, and therefore never, except in a walk 
 once, in answer to a searching question, did I ever hint to 
 you what was the attraction to my mind in such books. A 
 man, as it has been well said, " ought to burn his own smoke, 
 if he cannot convert it into clear flame." For this reason, 
 I shall not enter upon these points, except superficially. 
 I am quite sure that what you say is true about getting 
 truth, — at least truth enough, — at last, and I am quite will-
 
 118 STRUGGLE AFTER TRUTH. 
 
 ing to struggle on in twilight until the light comes. True, 
 manly struggle cannot fail. I know that. Only a man 
 must struggle alone. His own view of truth, or rather his 
 own way of viewing it, and that alone, will give him rest. 
 He can only adopt the views of other minds for a time ; and 
 so long as his own is inert, the help that he gets directly 
 from others generally does no good. Indirect, casual hints 
 sometimes do much. I have never said so much as this to 
 any one in England, and, of course, you will kindly not even 
 hint it. Here, in Germany, I have conversed much and 
 freely on the points of difficulty. I have found minds here 
 that understand me if they cannot help me, and in the con- 
 viction that a treasure lies near me in German literature, 
 I am digging away night and day at the superincumbent 
 earth, in order hereafter to get at it. Indeed, I have already 
 plunged into it, perhaps too suddenly, considering my rudi- 
 mental acquaintance with the language. Some thiugs I am 
 certain of, and these are my Ursachen, which cannot be 
 taken away from me. I have got so far as this. Moral 
 goodness and moral beauty are reahties, lying at the basis, 
 and beneath all forms of the best religious expressions. 
 They are no dream, and they are not mere utilitarian con- 
 veniences. That suspicion was an agony once. It is passing 
 away. After finding littleness where I expected nobleness, 
 and impurity where I thought there was spotlessness, again 
 and again I despaired of the reality of goodness. But in all 
 that struggle, I am thankful to say, the bewilderment never 
 told upon my conduct. In the thickest darkness, I tried to 
 keep my eye on nobleness and goodness, even when I sus- 
 pected they were only Will-o'-the- Wisps. Indeed, I startled 
 au Epicurean philosopher some time ago, here in Germany, 
 with the vehemence with which I maintained this. He was 
 defending Goethe's views and life, and I poured out my in- 
 dignation in such a storm of fury, that he quite cowered 
 before the blast, and between seven and eight next morning
 
 "HOLD FAST TO MORAL GOOD." 119 
 
 anxiously begged me to believe that he had overstated his 
 own views. I had rather be a Stoic in hell-fire than an 
 Epicurean on his principles, or Goethe's, if they be Goethe's. 
 I am anxious to set you at rest upon this point, for really 
 you are responsible for nothing. Indeed, a man must have 
 been profoundly and incredibly ignorant of literature, if 
 these things had presented themselves to him in a few con- 
 versations in a new light. As to the ministry, I am in 
 infinite perplexity. To give it up seems throwing away the 
 only opportunity of doing good in this short life that is 
 now available to me. Yet to continue it, when my whole 
 soul is struggling with meaning that I cannot make intel- 
 ligible, — when I am perpetually bewildering people, and 
 saying the thing I do not mean, — to go on teaching and 
 preaching when my own heart is dark, and lacks the light 
 I endeavor to impart, — when I feel as if it lay upon me, 
 like a destiny, to speak truth, and not as Cassandra, to be 
 disbelieved, but to be forever unintelligible to my brother 
 man, — is very wretched. . . . 
 
 I intend to spend the remainder of my time in Heidelberg. 
 Several English families are here ; some of them well- 
 informed and agreeable people. Heidelberg is a lovely spot. 
 When I first saw it, I thought it the loveliest I had ever 
 beheld. But it was summer then, and I was five years 
 younger. Moreover, I have seen the grandest scenery per- 
 haps on earth since then. Still I admire it much, very much, 
 and love to wander alone beside its winding river, especially 
 at sunset, when the broad stream of yellow light streams 
 along its whole length, almost from Mannheim to where I 
 stand. The castle heights and labyrinths, and the walks on 
 the hill above, are all full of beauty. And now, my dear 
 , farewell, and God bless you.
 
 120 WHAT IS THE CHRISTIAN FAITH? 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Hatchett's Hotel, Piccadilly: January 1, 1847. 
 
 My dear , — As to all you said about a creed, I 
 
 never knew any sane man who doubted any part of what you 
 urged upon me so warmly. That Christianity is true, that 
 Christ's character is high, that to do good is better than to do 
 wrong, I suppose are axioms. But Paulus, even Strauss, 
 would admit all this, and Socinians would demand a great 
 deal more before they would call a man a Christian. Such 
 points never seemed uncertain to me, except in moments of 
 very bad dyspepsia, and then the dimness of the eye makes 
 everything look black. But you will remember that this 
 creed leaves all that we are accustomed to consider the essen- 
 tials of Christianity, as distinguished from natural religion, 
 undetermined. For instance, suppose a man puts the ques- 
 tion, Who was Christ ? What are miracles ? What do you 
 mean by inspiration ? Is the resurrection a fact or a myth ? 
 What saves a man, — his own character, or that of another ? 
 Is the next life individual consciousness, or continuation of 
 the consciousness of the universe ? To these and twenty other 
 questions which I could put, Krause would return one an- 
 swer, Neander another, and Dr. Chalmers another; and I 
 am certain that neither of the two last would be satisfied 
 with even all that you urged as constituting Christianity, — 
 no, nor a great deal more in addition. Those are not points 
 on which any tnan in health can suffer a doubt to last three 
 quarters of a second. And the questions I have mentioned, I 
 mention not as perplexing myself (on that I say nothing), 
 but as touching the real vitals of the question, which all you 
 urge does not touch. But now to quit this subject. My 
 mind is more under control than it was, — my nerves braced 
 by the" surrender of Christchurch, and in proof of this, I 
 mean to keep my weakness and wretchedness to myself, in- 
 stead of plaguing my friends with them.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OXFORD. 
 
 Return to Cheltenham. — Surrender of Curacy of Christchurch. — He 
 accepts the Charge of St. Ebbe's, Oxford. — Position in Relation to the 
 High Church and the Evangelical Parties. — Results of his Work on the 
 Parish of St. Ebbe's and on himself. — Trinity Chapel, Brighton, is 
 offered to him. — He refuses but afterwards accepts the o£fer. — Sad 
 Presentiments. 
 
 AFTER an absence of nearly three months, Mr. 
 Robertson returned to Cheltenham. He had dur- 
 ing his stay at Heidelberg surrendered the curacy of 
 Christchurch with feelings of unmixed pain. 
 
 My father (he writes from Cheltenham, March 2, 1847) 
 showed me your letter to him containing an inquiry respect- 
 ing my health, and I answer it in his stead. I have been 
 very unwell, thoroughly done up, mentally and bodily. I 
 wandered six weeks in the Tyrol alone, trying the effect of 
 mountain air and hard exercise. After that I spent about 
 nine weeks at Heidelberg, where I took the duty, got much 
 interested in and attached to the congregation, studied Goethe, 
 Schiller, and Krause, and got back something like calmness 
 and health again. 
 
 I am now well, but idle and useless. I have given up the 
 curacy of Christchurch. If I take work, it must be single- 
 handed. I am afraid I can no longer brook to walk in lead- 
 ing-strings ; but, however, enough of this. 
 
 As his health increased and his mind recovered from 
 the tempest which had swept over it, he began to be 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 122 ST. EBBE'S, OXFORD. 
 
 impatient for some labor. The Bishop of Calcutta of- 
 fered him a chaplaincy in his diocese, with the promise 
 of a canonry, but he did not wish to leave home. He 
 then wrote to the Bishop of Oxford, with whom, as 
 Archdeacon Wilberforce, he had been acquainted at 
 Winchester, placing himself at his lordship's disposal, 
 and asked for some employment. 
 
 The bishop at once offered him the charge of St. 
 Ebbe's, Oxford. The church was situated in one of 
 the worst parts of the town. The parish had not been 
 regularly worked for some time, owing to the severe ill- 
 ness of the incumbent. It was a difficult post, and the 
 emolument was very small-. Mr. Robertson hesitated 
 before accepting it, not on account of the disadvantages, 
 but because of his disagreement with the known views 
 of the Bishop of Oxford. 
 
 Before my son (writes Captain Robertson) went to St. 
 Ebbe's, he saw the Bishop of London, and frankly told him 
 that he did not hold, and therefore could not preach, the doc- 
 trine of Baptismal Regeneration. The Bishop replied, " I 
 give my clergy a large circle to work in, and if they do not 
 step beyond that I do not interfere. I shall be glad, how- 
 ever, to hear your views on the subject." An hour's conver- 
 sation followed, and at the close his lordship said, "Well, 
 Mr. Robertson, you have well maintained your position, and 
 I renew my ofifer." It was at once accepted. 
 
 From his connection with the Bishop of Oxford, it has 
 been hinted that Mr. Robertson sympathized at this 
 time with the views of the High Church party. It 
 may be well here to set that question at rest. He had 
 no sympathy with their views ; but he had a great deal 
 of sympathy with the men who held them, with their
 
 HIS RELATION TO THE TRACT SCHOOL. 123 
 
 self-devotion, and with their writings. He reverenced 
 the self-sacrificing work which they were performing 
 among poor and neglected parishes. He said that, as a 
 body, they had reasserted the doctrine of a spiritual 
 resurrection, which had been almost put out of sight by 
 the "Evangelical" party. He read Newman's ser- 
 mons with profit and delight to the day of his death. 
 There was no book which he studied more carefully or 
 held in higher honor than the " Christian Year." It 
 seemed to him that some of its poems were little short 
 of inspiration. He saw in the importance which the 
 Tractarians gave to forms a valuable element which he 
 never lost sight of in his teaching. Only, while they 
 seemed to say that forms could produce life, he said that 
 forms were necessary only to support life ; but for that 
 they were necessary. To use his own illustration: 
 bread will not create life, but life cannot be kept up 
 without bread. On the subject of Baptism, he felt no 
 sympathy with the Evangelical view, which left it 
 doubtful whether the baptized child was a child of God 
 or not ; but because the Tractarian view declared that 
 all baptized persons were children of God, he could so 
 far sympathize with it. But on all other points, start- 
 ing as he did from the basis that Baptism declared and 
 did not create the fact of sonship, his difference was 
 radical. The persecution too which this party suffered, 
 secured his sympathy. He even believed that it had 
 received but scant justice from one with whom he large- 
 ly agreed. He maintained that Dr. Arnold did not stand 
 quite impartially between the Evangelicals and Tracta- 
 rians, but judged the foraier less severely than the 
 latter. On the other hand, it must be said that he him- 
 self showed but scant justice to the Evangelical party.
 
 124 HIS INDEPENDENCE OF PARTY. 
 
 He seems to have imputed to all its adherents the views 
 of the Record newspaper. He sometimes forces conclu- 
 sions upon them which the great body of them would 
 repudiate. He overstates, unconsciously, some of their 
 opinions. If there was any intolerance in his nature it 
 oozed out here. But surrounded as he was by them at 
 Brighton ; constantly attacked, by some manfully, by oth- 
 ers in an underhand manner ; the victim of innuendoes 
 and slander, it was difficult for him always to be smooth- 
 tongued. Nor was he now or afterwards the leader or 
 the servant of any party in the Church. He stood 
 alone. He fought out his principles alone. He has 
 been called a follower of Mr. Maurice ; but though 
 holding Mr. Maurice in veneration, he differed on many 
 and important points from both him and Professor 
 Kingsley. He was the child of no theological father. 
 At this time, however, when a new impulse had come 
 upon his life, — when he was unshackled by a subordi- 
 nate position, — he was least of all thinking of party op- 
 position or party teaching. One was his Captain, even 
 Christ ; and he did not care, provided he fought under 
 Him the good fight, what regiment he belonged to. 
 All were his brothers in arms who were loyal to his 
 Master's cause. He was ready, under great worldly 
 disadvantages, to lead the forlorn hope which the bishop 
 offered him. He did not accept it with any bright ex- 
 pectations. His experience, as he states in the follow- 
 ing letter, had been very painful : — 
 
 Cheltenham : May 3, 1847. 
 
 I have just accepted St. Ebbe's, Oxford (offered by the 
 bishop), after once refusing it. But as he seemed desirous I 
 should take it, I consented, though reluctantly. It is a for-
 
 HIS WORK AT ST. EBBE'S. 125 
 
 lorn hope, I fear, and the stipend is miserable ; . . . . and 
 altogether I feel depressed at the prospect of a residence in 
 Oxford, with its cold, formal, forbidding conventionalisms. 
 But for the present it seems the path of duty, and I am pre- 
 pared to give it a fair trial. Nor do I ever expect to find 
 the line of duty — lying, as it does, up the hill, with the cross 
 at the top of it — a pleasant path. 
 
 .... I have lately, as I told you, given up Christ- 
 church here with feehngs of inexpressible pain. A ministry 
 of twilight, at the best, and difficulty, has closed. Every ef- 
 fort has been crowned with the most signal failure, and I 
 shrink sometimes almost in torture from the idea of begin- 
 ning work again, with the possibility of five such years once 
 more before me. This is not an encouraging tone of mind 
 to begin a ministry with, so beset with difficulties as St. 
 Ebbe's. However, as I certainly have no earthly induce- 
 ment to take it, perhaps the work may be blest, even though 
 mine. 
 
 In appearance, at least, that work was blest. The 
 place entirely yielded to him. The usual attendants of 
 the church, as well as the rough and poor people of the 
 parish, among whom he labored faithfully, made them- 
 selves over to him at once. The undero-raduates, a 
 sensitive touchstone of a man's worth, dropped in one 
 by one at first, and then rushed to hear him in crowds. 
 " Every Sunday," says a friend who visited him at Ox- 
 ford, " the church Avas thronged with these young men, 
 who hung breathlessly on every word he uttered." 
 Here, then, for the first time, he began to make himself 
 felt, and to feel what he could do. Here, for the first 
 time, he was entirely free ; able to say, without oppo- 
 sition from without, without a shadow of inward re- 
 straint, the thing in his own heart. Here, too, for the
 
 126 HE IS OFFERED TRINITY CHAPEL. 
 
 first time, perhaps, he rested firmly on principles which 
 he had secured at the price of a terrible spiritual con- 
 test. He became more peaceful. The dark shadow of 
 failure began to pass away. But he was ill at ease ; 
 Hfe lay upon him very heavily ; it seemed, do what he 
 might, that he could not be happy. 
 
 It was now that, after two months of work at St. 
 Ebbe's, Trinity Chapel, Brighton, vacant by the retire- 
 ment of Mr. Kennaway, was offered to him. He re- 
 fused at once. 
 
 He thought it would be a discourtesy to the Bishop, 
 and a failure in manly duty, to surrender St. Ebbe's. 
 The material advantages he would gain made him sus- 
 picious of himself. The following letters give the fur- 
 ther history of this transaction, exhibit the self-sacri- 
 ficing spirit which inspired his life, and will close this 
 brief record of his Oxford ministry : — 
 
 Oxford : July 3, 1847. 
 My plans, as you are rightly informed, are altered, and I 
 am only waiting, till the Bishop can release me by sending a 
 substitute, to go to Brighton. I refused Trinity at first dis- 
 tinctly ; but after a day or two a letter came expressing the 
 regret of the trustees, Rev. James Anderson, Lord Teign- 
 mouth, and Mr. Thornton, at my decision, and asking me to 
 reconsider it. At the same time they enclosed a letter from 
 the bishop of Oxford, in answer to a request from them, 
 which gave them permission to open the negotiation again, 
 by releasing me, if I wished, from my engagement. I should 
 tell you that this letter came just as I was in great perplex- 
 ity about certain difficulties which had arisen in the way of 
 a residence in Oxford, and singularly coincidental in point 
 of time. I therefore referred it to the Bishop's decision, ask' 
 ing his opinion ; not as to what he would like, for I knew he
 
 HE LEAVES OXFORD. 127 
 
 would wish me to keep Oxford ; nor as to what would be 
 most advantageous to me, for 300/. a year is better thaq 
 115/., but what he thought my duty: considering the sphere 
 of usefulness apparent in Oxford, and the drawbacks in a 
 watering-place ministry, such as the temptations to vanity, 
 the improbability of influencing character deeply, &c. He 
 replied that he thought it my duty to accept Trinity, so I go, 
 reluctantly. ... I much, deeply regret that difficulties have 
 prevented my remaining. So grand an opening for impor- 
 tant, but not glittering usefulness, I shall probably never have 
 again. However, I believe, if I can read my own heart, 
 that I have acted honestly. I am sure I go to a place from 
 which I shrink, and with small hope, and much misgiving. 
 
 However, I will try to do my work. My life, if I may 
 judge by the decline of mental accuracy, and strength, and 
 the weakening of nerve, has got more than half way, and 
 the rest is down-hill. The half-way house is behind : and if 
 Brighton be another form of Cheltenham, home cannot be 
 very far oflP. I am getting tired. And the complexion of 
 my spontaneous thoughts now is increasing the contemplation 
 of rest. Rest in God and Love. Deep repose in that still 
 country where the mystery of this strange life is solved, and 
 the most feverish heart lays down its load at last.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 BRIGHTON— 1847, 1848. 
 
 Arrival at Brighton. — Trinity Chapel. — Death of his Infant Daughter. — 
 Self-analysis and Resolutions on entering on his Ministry at Brighton. 
 — First Sermon. — Characteristics of his teaching. — Rapid Increase 
 of his Congregation. — Appreciated by Servants and Working Men.— 
 Wide Sphere of Work at Brighton. — The questions raised by the Revo- 
 lutions of 1848, and how he met them. — Afternoon Lectures on the 
 First Book of Samuel. — Results of these Lectures. — Foundation of 
 the Working Man's Institute. — He is asked to deliver the Opening 
 Lecture. — His Answer, and his Opinions on the Institution. — Delivery 
 of the First Address. — His boldness of Speech. — Endeavor to recon- 
 cile Rich and Poor. — Qualifications which fitted him to be a Medi- 
 ator. 
 Letters from August 9, 1847, to January 5, 1849. 
 
 IN the August of 1847 Mr. Robertson came to 
 Brighton. The short period during which he had 
 preached at Oxford was the pause which always occurs 
 after a revolution of thought, before the new ideas have 
 gained sufficient strength and roundness to be used 
 with ease. At Oxford he was like the swimmer who 
 has for the first time ventured into deep water; at 
 Brighton he struck out boldly into the open sea. There 
 was no hesitation, no reticence in his teaching. In the 
 silence and solitude of the mountains of the Tyrol, his 
 " soul, left to explore its own recesses, and to feel its 
 nothingness in the presence of the Infinite," had fixed 
 its foundations deep and sure. From henceforward, his 
 rehgious convictions never wavered, and the principles 
 of his teaching never changed.
 
 TRINITY CHAPEL. 129 
 
 The sunny aspect of his new home pleased him. 
 The bracing air, the clear sea, and the breezy expanse 
 of pasture above the town, seemed to sympathize with 
 his active frame, his free mind, and his laro-e heart. 
 The constant change of light and shadow on the wide 
 waters of the Channel, and on the grassy bosses and 
 slopes of the Downs, freed the scenery from the monot- 
 ony which made him impatient; and the magnificent 
 cloud-land and the sunsets which adorn the evenino-s of 
 Brighton came upon him then, and always, with a sur- 
 prise of pleasure. It was his custom, when worn out 
 with the excitement of work, or wlien he was prepar- 
 ing in thought his sermons, to walk along the edge of 
 the cliffs, or into the green recesses of the old coast line, 
 and sitting down where he could command a full view 
 of sea and sky, restore his heart with the calm, or awake 
 his imagination with the beauty of the landscape. 
 
 But, on his first coming to Brighton, he had but few 
 moments of quiet or enjoyment. He was wholly occu- 
 pied in house hunting, and with the arrangements ne- 
 cessary for assuming the direction of Trinity Chapel. 
 The following letters sum up the history of the first few 
 months of his life at Brighton : — 
 
 9 Montpelier Terrace, Brighton: August 9, 1847. 
 
 Mr DEAR , — At last I am able to tell you that we 
 
 have fixed upon a house, — the above being the address, — 
 into which we hope to move to-morrow. ... I can form no 
 conception yet of how I shall like my work. Brighton is 
 too large to have the disagreeable pecuHarities of Chelten- 
 ham; and Kennaway's congregation seems to be chiefly 
 composed of tradesmen. That will relieve me from much 
 that I expected of unpleasantness. Still, looking at the 
 many disadvantages there are, I have great misgivings as to 
 
 6* I
 
 130 DEATH OF HIS INFANT DAUGHTER. 
 
 that kind of success which a proprietary-chapel needs, — the 
 filling of seats, &c. But Brighton seems a healthy place, 
 and I am sure it is bracing. My wife is decidedly better 
 than in Cheltenham; and the heir to my estates and title 
 spends hours on the beach, tossing stones into the sea, with- 
 out speculating about their future destinies, or the probable 
 depth of the ocean into which they fall. 
 
 9 Montpelier Terrace, Brighton: November 29, 1847. 
 
 My dear , — I only write you one line to tell you 
 
 of a sad loss and disappointment we have just sustained. 
 My wife has been prematurely confined, and the little girl, a 
 perfectly beautiful little thing, is dead. I have just returned 
 from putting my little beautiful one myself into her grave, 
 after a last look at her calm, placid countenance lying in her 
 coffin. It was by starlight, with only the sexton present; 
 but it was more congenial to my heart to bury her so than 
 in the midst of a crowd, in the glaring daylight, with a ser- 
 vice gabbled over her. In the infinite expanse of darkness 
 there was more of heaven and more of God, to my soul at 
 least, and more of that deep, still rest, more profound than 
 death, of which death is but a shadow, for which we are all 
 craving, and in the depths of which we shall soon be — how 
 soon ! My poor wife is sadly cut up, and looking ghastly 
 and haggard ; but Taylor says she is going on perfectly well. 
 I was away in London when it took place (Friday), and did 
 not get home till Saturday night to be startled by the unex- 
 pected news. How I got through yesterday's services I 
 scarcely know, unprepared and upset as I was ; but I did get 
 through. I am very much disappointed, but I feel that Infi- 
 nite Love guides all. 
 
 An account of his ministry at Brighton cannot have 
 a better introduction than the following, written on his 
 arrival at Brio;hton. It is full of careful foresio;ht of the 
 difficulties likely to beset him. It marks the earnest-
 
 SELF-ANALYSIS AND RESOLUTIONS. 131 
 
 ness with which he studied his own heart, and resolved 
 to do his duty. 
 
 1. I want two things, — habit of order and de suite. I 
 begin many things and rebegin, each time with greater dis- 
 rehsh and self-distrust. At last, life will be a broken series 
 of unfinished enterprises. 
 
 Hence, I must resolve to finish: and to do this, I must 
 not undertake till I have well weighed, e. g. I will not now 
 give up German. I will study Scripture-books thoroughly 
 through, histories separately and thoroughly. 
 
 I am conscious of having developed my mind and charac- 
 ter more truly, and with more fidelity at Winchester than 
 anywhere. Looking back, I think I perceive reasons for 
 this. First, I went out little : hence, perfected what I un- 
 dertook before fresh impulses started up to destroy the 
 novelty and interest of the impulse already set in motion. 
 It came to its limit unexhausted, e. g. in studying Edwards. 
 
 Hence, I think, it will be wise at Brighton to go out little ; 
 and even to exercise self-denial in this. But I will not com- 
 mit myself to any plan by expressed resolve. I have now 
 only a few years to live. " Mein Gott ! ernst ist das Leben ! 
 mochte ich es fiihlen ! " 
 
 My danger is excitability, — even in Scripture conversa- 
 tions was it not so ? This makes me effeminate, irresolute, 
 weak in character, — led by circumstances, not bending them 
 by strong will to my own plan and purpose. Therefore, I 
 must seek calm in regular duty, avoiding desultory reading, — 
 desultory visits. 
 
 2. Artificial excellences. — Goodness demands a certain 
 degree of nerve, impulse, sudden inspiration. Characters too 
 much trained miss these. Some turn their eyes perpetually 
 on self in painful self-examination. Suspicion destroys the 
 elan of virtue, its freshness, grace, beauty, and spontaneous- 
 ness. Artificial merits are like artificial flowers, — scentless. 
 Cultivate natural, not unnatural excellences.
 
 132 HIS FIRST SERMON. 
 
 3. Explanations are bad things. " Man betriigt sicli oder 
 den andern, und meist beide. Gotz." You preserve your 
 own dignity by not entering into them. The character 
 which cannot defend itself is not worth defending. 
 
 4. My mind is difficult to get into activity, — unbewegsam. 
 Therefore, in order to prepare for speaking, preaching, &c., 
 it is good to take a stirring book, even if not directly touch- 
 ing upon the subject in hand. Love is all with me. Mental 
 power comes from interest in a subject. What I have to set 
 in motion is some grand notion, — such as duty, beauty, time 
 in its rapid flight, &c. 
 
 He preached for the first time in Trinity Chapel on 
 the 15th of August, 1847. His sermon, on a favorite 
 subject, — " The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks 
 seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified," &c., 
 — at once awoke criticism and interest. As his pecu- 
 liar views developed themselves, many of the old con- 
 gregation left the church. Their places were rapidly 
 filled up. Thoughtful and eager-minded men came in, 
 by degrees, from all parts of Brighton, attracted not 
 only by his earnest eloquence, but by his original 
 thought and clear reasoning. He clothed in fresh 
 brightness the truths which, because their garments 
 were worn out, men had ignorantly imagined to be ex- 
 hausted. He drew out the living inspiration of the 
 Bible, and especially of the historical portions of the 
 Old Testament. He made men feel the life w^hich ran 
 through the doctrinal statements of the Prayer Book. 
 Whatever he touched sprang into being ; and many of 
 his hearers entered on a* new existence. Other men, 
 who were engaged in the great questions of society and 
 of the w^orld, were drawm to his ministry by the wide 
 knowledge which he showed of past history, and by the
 
 INCREASE OF HIS CONGREGATION. 133 
 
 force with which he apphed Christianity to the social 
 problems of the present age. Young men eagerly lis- 
 tened to his delicate analysis of the human heart, and 
 of those difficulties of rehgious thought which, even 
 now presenting themselves for solution, had only then 
 begun to agitate the mind of England. Others of a 
 lighter cast came to enjoy the brilliant imagery and the 
 rapid rush of clear language. Servants and working- 
 men came to hear with reverence and affection a man 
 who spoke as if his whole being were in the words he 
 used, and who seemed to sympathize w^th their lives as 
 none had ever done before. 
 
 The appreciation of his teaching by servants, a class 
 seldom reached by an mtellectual preacher, was re- 
 markable. The story which follows is extracted from 
 a short memoir published after his death : — 
 
 On the morning of Christmas Day, 1847, scarcely five 
 months after his arrival at Brighton, Mr. Robertson, on as- 
 cending to his reading-desk, found there a set of handsome 
 prayer-books, which had been presented to him by the ser- 
 vants of families attending the chapel, as a Christmas offer- 
 ing. Naturally affected by this evidence of kindly feeling, 
 he in his sermon took occasion to advert to the subject of 
 presents, and drew a picture of the delight which would fill 
 the heart of a fond brother who, on the morning of his birth- 
 day, should awake and find in his chamber a rose placed 
 there by sisterly affection. The simple gift, almost valueless 
 in itself, would be more prized by the brother's heart than 
 a purse of gold. The application of the incident he left 
 to those who could best understand its hidden meaning. 
 The gift was subsequently acknowledged by the following 
 letter : —
 
 134 HIS SPHERE OF LABOR. 
 
 "9 Montpelier Terrace, Brighton: December 27, 1847. 
 "My dear Friends, — I should not satisfy my own heart 
 if I were not to tell you how much I was gratified on Christ- 
 mas Day by your thoughtful offering of the new books for 
 Trinity Chapel. It would be injustice to you if I were to 
 say this with the idea that it emanated from any personal 
 feeling towards myself, who am as yet a stranger among you. 
 I am persuaded that your higher motive was the wish to 
 adorn the services of a house dedicated to the worship of 
 God ; but, as the minister of that house, it will not be out 
 of place if the thanks are expressed by me. I feel that it 
 was kindly imagined and delicately done; and I am the more 
 touched by being told that all who joined in presenting it 
 are in circumstances of life which make the offering doubly 
 precious. I shall never read out of those books without the 
 inspiring feeling that there are hearts around me. 
 "I am, my dear friends, 
 
 "Your affectionate minister, 
 
 "Frederick W. Robertson." 
 
 As the congregation became larger, and he recog- 
 nized the several elements which composed it, his" sense 
 of the importance of his work increased, and with that 
 his interest in his duty. 
 
 And the town in which he was now placed opened to 
 him a fitting field for his earnestness and his genius. 
 The change from Cheltenham to Oxford had not been 
 greater than was now the change from Oxford to 
 Brighton. He had formerly left a half-fashionable 
 place, with narrow interests, and a confined sphere of 
 thought, for one of the thinking centres of England, 
 where all socia], political, and theological questions 
 were debated with as much eagerness as latitude. 
 There he had easily taken his place as an inspiriting
 
 WORK "WHILE IT IS DAY." 135 
 
 and sympathizing teacher. He was now transferred to 
 a town which, more, perhaps, than any other in Eng- 
 land, has among its population the sharp contrasts w^iicli 
 mutually irritate one another into aggressive life in 
 London. He came into contact at Brighton with relig- 
 ious tendencies and sects as extreme as at Cheltenham, 
 but they were opposed more strongly than at Chelten- 
 ham by a bold freedom of thought among the upper 
 and lower classes, which tended in the former to care- 
 lessness or silent contempt for Christianity, and in the 
 latter to open infidelity. He met with men of all 
 classes, whose opinions had been formed and widened 
 in the storm and stress of London life, and with others, 
 whose prejudices were as blind as those of the smallest 
 village in England. He associated with clergymen of 
 all relio;ious denominations, who had rendered them- 
 selves known by their eloquence and their writings, or 
 by their active leadership of party. He mingled with 
 persons of every shade of Conservatism and Liberalism, 
 and, among the -vvorkingmen, with large numbers of 
 hot and eager Chartists. 
 
 If he had been as fresh and enthusiastic as he had 
 been six years before, he would, like a young soldier, 
 have rejoiced at his position, placed thus in the fore- 
 front of the battle. But, as we have seen, he was 
 worn and weary. 
 
 He had a presentiment, which was npt altogether 
 painful to him, that his work, — done as he did it, with 
 a throbbing brain, with nerves strung to their utmost 
 tension, and with a physical excitement which was all 
 the more consumino; from beino; mastered in its outward 
 forms, — would kill him in a few years. He resolved 
 to crowd into this short tune all he could. He had long
 
 136 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848. 
 
 felt that Christianity was too much preached as theol- 
 ogy, too little as the religion of daily life ; too much as 
 a religion of feeling, too little as a religion of principles ; 
 too much as a religion only for Individuals, too little as 
 a relicrion for nations and for the world. He deter- 
 mined to make it bear upon the social state of all 
 classes, upon the questions which agitated society, upon 
 the great movements of the world. 
 
 Shortly after his arrival at Brighton, he had an op- 
 portunity for carrying out his intention. The great 
 surge which took its impulse from the volcanic outburst 
 of February, 1848, in Paris, rolled over half of Europe. 
 The decrees of February 25, 26, by which Lamartine 
 declared France republican, and which practically pro- 
 claimed Socialism as well as Communism, chimed in 
 with the hopes of all the unregulated and uneducated 
 minds among the working classes. The cry of Liberty, 
 Equality, and Fraternity, and the demands based upon 
 this watchword, created a wild fear in some English- 
 men, and a wild joy in others, which were alike irra- 
 tional. No man In society could be silent on these sub- 
 jects. Mr. Robertson resolved not to be silent in the 
 pulpit. His spirit was stirred within him, as the spirits 
 of Coleridge and of Wordsworth had been at the be- 
 ginning of a greater revolution. He rejoiced in the 
 downfall of old oppressions ; and in the " young cries 
 of Freedom ". he thought that he heard the wheels of 
 the chariot of the Son of Man, coming nearer and 
 nearer to vindicate the cause of the poor. He writes 
 in 1848 : — 
 
 The world has become a new one since we met. To my 
 mind, it is a world full of hope, even to bursting. I wonder 
 what you think of all these tumults :
 
 SUNDAY AFTERNOON LECTURES. 137 
 
 For all the past of time reveals 
 A bridal dawn of thunder-peals, 
 Wherever thought hath wedded fact. 
 
 Some outlines of a kingdom of Christ begin to glimmer, al- 
 beit very faintly, and far off, perhaps, by many, many centu- 
 ries. Nevertheless, a few strokes of the rough sketch by a 
 master-hand are worth the seeing, though no one knows yet 
 how they shall be filled up. And those bold, free, dashing 
 marks are made too plainly to be ever done out again. 
 Made in blood, as they always are, and made somewhat 
 rudely; but the Master-Hand is visible through the great 
 red splotches on the canvas of the universe. I could almost 
 say, sometimes, in fulness of heart, "Now let Thy servant 
 depart in peace." 
 
 I have been very much overdone by work here. It is ex- 
 tremely trying; full of encouragement, but full of a far 
 larger amount of misunderstanding and dislike than I ex- 
 pected to meet with. And I work alone with " many adver- 
 saries," and few to bless ; but with a very distinct conviction 
 that I am doing something ; and for that I am grateful, for it 
 is wellnigh the only thing that is worth the living for. 
 
 He had already begun, in January, 1848, a course of 
 lectures on the first book of Samuel. In explaining the 
 history contained in that book he necessarily entered on 
 questions belonging to the life of society, and to the rise 
 and progress of national ideas. At the very beginnino- 
 of his exposition he was forced to speak of a great revo- 
 lution. As he went on he came into contact with the 
 subject of the rights of property and the rights of la- 
 bor ; * and, in the election of David instead of Saul, he 
 was obhged to discuss the limits of authority, and how far 
 an unjust or a weak king is a rightful ruler of a people. 
 
 * See this subject fully carried out in Sermon, Vol. i. p. 275 ; Vol. ii. p. 1.
 
 138 RESULTS OF HIS LECTURES. 
 
 So there was scarcely a question debated in 1848 which 
 was not brought before him. He did not refuse them. 
 They were all treated of; but as Israehtish, not as mod- 
 ern questions. It was not his fault that these lectures, 
 running side by side with the national convulsions and 
 social excitement of Europe and England, had a double 
 interest, — an ancient and a modern one. It was not 
 his fault that men did what he could not do in the pul- 
 pit, and applied the principles which he found in the 
 first book of Samuel to the society and times in which 
 they lived. 
 
 However, he irritated and terrified almost all parties 
 in Brighton. A cry was raised against him. He was 
 spoken of as a Revolutionist and a Democrat. Some 
 even went so far as to complain to the bishop of the di- 
 ocese that he was preaching politics. He answered 
 that, if the principles revealed in the inspired history of 
 Israelitish society happened to be universal, and to fit 
 the events going on in 1848, it only proved the deep 
 inspiration and universal character of the Bible, and he 
 was not to be blamed. On the other hand, working- 
 men who were themselves Revolutionist in feeling, and 
 all who saw something deeper in the revolutions than a 
 mere blind attack upon existing Governments, listened 
 to these lectures as sincere endeavors towards a Chris- 
 tian solution of great problems. Many a man traces to 
 their influence upon him his escape from the false fra- 
 ternity and the false freedom of Socialism, into a higher 
 region of thouo-ht, where a truer brotherhood and a 
 purer liberty were confen-ed on him, in Christ. But 
 not only in the pulpit, where he was necessarily shackled, 
 did he meet these questions. A better and a more pub- 
 lic opportunity was soon afforded him. In the begin-
 
 . THE WORKINGMAN'S INSTITUTE. 139 
 
 ning of the year 1848, he had visited, daring a severe 
 illness, Mr. Holtham, a member of his congregation. 
 "Ifomidone thought," Mr. Robertson says, "upper- 
 most in his mind: how shall I do good to the working 
 classes ? " Their consultations for many weeks on the 
 subject resulted in a steady effort to establish a Work- 
 ingman's Institute at Brighton. The following is an 
 extract from a letter of Mr. Holtham ; — 
 
 My dear Sir, — ... Some day, when you have ten 
 minutes' leisure, I want to ask your opinion as to whether 
 anything can be done to awaken the minds of the working- 
 men (as yet totally sealed) to the subject of religion. 
 
 How I wish that you had the strength of ten men, or that 
 we had a few men like you. From such as you the work- 
 ingmen would learn that religion, true religion, is really 
 comprehensible; that its dogmas are consistent with plain 
 reason, — that its teaching is in harmony with their conscious- 
 ness of truth, justice, and generosity, and that in becoming 
 Christians they need not cease to be men. 
 
 I am more and more impressed with the width and depth 
 of the gulf which exists, and (as intelligence of a certain sort 
 increases) increases between this class and the teachers of 
 religion, and sometimes I really stand aghast and confounded 
 at the mystery involved in it. If ever there was a voice, 
 " not loud but deep " to reach, — if ever there was a life to 
 awaken the workingman's sympathy and affection, — surely 
 that voice with its " Come unto me," surely that life of 
 sacrifice and earnest tenderness, were, and are, all that could 
 be needed ; and I think both of us have remarked that not 
 only in this country, but in others, — perhaps more strikingly 
 where the working clergy have engraved more deeply than 
 here the history of Jesus upon the hearts of the poor, — there 
 are traces of a love and reverence for Him, making them- 
 selves distinctly seen even in and through the collisions and 
 distractions of life.
 
 140 ASKED TO OPEN IT WITH AN ADDRESS. 
 
 Surely, then, all that is wanted is the adoption of an apos- 
 tolic spirit, — the real preaching of Christ to the poor, — of 
 Christ, the human, yet how divine ; the laboring, the loving, 
 the exalting Saviour of the people. 
 
 He threvi^ himself with courage, — and it needed cour- 
 age at that time, with enthusiasm, — and it needed en- 
 thusiasm, into Mr. Holtham's plan. The institute was 
 set on foot. It was supported hy the subscription of a 
 penny a week from each of the members. More than 
 a thousand put down their names. They cleaned and 
 papered and furnished the house in which they met, 
 wdth their own hands. The library was, for the most 
 part, bought by themselves. In this way their inde- 
 pendence \vas secured. But they were not too haughty 
 to accept assistance and gifts of books from the wealthy. 
 Thus, in accordance with one of Mr. Robertson's deep- 
 est desires, the rich and the poor were brought together, 
 on the ground of sympathy. He was asked by the 
 committee, which was composed solely of workingmen, 
 to open the institute by an address. He answered in a 
 letter, which show^s that even then, scarcely a year after 
 his arrival in Brighton, the isolation which so painfully 
 affected his career had already begun : — 
 
 I do not think I am at all the man that should be selected. 
 They should have some one of standing and influence in the 
 town, and I am almost a stranger; and my taking so promi- 
 nent a position might fairly be construed into assumption. 
 Again, I am much afraid that my name might do them harm 
 rather than good. They wish not to be identified at all with 
 party politics and party religion ; and I fear that in minds 
 of very many of the more influential inhabitants of the town 
 my name being made conspicuous would be a suspicious 
 circumstance. It is my conviction that an address from me
 
 HIS OPINIONS ON THE INSTITUTE. 141 
 
 would damage their cause. For though the institution is 
 intended to be self-supporting, jet there is no reason why it 
 should wilfully throw away its chances of assistance from 
 the richer classes, and I am quite sure that of these very 
 many, whether reasonably or unreasonably, are prejudiced 
 against me, and perhaps the professedly religious portion of 
 society most strongly so. Now, I do think this is a point for 
 very serious consideration, and I think it ought to be dis- 
 tinctly suggested to the committee before I can be in a 
 position to comply with or decline complying with their re- 
 quest. Besides this, I believe that they have erred in their 
 estimate of my mental calibre. I wish most earnestly, for 
 their own sakes, that they would select a better man. 
 
 Two other letters ^\Titten at this time and bearino; on 
 the subject are subjoined : — 
 
 Last night I attended the meeting of the Workingman's 
 Institute, and was very much struck with the genuine, manly, 
 moral tone of the speakers. I went home with quite ele- 
 vated hopes for my country when I compared the tone with 
 that of the French clubs. And my whole heart sympa- 
 thized with what your feelings must have been in the suc- 
 cess of your brave efforts. Of course, people who expect 
 in it a perfect Utopia will be disappointed or gratified by 
 finding it so far a failure. But the similar institutions of 
 the upper classes have been, like all human things, chequered 
 with good and evil, — a means of increasing the powers of 
 good men for good, and those of bad men for bad. You 
 do not expect more than this, the inevitable result of all 
 powers and privileges added to humanity. But they must 
 be added, come what may. There is no other intelligible 
 principle which will not be compelled in consistency to re- 
 cognize barbarism as the highest state. 
 
 The following, written to Lady Henley, gives an ac- 
 count of his hopes and fears : —
 
 142 THE FIRST ADDRESS. 
 
 I am anxious to enlist your sympathy in the cause which 
 I am trying to assist. The case is this. About 1,100 
 workingmen in this town have just organized themselves 
 into an association which, by a small weekly subscription, 
 enables them to have a library and reading-room. Their 
 proceedings hitherto have been marked by singular judg- 
 ment and caution, except in one point, — that they have 
 unexpectedly applied to me to give them an opening address. 
 
 A large number of these are intelligent Chartists, and 
 there is some misgiving in a few minds as to what will be 
 the result of this movement, and some suspicion of its being 
 only a political engine. 
 
 My reasons for being anxious about this effort are these, 
 — it will be made. The workingmen have as much right 
 to a library and reading-room as the gentlemen at Folthorp's 
 or the tradesmen at the Athenaeum. The only question is, 
 whether it shall be met warmly on our parts, or with that 
 coldness which deepens the suspicion, already rankling in the 
 lower classes, that their superiors are willing for them to 
 improve so long as they themselves are allowed to have the 
 leading-strings. 
 
 The selection of books for the library is a matter of very 
 great importance ; as I have become aware, since getting a 
 little insight into the working of this institute, of an amount 
 of bitterness and jealousy, and hatred of things as they are, 
 which I had not before suspected in its full extent. And 
 people go on saying, " Peace, peace, when there is no peace ! " 
 
 The address was delivered on Monday, October 23, 
 184'8. It was listened to with deep admiration and at- 
 tention. It was so eloquent; the voice and manner 
 with whichi it was delivered were so thrilling, the ear- 
 nestness and deep belief of the speaker in all that he 
 said were so impressive, that men said the words seemed 
 imprinted on their characters forever. It was more-
 
 HIS BOLDNESS OF SPEECH. 143 
 
 over a brave and noble speech, more brave and noble 
 than can be easily understood at present. Fifteen years 
 ago the feelings and opinions on the social relations of 
 the upper and lower ranks of society, which are com- 
 mon now, were very uncommon, especially on the lips 
 of clergymen. The " elevation of the working classes," 
 meant to most men at that time, the destruction of the 
 aristocracy and the monarchy : to own any sympathy 
 Avith a Chartist w^as to acknowledo;e one's self a dangerous 
 character : to speak of the wrongs of the laboring men 
 was to initiate a revolution : to use the words " liberty, 
 equality, and fraternity," and to say that they had a 
 meaning and a truth in them, was to that large class of 
 persons to whom' terms have only one meaning and 
 truth only one side, — to whom error is error and noth- 
 ing more, — teaching which was perilous in a politician, 
 but almost impious in a clergyman. Supported by his 
 faith in truth, Mr. Robertson cared for none of these 
 things. He taught the right, and left the seed to its 
 own vitality. It cost him ease and finally his life to 
 speak, but he would not be silent. The misunderstand- 
 ing and censure which he incurred stung him acutely, 
 but could not sting him into faithlessness to duty. He 
 did not seek for martyrdom : few men have ever 
 shrunk more painfully from pubhcity ; but he steadfast- 
 ly resolved to fulfil his work and to bear its cross. One 
 class, though for a long time suspicious, received his 
 words with joy, and hailed him as a faithful friend. 
 The workingmen of Brighton felt that, at last, a minis- 
 ter of the Church of England had entered into their 
 aspirations and their wrongs. And because they were 
 sympathized with as men, and neither patronized nor
 
 144 THE IDEA OF THE ADDRESS. 
 
 flattered, neither feared nor despised, they were ready- 
 to lay aside prejudice, and hear what a man of another 
 class than their own had to say upon the subjects which 
 were agitating them. There was not one of these sub- 
 jects which he shrank from in his lecture. To omit 
 one he would have considered cowardly : to leave one 
 without an attempt at solving it, unworthy of a man 
 whose business was thought : to touch upon one with- 
 out bringing Christian principles to bear upon it, un- 
 worthy in a minister of Christ. The whole address 
 may be described as an effort to destroy the errors of 
 socialistic theories, not by denouncing them, but by 
 holding forth the truths which lay beneath them and 
 gave them their vitality : to show that "these truths were 
 recognized in Christianity and placed there upon a com- 
 mon ground, — where the various classes of society 
 could meet and merge their differences in sympathy and 
 love. 
 
 For this task of reconciliation he was qualified, not 
 only by his extensive knowledge of history and political 
 economy, but also by the many-sidedness of his views 
 and feelings, and by the chivalry and justice of his 
 character. 
 
 There was a kind of double nature in him. He was 
 instinctively a Tory, but he was by conviction a Liber- 
 al. His earlv trainino; at home, his reverence and his 
 desire for a military career, cherished in him the flower 
 of chivalrous obedience, and made him an enthusiastic 
 royalist. "I suspect," he says, "that if the crown 
 were ever to tyrannize, and the people were to rise, I 
 should be found fighting against the mob, at least if, 
 imfortunately, a queen were sovereign." He was aris-
 
 HIS TASTES AND PRINCIPLES AT VARIANCE. 145 
 
 tocratic in feeling, in tastes, and in sensitiveness. But 
 though his tastes were with aristocracy, his principles 
 were with democracy. His duty to the race was 
 stronger than his sympathy with a class. He therefore 
 resolutely subordinated the latter to the former. He 
 recoiled also from the vulgarity, the loud assertiveness 
 and obtrusiveness of the mob ; but he was, on the other 
 hand, too just not to make allowances for the want of 
 polite training and education. By a manly suppression 
 then of his ultra-sensitiveness, he soon became capable 
 of recoo;nizino[; beneath the rouo-h exterior of the work- 
 ingmen, their nobility of character. Perhaps, also, the 
 chivalry of his nature, which would have enlisted him, 
 like Falkland, on the side of Charles I. in the civil v/ar, 
 because the king was unfortunate, was now enlisted on 
 the side of the working classes for the same reason. It 
 was enough for one who once wished that he had been 
 a knia;ht of the olden time. 
 
 From all this it followed that his life became a con- 
 test between his tastes and his principles, between his 
 sympathies and his duties. He thought himself that 
 " this discord in him marred his usefulness." Looking at 
 it more closely, it seems to be that very element of dis- 
 cord, or rather of manifoldness, in his character which 
 made his usefulness. Feeling with and comprehending 
 the nature of hoik sections of society, he was, on the 
 one hand, fitted to hold the scales, to judge, and make 
 peace between the upper and lower classes, and, on the 
 other, prevented from being seduced by the plausibili- 
 ties of Socialism, or blinded by the prejudices and fears 
 of extreme Conservatism. 
 
 Thus, the disturbances in Europe, during which the
 
 146 QUALIFICATIONS WHICH FITTED HIM 
 
 evils suffered by the working poor rose to the surface 
 of society, did not frighten him out of his principles. 
 
 What appals me (he says, writing in 1851), is to see the 
 way in which persons, once Liberal, are now recoiling from 
 their own principles, terrified by the state of the Continent, 
 and saying that we must stem the tide of democracy, and 
 support the Conservatives. Why, what has ever made de- 
 mocracy dangerous but Conservatism ? The French Revolu- 
 tion ! Socialism ! Why, these men seem to forget that 
 these things came out of Toryism, which forced the people 
 into madness. What makes rivers and canals overflow, — 
 the deep channel cut ever deeper, or the dam put across by 
 wise people to stop them ? 
 
 On the other hand, he was not swept away into the 
 alluring current of Socialism. His glance at the politics 
 and passions of the time was calm and clear. His 
 aristocratic tastes, his sympathy with the idea of rank, 
 and his reverence for the past, made it impossible that 
 he should be a Radical. And he systematically opposed 
 Socialism on economical as well as on Christian grounds, 
 as dangerous to the State, and as destructive of the 
 liberty it professed to confer. The result was, that 
 speaking at one time like a Liberal, and at another like 
 a Conservative, he was misunderstood, and reckoned 
 an enemy by the extreme spirits of both parties. He 
 saw the truth itself of the question, while they wished 
 him only to see jthe half truths which they each held. 
 He met the fate of those who are beyond their time. 
 
 He felt, however, that, in the confhct in his own 
 mind, he needed some fixed ground on which to rest. 
 Dragged aside by two extremes, he fell back on 
 Christianity, not as a via media, but as declaring truths
 
 TO BE A MEDIATOR. 147 
 
 which embraced in their ample round the wisdom of 
 Conservatism, and the progressive spirit of Liberalism, 
 which solved the questions of the day, — neither by- 
 laying down laws, nor by coercive measures for oppres- 
 sion or for liberty, but by spreading in all classes a 
 spirit of love, of duty, and of mutual respect. This 
 was the ruling idea of this opening address. It was 
 immediately published, and drew comments on it from 
 all sections of the press. The letters to Mr. Moncrieff 
 which are subjoined are an answer, apparently, to some 
 objections made to this lecture, and fittingly begin the 
 letters appended to this chapter. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 9 Montpelier Terrace, Brighton: January 5, 1849.* 
 My dear Moncrieff, — It was a great pleasure to see 
 your handwriting again after so long a silence. A few days 
 ago, I received a paquet containing some Christmas lines, 
 signed " G. R. M." Were they yours ? If so, thank you 
 very much for them. You are more mindful than I of the 
 claims of friendship ; at least, in appearance ; for, to say the 
 truth, I was rather ashamed of my " Address," and was very 
 unwilhng that it should be printed ; as an extempore speech 
 never should be submitted to the scrunity of the closet in its 
 extempore state. For this reason I did not send you a copy ; 
 but yesterday, on the receipt of your letter, I gave orders to 
 have one forwarded to you. Now to the point of your note. 
 I have not seen the article in the Observer, and very likely 
 
 * Though written in 1849, the two letters to Mr. Moncrieflf belong, from 
 their connection with the address, to the year 1848, and are therefore in- 
 serted here.
 
 148 RECEPTION OF THE ADDRESS. 
 
 shall not see it. My lecture was a hasty production, and 
 offers a mark for severe criticism in respect of many inac- 
 curacies and more inelegancies, as it is only the short-hand 
 report in the newspaper corrected, and corrected carelessly, 
 for which I have no excuse but pressure of work. It has 
 attracted more notice than it deserved, and than I expected, 
 vituperative and laudatory ; has been read by her Majesty ; 
 distributed by nobles and Quakers ; sneered at by Conserva- 
 tives ; praised by Tories ; slanged by Radicals, and swallowed, 
 with wry faces, by Chartists. But I do not mean to notice 
 any attacks upon it. It is very faulty ; but I know that it 
 has done good. I only wish now that I had done it in a less 
 hasty way. If you wish to annihilate the old lady of the 
 Christian Observer, I shall only say " Sanguine placdsti Fred- 
 erick et virgine ccesaJ' For I take for granted she is an old 
 maid, male or female. Is it not melancholy that the popular 
 religion only represents the female element in the national 
 mind, and that hence it is at once devotional, slanderous, 
 timid, gossiping, narrow, shrieking, and prudish? If you 
 make a bonfire of her, will you let me see the paper with 
 which you light the pyre ? 
 
 Ever affectionately yours, 
 
 F. W. R. 
 
 P. S. — I sliould like to have a chat with you on the mar- 
 vellous events of the past year. Not forgetting the Califor- 
 nian Pactolus, which bids fair to create many a Midas, and 
 decorate him afterwards with ears asinine. As to Europe, I 
 am in ecstasy : — 
 
 For all the past of time reveals 
 A bridal dawu of thunder peals, 
 Wherever thought hath wedded fact. 
 
 And I really cannot see that the horrors and atrocities with 
 which the right cause has been advanced, ought to lead to 
 any faithless doubt of the results, or whether it be on the 
 whole the cause of God or not : or that the dungeons of
 
 THE EVENTS OF 1848. 149 
 
 the Inquisition and the robber castles of the aristocracy in 
 former ages proved Christianity to be infernal, or the idea 
 of gradations in rank impracticable and diabolical. But I 
 find myself in a minority here on that point, and excommu- 
 nicated by the religious and respectable. In the midst of 
 all which, I humbly console myself with remembering that 
 One before whom my spirit bows with adoration profounder 
 in proportion as I understand Him and His infinite mind, 
 was in His day reckoned an infidel and a latitudinarian 
 worldling by the religious, and an anarchist whom it was 
 fatal to the respectability of Caesar's friend to even defend. 
 Oh, for His sublime, brave, divine truthfulness ! 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 1849. 
 
 My dear Moncrieff, — Thank you much for your kind 
 letter. It is refreshing to meet with sympathy of sentiment 
 on such matters, for the only satisfaction I get from being 
 in a "prominent position" is that of being a good butt for 
 rotten eggs and cabbage-stalks. Loving peace and sym- 
 pathy, it is saddening to be perpetually provoking " a sword." 
 
 Now for your strictures, — for which I am most grateful, 
 and with which I — do I agree ? Yes, and no. 
 
 I thought I had based distinctly my own convictions on 
 the Bible, in a way visible to every one, as the source from 
 whence I drew my anticipations for the future. And most 
 unquestionably it is only from thence, that is, from Christ's 
 life and mind expressed in His life, that ray views respecting 
 brotherhood, &c., are deduced. No doubt I am called a 
 Radical, but my radicalism is not political, but religious, — 
 a principle, and not a scheme, — a conviction of the rights 
 of others, and I am quite sure no wish to assert my own. 
 When I first heard the charge of radicalism, some time back, 
 I was astounded, for I had not looked at myself in the glass 
 for a long period, and knew not what manner of man I was.
 
 150 ALONE WITH CHRIST. 
 
 I had tried to feel the meaning of Christ's words, and to 
 make my heart beat with His ; and so I became what they 
 call a Radical. Nevertheless, the Radicals and Chartists 
 refuse to own me as a brother, and call me a rabid Tory. 
 However, of one thing I have become distinctly conscious, — 
 that my motto for life, my whole heart's expression, is, 
 " None but Christ " ; not in the (so-called) evangelical sense, 
 which I take to be the sickliest cant that has appeared since 
 the Pharisees bare record to the gracious words which He 
 spake, and then tried to cast him headlong from the hill of 
 Nazareth ; but in a deeper, real sense, — the mind of Christ ; 
 to feel as He felt ; to judge the world, and to estimate the 
 world's maxims, as He judged and estimated. That is the 
 one .thing worth living for. To realize that, is to feel " none 
 but Christ." But then, in proportion as a man does that, 
 he is stripping himself of garment after garment, till his 
 soul becomes naked of that which once seemed part of him- 
 self; he is not only giving up prejudice after prejudice, but 
 also renouncing sympathy after sympathy with friends whose 
 smile and approbation was once his life, till he begins to 
 suspect that he will be very soon alone with Christ. More 
 awful than I can express. To believe that, and still press 
 on, is what I mean by the sentence, "None but Christ." 
 I do not know that I can express all I mean, but sometimes 
 it is to me a sense almost insupportable of silence, and still- 
 ness, and solitariness. 
 
 I think there is perhaps a difference in our views of 
 brotherhood, but in words more than in reality. I could not 
 say that one man is not neighbor to another, except so far as 
 they recognize the Father. Nor could I say that they are 
 not brethren, except in Christ, and as recipients of his Spirit. 
 I believe brotherhood and neighborhood to be real, prior 
 to the acceptance of these truths, — real, not realized, but 
 yet to be realized as a duty. And the realization of them 
 leads to the higher, truer union, — union in Christ. The
 
 THOUGHTS ON PANTHEISM. 151 
 
 Samaritan was neighbor to the Jew by benevolence, whether 
 the Jew recognized it or not, and whether the Samaritan 
 was, or was not, distinctly conscious of their relation to a 
 common Father. A man, as man, is the child of God ; and 
 one child is brother to another, whether they are conscious 
 of their heritage relationship or not. The operatives whom 
 I addressed were my brother men, — though very possibly 
 not my brother Christians, for a large proportion of them 
 were infidels, and a very large number Chartists. And 
 brotherly kindness is brotherly kindness, whether the com- 
 mand of Christ has been received and understood or not. 
 I can go to a man and say, "Love your brother," without 
 telling him that Christ commands him so to do, if I believe 
 that he rejects the authority of Christ. But / feel clear and 
 firm in my manner of saying this, because I know it is in 
 accordance with Christ's will, though he does not. Christ 
 gave the command as one not resting on arbitrary author- 
 ity, but on eternal principles which are recognizable by the 
 human heart, — which ought to be recognized; and which 
 men are morally guilty, more or less, for not recognizing 
 on the bare statement of them. 
 
 I know that pantheism occupies this ground ; and I think 
 that pantheism is, for the most part, sentimental trash, offer- 
 ing no distinct ground on which to rest, but only a cloud- 
 floor, which gives way in temptation, before the present and 
 substantial reality of what is pleasant. Nevertheless, I am 
 no more afraid of a truth because pantheism has unrealized 
 it, than I am of another because revolution has caricatured 
 it into devilry. Nay, I am rather inclined to believe it 
 the more firmly, because I see that even the false phan- 
 tom of it has had power to enchain so many human hearts. 
 I believe in Juno's beauty all the more from Ixion's passion- 
 ate admiration of a fog-likeness of her. Base coin is valued 
 because the mint-stamped is gold. Besides, even pantheism 
 itself has its true side. It seems to me to be the necessary
 
 152 THE SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 reaction from the dreadful dead machinery of preceding con- 
 ceptions. I think some pantheists are nearer the truth than 
 most evangelicals. Many — most — make this world a ma- 
 chine, at a great distance from which a Superintendent sits, 
 guiding and interfering, certainly, but totally disconnected 
 in his own being and contact from the said machinery, which 
 is in itself composed of quite base and gross materials. Now 
 I believe that the pantheist is right in saying, there is some- 
 thing much more divine in God's universe than that. The 
 life which pervades all is He in whom we live and move 
 and have our being. The different gradations of life are 
 more truly of the same divine essence than the hard mate- 
 rial distinctions of common minds make them. The life of 
 the plant, and the life of the animal, and of the intellect 
 of man, are essentially allied to the higher life which theo- 
 logically we call the divine life in the soul. And I believe 
 that it will some day be demonstrated, that the Creator is 
 much more closely united to His own works than our un- 
 spiritual conceptions represent Him. God is a Spirit, — by 
 which most people seem to mean a subtle, ethereal gas, im- 
 ponderable, perhaps, but still not only substance, but matter 
 besides, however attenuated. Now spirit is mind ; and I do 
 not know what is meant by the locality of mind, except by 
 saying that the universe is localized Deity, and that the uni- 
 verse is everywhere, — and everywhere, according to both 
 psalmist and pantheist, that which waxes old as doth a gar- 
 ment, folded and unfolded as a vesture, is changed, — while 
 He, the Former, in the form remains. The Church is " the 
 body," of which Christ is the Spirit, — the fulness of Him 
 which fiUeth all in all. The universe, in a sense, is the 
 body, of which God is the Spirit, — the fulness of Him 
 which filleth all in all, — a lower life, but God's life still. 
 For this reason, I do not know how to " keep language un- 
 equivocal." The two passages I have quoted from St. Paul 
 and from the Psalms are equivocal, — pantheistic in their
 
 BAPTISM OF THE SPIRIT. 153 
 
 form, — indeed, I suppose one was the language of a pan- 
 theist, — admitted and adopted by St. Paul in that won- 
 drous way of his which extracted the element of truth from 
 everything, rejecting the error. My statement above might 
 come from a pantheist's lips; but I am no pantheist, — I 
 believe earnestly in God's personality, — by which I mean 
 consciousness, character, and will. Again, I could not say 
 that to aim at the heart's excellences, without seeking the 
 Spirit's agency, is a deep delusion and a dangerous dream. 
 Surely Cornelius, and men like him, did so ; and the earnest- 
 ness of their aim brought that very conviction of a void which 
 opened their souls for the reception of the Spirit. Surely, 
 in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteous- 
 ness is on his way to God, whether he have heard " if there 
 be a Holy Ghost or not." Surely this aim at heart-excel- 
 lences is the baptism of John. Can we, without unrealizing 
 all moral convictions, lend ourselves for a moment to lan- 
 guage which seems to say that good is not good, except it 
 have added to it some incomprehensible element, which does 
 not make those who boast of its possession visibly more 
 noble and more heavenly than others, but often very much 
 narrower and revoltingly conceited ? In proportion as a man 
 aims at excellence, will he find that there is a Spirit, not 
 himself, but external to himself, which he does not seek, but 
 which seeks him, — just in that proportion will he be forced 
 to look, — not in, but up and out. Be good, change your 
 lives, — repent, — aim at heart excellences, — that seems to 
 me the first thing to say and the first thing to feel. Then 
 the doctrine of the Spirit comes not as a cut-and-dried dog- 
 ma, but the interpretation in words of an external necessity 
 of the soul. 
 
 I believe we agree ; at all events, I am certain our hearts 
 are one in God and Christ. Possibly my expressions are 
 bad and inadequate ; but in proportion as I adore Christ (and 
 I do think my whole soul thrills and trembles at the thought
 
 154 WEAR AND TEAR OF PREACHING. 
 
 of Him, when I understand, or fancy I understand Him, and 
 feel my own heart acquiescing in His hfe, and views of life 
 and God, and acknowledging them to be revelations), exactly 
 in that proportion do I abhor that which calls itself Evan- 
 gelicalism. I feel more at brotherhood with a wronged, mis- 
 taken, maddened, sinful Chartist, than I do with that religious 
 world which has broken Popery into a hundred thousand 
 fragments, and made every fragment an entire, new, infallible 
 Pope, — dealing out quietly and cold-bloodedly the flames of 
 the next world upon all heretics who dispute their dictum, in 
 compensation for the loss of the power which their ancestor, 
 by spiritual descent, pleasingly exercised of dispensing the 
 flames of this world. Luckily, the hope remains that they 
 are not plenipotentiaries of the place with which they seem 
 so familiar. More and more, day by day, one's soul feels it- 
 self alone with God, and resolved to listen for His voice 
 alone in the deeps of the spirit. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Feb. 4, 1848. 
 My dear Ac worth, — .... I wish you would come down 
 here some day. We have nothing, however, to show, ex- 
 cept the sea. In many respects Brighton has the disadvan- 
 tages of Cheltenham. It is excitable, and the floating por- 
 tions of society are superficial. The voluntary system, too, 
 is detestable, and cuts the mouth like a Mameluke bit, re- 
 minding a man of his servitude at every step. And I feel 
 the wear and tear of heart and mind in having so constantly, 
 and in so unassisted a way, to speak on solemn subjects. A 
 man who is by profession bound to speak for present effect — 
 for, except in the present, what can speaking do ? — necessa- 
 rily injures himself and his character. I do not mean in the 
 way of popularity ; for I find nothing seducing in that, and 
 would gladly, joyously give it all up to-morrow for a calmer 
 life ; but I mean in the destruction of repose, and the ina-
 
 "NEITHER CAST YE YOUR PEARLS BEFORE SWINE." 155 
 
 billty to see any truth in its quiet beauty. All proportions 
 are distorted, and it becomes an everlasting race between 
 one's own mind and itself. 
 
 I have no one thing to complain of here that I had in 
 Cheltenham, except the excitement, and that is killing. But 
 the utter hopelessness of being listened to is past. In out- 
 ward success all looks well. Consequently I work in good 
 spirits. But Sunday night, Monday, and all Tuesday, are 
 days of wretched exhaustion, — not despondency, but actual 
 nervous pain. I do as little as I can ; indeed, I cannot do 
 less ; but I begin to fear I shall never keep it up. Brighton 
 air is wonderful : but even that fails. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Brighton: July 11, 1848. 
 .... I will tell you, however, seriously, one thing which 
 seems to me now plain. Every one is not now called upon 
 to be a martyr for truth. It is perfectly true that whenever 
 there is a great soul pouring out its utterances to the world, 
 there will be a Calvary ; but before we pour out our utter- 
 ances, we should be quite sure that we are great souls, that 
 the truth is one important enough to suffer for, and that the 
 persons we speak to are worth the illumination, and not blind 
 Pharisees, before whom Divine wisdom says, " Neither tell 
 I you by what authority I do these things." These three 
 rules save from much irritation, which exhausts and does no 
 good, like a great horse kicking at flies, every kick covering 
 him with sweat, and enough to break twenty men's legs. But 
 flies are not men. The convulsive kick goes through the 
 swarm innocuous, and back they buzz and hum again. You 
 always get the worst of it when you kick at flies. Squash 
 them, if you can, without more effort than a switching of 
 the tail ; if not, let them alone.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 BRIGHTON — 1849. 
 
 His Interest in all the Questions which agitated Society. — Clairvoyance 
 and Mesmerism. — Speech at the Meeting for the " Early Closing Asso- 
 ciation." — Opposition which was roused by his Preaching. — Work, 
 and hidden Life. 
 
 Letters from January, 1849, to November, 1850. 
 
 IT was in 1849 that Mr. Robertson's genius was most 
 productive and most clear. The political and social 
 disturbances of that year and its predecessor, the fer- 
 ment which kept all society bubbling with excitement, 
 communicated their ardor and their movement to his 
 spirit. His heart throbbed in response to the music of 
 the march of the world, always to him a martial music. 
 He spoke and thought best when great events encom- 
 passed him. Whatever was agitating society, he took 
 up either in the pulpit or on the platform, or in conver- 
 sation with his friends. But before he gave a public 
 opinion on any subject, he studied it with care. He 
 did not argue blindly on the outside, but sought to 
 attain the central point of a question, that he might see 
 without confusion the different forms under which its 
 idea had manifested itself; and explain, by the analo- 
 gies of its past, the course of its present development. 
 In small things as well as great this was his method. 
 In the beginning of 1849, Alexis, the well-known clair- 
 voyant, came to Brighton. Mr. Robertson was invited
 
 CLAIRVOYANCE AND MESMERISM. 157 
 
 to meet him at several seances. He refused at first, 
 but afterwards going, found to his great dehght, that in 
 his presence there were no revelations. " His want of 
 faith," said Alexis, dimmed the mesmeric vision. " My 
 close observation," said Robertson, " confiised the char- 
 latan." He treated the matter half mirthfully, half 
 seriously. He laughed, for he thought it a clever 
 cheat. He frowned at the dishonor he believed to be 
 offered by it to the calm and healthy verities of science 
 and law. He was accustomed to mourn over the cre- 
 dulity which clairvoyance and its kindred induced, over 
 the idleness they encouraged, the craving for excite- 
 ment they created, and over the generation which, 
 seeking after such signs, could not believe in the truth 
 of Christ. The letters which follow exhibit partially 
 these thoughts. 
 
 January, 1849. 
 I shall not be able to attend the seance to-morrow, as that 
 
 old fox, , objects to the presence of any one who is 
 
 *' wide-awake." There is a very beautiful passage in Virgil's 
 " JEneid," in which the ghost of Hector sadly appears to 
 JEneas before the final ruin of Troy, and in a dignified way 
 gives up all for lost. " If Troy could have been saved by 
 mortal arm, this right hand should have saved her." .... 
 That which the noble Trojan said of divine Troy, I now, in 
 foiled and melancholy honesty, say of the divine senses of 
 the celestial sex. Ah ! well, it is only a specimen of what 
 goes on in affairs more important. The Father of Lies has 
 it all his own way in this world, — in small things as well as 
 in great, — and it is a piece of absurd knight-errantry to tilt 
 against him. I sometimes am tempted to doubt whether 
 anyone who tries to open people's eyes in science, politics, 
 Qr religion, is to be reckoned as a sublime martyr or an
 
 158 THE TRUTH-TELLER'S REWARD. 
 
 egregious fool. The Cross, or the cap and bells ? Certainly, 
 bad it not been for One, I should say, the cap and bells. 
 
 Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land; 
 All fear, none aid you, and few understand. 
 
 Why cannot sensible people see the mighty pigeon-plucking 
 of this world without interfering ? Why not let the Cagli- 
 ostros finger diamond necklaces from queens, and Alexis 
 dupe ? What is truth ? The path to the pillory of ridicule. 
 What is the champion of truths, big or little? That poor 
 foolish sylph that interposed to save Belinda's curl, and got 
 cut in two by a paltry pair of scissors for his pains. 
 
 Now, can you believe that I could have sat down and 
 wept to-day ? Not simply to see that foolish scene, so grave 
 and so ridiculous, but to connect it with all the analogy of 
 life. It made me sick at heart to think of the futility of 
 all attempts to tell people the whole of religious truth, — to 
 be brave, and true, and faithful. Let people go on in their 
 old way; do not come into collision with foolish old views 
 and superstitions ! Say out the truths of God : and then 
 what thanks do you get for bringing light to people who love 
 darkness ? which nine hundred and ninety -nine in the thou- 
 sand do. 
 
 I think the best work that Signer R could consult 
 
 would be Turton's " Reply to Dr. Wiseman on the Eucha- 
 rist." It seems to me, however, that the surest way of arriv- 
 ing at correct views of this matter is to endeavor to enter 
 into the mind of Christ, His tone of feeling, and the scope 
 of His grand life. Transubstantiation then gradually withers 
 from the conception as a contradiction to Christianity, which 
 is a Spirit and a Life. To localize it ; to tie it in any way 
 to the material ; to bind it to " days and months, and times 
 and years " ; to make it " meat and drink " ; to prevent its 
 getting beyond the rudiments, that is, " the alphabet of the 
 world"; to make it "subject to ordinances"; to make it
 
 TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 159 
 
 anything but the worship of a spirit, — God in spirit and in 
 truth, — is to go back to Judaism. 
 
 But I do not wonder at the belief in Transubstantiation ; 
 it only assumes the fact of a miracle, very possible in it- 
 self, — a religious mistake, though a great one. But I do 
 marvel at grown men believing in clairvoyance, and then re- 
 fusing to listen to the argument for Transubstantiation. I 
 met the other day a lady, thoughtful, independent, and can- 
 did, thoroughly inartificial and free from prejudice, who was 
 completely converted into a devotee of the superstition of 
 1849. After which, I can comprehend that Transubstantia- 
 tion should have been undoubted for a thousand years, anni- 
 hilated at the end of that time, resuscitated, and that it 
 should have in it a fair prospect of leading a vigorous exist- 
 ence of, say, another thousand of years. 
 
 The next subject which engrossed him, and which 
 brought him prominently before the public, was the 
 closing of shops in Brighton at an earlier hour than 
 was customary. A meeting was called on April 24, 
 1849, by the Early Closing Association, and he was 
 asked to speak. His speech was remarkable for its 
 grasp of both sides of the question. He thought well 
 of the plan proposed, but for that very reason was calm 
 and sober in his tone, and determined to look in the 
 face all the difficulties which environed the subject. 
 He stood between the masters and the young men. 
 He claimed for the former freedom from coercion ; he 
 even spoke of the peculiar difficulties they would have 
 in carrying out the views of the Association, owing to 
 the number of strangers who came into Brighton at a 
 late hour. He claimed for the latter their righl;, as 
 men, to time for self-improvement, but he demanded 
 that their leisure should be well employed. Then,
 
 160 SPEECH FOR EARLY CLOSING ASSOCIATION. 
 
 with one of his rapid turns of thought, he showed to 
 his audience of the higher classes, that it was not only 
 those who sold, but those who bought, in whose hands 
 the question lay. 
 
 It was a noble speech, full of economical knowledge, 
 sober arguments, and wise prevision of difficulties. It 
 is curious to find so imaginative and excitable a man 
 keeping so steadily in the path of common sense. He 
 pleased neither party : one thought his words too bold, 
 the other thouo;ht them too lukewarm ; but though his 
 speech won few cheers, it made its impression after- 
 wards, when the passions of men had cooled down to 
 the reasoning-point. 
 
 During the rest of the year he made no public ad- 
 dress, except from the pulpit, but from that place his 
 influence radiated every day more powerfully. His 
 chapel became crowded to the doors. His sermons 
 grew more weighty and more eloquent. The two con- 
 firmation lectures preached this year, on Jacob's Wrest- 
 ling and the Parable of the Sower, display the opulence 
 of thought and care which he spent on the education 
 of the young. It will be seen, however, from a letter, 
 written to answer some objections made to his analysis 
 of the despair and suicide of Judas, and subjoined to 
 this chapter No. XXI., that, side by side with his influ- 
 ence, the opposition to his ministry increased and be- 
 came more harassing. " It is only too true," he says, 
 " that the perpetual chafings and work of a place like 
 Brighton have destroyed all claim to philosophic cleai'- 
 ness, and that I am getting less fit for study and mental 
 tension." The officious support of some who got up 
 addresses to him, and subscriptions for his portrait, and 
 the vulgarizing efforts of others who did the same on
 
 OPPOSITION INCREASING. 161 
 
 mercenary grounds, drew him into a prominence wliicli 
 pained him. 
 
 My enemies (he writes), not content with the usual modes 
 open to snarlers, actually invade me in my castle ; and, on the 
 strength of being religious, come with long faces, though 
 perfect strangers, to warn me of the wrath in store for me 
 hereafter, if I do not repent of my manifold heresies. So 
 you see I am in a hornet's nest, and buffets only exhaust 
 strength in vain, the amount of real good done being very 
 problematical. 
 
 To hide himself from this public shadow of himself, 
 he gave himself up to quiet and continuous work. He 
 held a weekly lecture in his vestry for the poor ; he 
 visited amono- them : he endeavored to draw around 
 him the young men of Brighton belonging to that class 
 which is so rarely touched by clergymen, — the shop- 
 keepers' assistants, the clerks ; all those, in fact, whom 
 his speech on the question of Early Closing had par- 
 tially, by its sobriety, alienated from him. He shrank 
 more and more into a hidden way of life, refused to 
 publish his sermons, and kept, as much as possible, 
 apart from society. In a letter written to his mother, 
 at the close of the year, he speaks of some unauthorized 
 publication of one of his Advent lectures : — 
 
 The miserable publication of "St. Paul's Novitiate," as 
 the printer calls it, was a libel, — absurd, curtailed, and in 
 some places absolutely false. Pray — pray let it be known 
 that all these things are more or less misrepresentations, and 
 done entirely without my sanction ! It is of great impor- 
 tance that they should not appear, for I have abundance of 
 slanderers, — I cannot tell why, for I molest no one, abstain 
 now even from public lectures, go out very little, and only 
 ask to be left alone. I take no pains to contradict innumera-
 
 162 EEPLY TO STRICTURES ON 
 
 ble falsehoods, for it would be endless. I take my own path 
 quietly, and never retaliate. 
 
 In the October of this year there began a long and 
 voluminous correspondence with several persons, which 
 has, most fortunately, been preserved. It will appear 
 in its proper place. Meanwliile, the letters which fol- 
 low include all that can be known of the history of his 
 life durinor the first nine months of 1849. 
 
 XXL 
 
 1849. 
 
 My dear 5 — I ought long ago to have replied to your 
 
 kind request for a reply to the objections brought against my 
 sermon on Acts i., but I have always felt a defence of my 
 own views pecuUarly irksome, as I am glad to escape the un- 
 progressive task of circling round anything which I have ever 
 said or written. 
 
 I will briefly give you the replies which refute the charges 
 of your friend's note. 
 
 First of all : my " desire to be original, and going astray 
 from the old paths." 
 
 Whether I aim at an appearance of originality or not, God 
 must judge, who alone has the right to scrutinize motives 
 and impute them. As to originality, things which are very 
 familiar to those whose reading is professional and varied, 
 may appear new to those who chiefly seek the teaching and 
 read the works of one school of theology. " Old paths " re- 
 quire to be defined. That which is old now was new once, 
 and treated with very great bitterness at first, as all new 
 forms of truth are sure to be. Evangelicalism was called 
 newfangled fifty years ago. I presume that no one would
 
 THE SERMON ON JUDAS. 163 
 
 maintain that the popular preaching of the present day is in 
 the old paths, either of thought or phraseology, in which Jer- 
 emy Taylor or Bishop Andrews walked ; or that they were 
 not liable to the charge of novelty in their day, compared 
 with the tone of thought and teaching prevalent in St. Ber- 
 nard's ; or that Bernard's preaching was not very, very dif- 
 ferent from that of Chrysostom's day. Nay, more, — the 
 Apostles, — He himself, — what was the charge against them 
 but that they did not walk in the old paths, but taught " new 
 doctrines " ? Evangelicalism itself, worn threadbare as it is 
 by trite thought, — and certainly, to do it justice, guiltless of 
 mental power or fresh thought, for the last ten years at least, 
 — what was it called in the days of Cecil and Scott ? The 
 " good old " High Church talked loudly of new lights. 
 
 I am said to have " apologized for Judas," thereby falling 
 into one of the various old and exploded errors of heterodox 
 teachers, " to which my desire of seeming original guides me." 
 My " apology " for Judas consisted in saying that his sin 
 was not murder, but unbelief, and that he was sincere in what 
 he did ; also that his temptation was Satanic, and that he is 
 in hell. 
 
 I do not fancy that Judas would thank me much for my 
 apology. We will examine this heterodox defence. 
 
 What I said was, in effect, this. The essential guilt of 
 suicide is unbelief, that is, despair of God's love and good- 
 ness. Distrust is the sin of sins, which makes sin sin. Lu- 
 ther said strongly, but not too strongly, " Nothing damns ex- 
 cept unbelief." My sermon, therefore, charged Judas with 
 unbelief, final and desperate. I do not know what your cor- 
 respondent thinks of the sinfulness of unbelief; but it is 
 clear that he is very much shocked at a charge of murder 
 being converted into one which only imputes unbehef : only 
 unbelief ! 
 
 " I may, perhaps, add that the question, as to what is the 
 essential guilt of suicide, is settled by the reply of Christ
 
 164 THE GUILT OF JUDAS? 
 
 when the evil suggestion was presented to Him. He did not 
 allege the Sixth Commandment, which He assuredly would 
 have done had suicide been murder ; but, " Thou shalt not 
 tempt " (i. e. try, make experiment of) " the Lord thy God." 
 He treated it as a temptation, not to murder, but to distrust ; 
 which was exactly what I did, on His infallible authority. 
 
 I shall briefly dispose of the remaining objections. 
 
 Your correspondent is scandalized by the expression that 
 Judas was sincere, and says, with a note of admiration, " the 
 sincerity of Judas, who betrayed his Master, bare the bag," &c. 
 
 I did not say that Judas was sincere in his betrayal of 
 Christ, nor in his stewardship of the common purse, — I did 
 not say that he was a sincere man. I simply said he was sin- 
 cere in his remorse. A thief may behave honestly some- 
 times. The unjust steward was commended by his lord. 
 Yet I have heard of commentators of the Rationalistic school 
 who were as much offended with the Bible as your friend is 
 with me, because it commends a man who had tampered with 
 his master's accounts. The Bible, however, commends him ; 
 and Christ puts him forth as a pattern to Christians, not be- 
 cause he had acted honestly in all cases, but because he had 
 done wisely in one. He who commended him as wise in that 
 act, did not exactly say that his waste and duplicity were 
 objects of admiration. And if I assert that Judas was sin- 
 cere in his remorse, it requires some ingenuity to pervert this 
 into an opinion that he was sincere in his kissing his Re- 
 deemer. The suicide of Judas ivas the act of a man sincere, 
 even to agony, in his remorse. Did he pretend to cast down 
 the gold? Did he pretend the pangs which drove him to 
 de^^pair ? I say further, all suicide is sincere. I stated that 
 for the express purpose of showing that sincerity does not 
 make the matter better, and that remorse is not penitence. 
 Your correspondent, without having heard the sermon, hears 
 of a detached expression, and charitahly assumes that it was 
 part of the " apology " for Judas. It formed, in fact, part of
 
 SINCERITY OF JUDAS? 165 
 
 the demolition of a supposed apology that might be made 
 for him. 
 
 Again : " Where does Scripture speak of Judas not work- 
 ing out his destiny, by which he was as truly destined to 
 salvation as any other of the apostles, but that his destiny 
 crushed him?" 
 
 I reply : Every one has a mission in this world to accom- 
 plish. That is the destiny given him to work out. Judas 
 had such a mission. God had appointed him to salvation 
 by His call as truly as the other apostles, unless we are pre- 
 pared to believe that the Eternal Love predestines to sin. 
 He had a " ministry and apostleship from which he by trans- 
 gression fell." Judas was sent into the world to work out 
 his own salvation with fear and trembling. God "did not 
 will the sinner's death." Surely, surely the Bible is plain 
 enough on that point. But Judas would not accept his 
 mission, and then that which was given in blessing turned 
 to curse. His destiny crushed him ; he went to his oivn 
 place, the place he had prepared for himself, not the place 
 prepared by God. So it is with you and me. No decree 
 of God has insured our misery. All things work together 
 for good to those who love God. But the same things work 
 together for evil if they do not love God. The sailor who 
 yields to and works with the winds of God is brought by 
 them to the haven where he would be ; but if he try to beat 
 up against them, the very gale that was carrying him to 
 safety overwhelms him ; he is crushed by the very destiny 
 that was working out his salvation. All I said on this point 
 was simply expository of the sentence, " He went to his 
 own place." 
 
 I think you told me there was a feeling of condemnation 
 for the use of the word courage in connection with the act 
 of Judas. Suicide implies physical courage. There is a 
 higher courage, which I distinctly contrasted with this ani- 
 mal daring, which enables a man quietly and bravely to
 
 166 COURAGE OF SUICIDE? 
 
 endure the weariness of this lieavy life, obloquy, and hatred. 
 He who has that is safe, as I then said, from suicide ; and 
 it was to contrast it with this, that I admitted the other 
 courage which belongs to the suicide. 
 
 And to deny this is surely absurd. I do not reckon physi- 
 cal courage very high; but still I do not think there are 
 many gentlemen in Brighton who are men enough to stab 
 themselves, if all religion were out of the question. If it 
 seem a very easy thing to inflict a death-blow on self, per- 
 haps they might come to some conclusion on the point, if 
 they will only try to bind up their own arms, and use the 
 lancet next time it is wanted. This objection is so weak, 
 that I can scarcely speak of it with gravity. 
 
 Lastly, your friend asks, " When does Scripture mention 
 the least impatience or any sin in the man Christ Jesus?" 
 and then goes on to speak, with great horror, of my " awful 
 notion " of admitting the germ of evil, &:c., in Him. 
 
 I presume this is a misconception of an expression which 
 I have more than once used. Specially dwelling on the 
 Redeemer's sinlessness, I have shown how all the innocent 
 feelings of our nature were in Him, but shopped on the verge 
 which separates the innocent from the wrong. An inclina- 
 tion of human nature is not wrong, — hunger, anger, — but 
 being gratified unduly, or in forbidden circumstances, it 
 passes into sin. " Be ye angry, and sin not." Legitimate 
 anger was to stop short of sinful vindictiveness. 
 
 Similarly, Our Lord felt the weariness of life, and was 
 anxious to have it done, amidst pei-petual opposition of ene- 
 mies and misconception of friends. " How am I straitened 
 till it be accomplished ? " " O faithless generation, how long 
 shall I be with you ? how long shall I suffer you ? " 
 
 There was no germ of sin in Christ ; for sin is the acting 
 of an evil will. Sin resides in the will, not in the natural 
 appetitions. There was no germ of sin in Him ; but there 
 were germs of feeling, natural and innocent, which show 
 that He was in all points tempted like as we are.
 
 SINLESSNESS OF CHRIST. 167 
 
 If I say to a man who is angi-ily calling Mr. Smith 
 O'Brien a felon, " You mistake ; it is not felony, but treason, 
 he is guilty of," I have not defended the poor man much by 
 saying he is a traitor instead of a felon, — I have simply 
 vindicated the right use of words. If I say Judas's guilt 
 was not murder, but final and fatal despair, and call it, as I 
 remember well I did, the sin of sins, it is somewhat difficult 
 to make me out as an apologist for suicide. 
 
 So much for the apology of Judas. 
 
 Certainly, there is an exploded heterodox defence of him 
 with which I am acquainted. It was held that not from 
 avarice, but from a desire to force on the acknowledgment 
 of his Master's mission, he betrayed Him. Your corre- 
 spondent seems to fancy I have adopted this. Mr. M'Neile, 
 no oracle of mine, but a very good man, and high in the 
 Evangelical world, adopted it, and printed the sermon ; but 
 his orthodoxy remains unimpeached; nor has he been ac- 
 cused, so far as I know, of affecting novelty, absurd as the 
 view is. But this is the happy fate of all party-men. 
 
 Further, however, I said that Judas went to his own 
 place, — a very emphatic expression. I said the soul gravi- 
 tated downwards. The sin which led to suicide led to hell ; 
 but it was his own place, in the way of natural retribution, 
 not of arbitrary reprobation. This was another feature in 
 the apology for Judas. I left him in hell. What more 
 would they have ? Only an unbeliever ! — only in hell ! 
 
 Now, with regard to the propriety of the assertion that 
 the sin was despair, not murder, — 
 
 Your correspondent says, " Where does Scripture draw a 
 distinction between killing and murder?" The only reason 
 in Scripture for the heinousness of the crime is not that it 
 involves hatred and malice, but that " in the image of God 
 created He man." 
 
 All through the Book of Leviticus a distinction is drawn 
 between killing and murder, — all through the Bible. To
 
 168 IS KILLING MURDER? 
 
 kill is to take away life; to murder is to kill with malice 
 prepense. The soldier kills, so does the executioner, so 
 does the man who acts under sudden and dreadful ,provoca- 
 tion, so does the man who acts in self-defence, so does the 
 duellist, so does the man who treasures up a wrong for years. 
 In every one of these the image of God, wherein He made 
 man, is destroyed. Is there no distinction between them? 
 They are all killing; are they all murder? Is it just to 
 brand the guilt of a man, or rather the act of a man, who 
 shoots a footpad demanding his purse with menaces, with 
 the same name as is appropriated to the act of Rush ? You 
 may get one rude generic name, like murder, to include a 
 vast number of offences, just as the generic name Animal 
 includes man and zoophytes, with endless intermediate gra- 
 dations. But it is only a very rude way of talking. And 
 a man scarcely differs from a zoophyte more than the suicide, 
 which has no hatred in it and no malice, does from the mur- 
 der, which is one of revenge. It is only loosely that we 
 call suicide self-murder; well enough for popular conversa- 
 tion, but utterly unfit for the expression of accurate thought. 
 
 All this comes from the loose way in which people think 
 of sin, and the unmeaning way in which they, therefore, 
 talk of the sinlessness of the man Christ Jesus. They for- 
 get that He suffered being tempted. In point of fact, they 
 deny, without intending it, all that makes His sinlessness 
 sublime and real. They reduce that glorious Heart to a 
 mere machine, and make His life a theatrical exhibition, in 
 which fictitious struggles and sorrows went on. He only 
 pretended to struggle with temptation ! It really would ap- 
 pear, according to them, that He did not actually siffer in 
 putting down the inclination which arose spontaneously and 
 innocently. 
 
 However, this is a very large subject, and I cannot go 
 into it. 
 
 The insinuation of " German neology " is a comprehensive
 
 "GERMAN NEOLOGY." 169 
 
 and very convenient charge by which all earnest thought is 
 tabooed at the present day. It is quite enough to hint that 
 it is German. So at the time of the Reformation they spoke 
 of Greek and Hebrew. " Greek," said a Roman Catholic 
 priest, "is a new language, just discovered, and full of here- 
 sies. As for the Hebrew language, all who study that be- 
 come Jews immediately." So they speak of German now. 
 Englishmen seem to think that the Redeemer died exclusive- 
 ly for them, and that light shines nowhere but here. Sixty 
 millions of God's creatures speak German, and can only get 
 their theology in that. Alas ! for those who have not the 
 English theology, though it be, unfortunately, only a feeble 
 echo of that which, in its freshness, came from Germany 
 three hundred years ago. "Verily, we English are the men; 
 and truth shall die with us." But the singular part of this 
 charge is, that they who make it know so little of the matter, 
 that, like your corresiDondent, they are not even aware that 
 the present heterodoxy of Germany is not neologian, and 
 that neologianism is exploded even there. To them, neology, 
 rationalism, mysticism, mythicism, pantheism, all mean pretty 
 much the same thing ; and one charge is nearly as good as 
 another, because all are vague and mysterious, like the ven- 
 erable fee-fi-fo-fum of our childhood. 
 
 To live by trust in God, — to do and say the right be- 
 cause it is lovely, — to dare to gaze on the splendor of the 
 naked truth, without putting a false veil before it to terrify 
 children and old women by mystery and vagueness, — to live 
 by love, and not by fear, that is the life of a true, brave man, 
 who will take Christ and His mind for the Truth, instead of 
 the clamor of either the worldly world or the religious world: 
 between which two, alas ! there is as little difference now as 
 in the days of Pharisaism ; or rather, if there be any differ- 
 ence, we know who said that the " world " of sinners was, 
 as knowing its blindness, rather in the less danger of the 
 two. 
 
 VOL. I 8
 
 170 GOD AND OUK OWN SOUL. 
 
 The chief difference between the two views of suicide is 
 this : the one says Hell, and something worse, if you dare to 
 murder yourself. I would rather say, Trust God, and be- 
 lieve in Him as Love, and suicide is impossible. If the 
 other argument were the only thing that could save us from 
 fifty suicides a day, I would not use it: for the goodness 
 which is only produced by fear is no goodness at all. I quite 
 agree, with every fibre of my heart responding, with the sen- 
 timent of that noble thinker Milton : " Were I the chooser, 
 a dram of well-doing should be preferred before many times 
 as much the forcible hindrance of evil-doing. For God, 
 sure, esteems the growth and completion of one virtuous 
 person more than the restraint of ten vicious." 
 
 I believe that the great lesson for us to learn, — every day 
 it seems more true to me, — is this : God and my own soul ; 
 there is nothing else in this world I will trust to for the 
 truth. To those alone we are amenable for judgment, — to 
 Him and to His voice wathin us. From all else we must ap- 
 peal. Only we must not appeal so haughtily as we are 
 sometimes tempted to do, — as, perhaps, I have done on this 
 present occasion, — in independence, but not in pride. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 9 Montpelier Terrace, Brighton: March 29, 1849. 
 
 Mt dear , — I will most willingly comply with your 
 
 request, diflScult as it is ; for how difficult to express another's 
 feelings ! and besides, in a public inscription, as little of pri- 
 vate feeling as can be profaned, the better. But will you 
 tell me a little more precisely what you wish ? You use the 
 word poet. Do you wish a prose or a verse inscription ? 
 For your sake, or your sister's, I would do either; but I 
 think the latter would certainly prove a failure, — and is it 
 desirable ? 
 
 I have never spoken or written a syllable to you about our
 
 THE DEATH OF A SCHOOL-FRIEND. 171 
 
 dear lost "William, because I cannot. Every year I feel less 
 inclined than I once was to get upon subjects of the deepest 
 interest. Every year I feel that utterance profanes feeling, 
 and makes it commonplace. He is gone,— with all his fresh, 
 bright, marvellous flow of happiness. What is there more 
 to be said than is contained in those dreadful words, — He is 
 gone? How often I have thought of the evening he left 
 Tours, when, in our boyish friendsliip, we set our little silver 
 watches exactly together, and made a compact to look at the 
 moon exactly at the same moment that night, and think of 
 each other ! I do not remember a single hour in life since 
 then which I would have arrested, and said. Let this stay. 
 And to William all was so bright and hopeful ! Only now 
 and then, the shadow projected by the more solemn and som- 
 bre aspect of the Future seemed to rest upon his heart, — 
 even that was transient. I have sympathized with you often 
 
 in secret, dear ; but for him, I see nothing in his lot 
 
 that is not a subject for envy. Why should we wish him to 
 have remained a little longer? — to have been slashed or 
 mangled in obedience to the orders of some . . . and then 
 to be lost among the names of the innumerable gallant hearts 
 that are made clay of to satisfy the cupidity of East India 
 merchants ? no ! better, surely, as it is. And as to the 
 eternal question. We know of him, — what is all that we 
 can ever know of any one removed beyond the veil which 
 shelters the unseen from the pryings of curiosity, — that he 
 is in the hands of the Wise and Loving. Spirit has mingled 
 with spirit. A child, more or less erring, has gone home. 
 Unloved by his Father? Believe it who may, that will not L 
 
 xxra. 
 
 February 22, 1849. 
 
 My dear Friend, — I send you the volume of Words- 
 worth, which you forgot last night. One must not be too 
 young, either in heart or years, to lie entirely open to his in- 
 fluence.
 
 172 A MEASURE FOR CHARACTER. 
 
 I fancy character may be measured, both in depth and 
 quality, by the poet who is the chosen favorite. He is a 
 kind of Nilometer to mark the depth at different distances on 
 the river. A man's Nilometer ^ in the higher regions, may be 
 Shelley. The wild and marvellous stream is then still in the 
 air region, finding a home among clouds, cutting a narrow 
 way through clefts of rock, flowing for many hundred yards 
 together under frozen patches of snow, — a strange and 
 beautiful life in the waste of the eternal silence, issuing out 
 clear and pure and cold a little higher up, from the delicately 
 blue cavern of the glacier. Even in its lower and earthier 
 flow, the stream will appear to hold mysterious connection, 
 as if by invisible sympathy, with its source, and even the 
 inarticulate murmurs of its daily ripples will seem but the 
 cadences which ought to be heard only in those still and 
 solemn realms. 
 
 Down in the plains, in the less unearthly part of its course, 
 the water-mark of such a man will stand at Burns. A strong, 
 swift flow, so deep as to scarcely seem to move on the sur- 
 face ; somewhat turbid, but the very earth which discolors it 
 will often be purer than the snow which falls into other rivers 
 direct from the cloud of heaven. 
 
 Between these two regions of such a man's life, Words- 
 worth will mark the height and temperature of the stream in 
 a part of its course which will be at present invisible, — being 
 lost, as is the case with some rivers, for many miles under- 
 ground. But when this lost power of life shall reappear, 
 Wordsworth will only mark the depth and temperature near 
 the banks. The central depths he will not be able to sound.
 
 HUMAN EXCELLENCE. 173 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 February 26. 
 I have been reading the sermon or essay I sent you, to 
 find in it some clew to the tone of your note, and in vain, — 
 in vain, at least so far as a legitimate clew is concerned. For 
 surely you have misinterpreted its meaning if you think it 
 says that the spirit of Humanity is to be stilled into silence, 
 that the diviner impulses may start to their supremacy? We 
 do not reach spirituality of character by spasmodic, unnatural 
 efforts to crush the nature that is within us, but by slow and 
 patient care to develop and disengage it from its evil. It is 
 not angelic, but human excellence at which we are to aim ; 
 nor can we " be perfect as our Father is perfect " except in 
 our degree. " Every man in his own order." To become 
 saints, we must not cease to be men and women. 
 
 For man is not as God, 
 
 But then most God-like, being most a man. 
 
 And if there be any part of our nature which is essen- 
 tially human, and to effect the excision of which would de- 
 stroy its humanity, it is the craving for sympathy. The Per- 
 fect One gave sympathy and wanted it. Gave it as every 
 page will show ; wanted it, — " Could ye not watch with me 
 one hour ? " " Will ye also go away ? " " Simon, the son of 
 Jonas, lovest thou me ? " Found it, surely, even though his 
 brethren believed not in him, — found it in John, and Mar- 
 tha, and Mary, and Lazarus. 
 
 Though some of the folio v^ing letters belong to 1850, 
 it has been considered better, for an obvious reason, to 
 throw them all together. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 October, 1849. 
 I do not read the Fathers. I know their system pretty 
 well, I believe, from having examined with great interest
 
 174 TO A FRIEND ABOUT TO BECOME 
 
 their advocates' and tlieir opponents' writing ; and I am sen- 
 sible of the healing effect produced by such a system on the 
 mind of those who accept it. Nay, I even know that their 
 errors are but forms of truths which lie beneath them ; false 
 forms, which yet convey spiritual truth to those who do not 
 know or suspect the falsehood of the form. The misfortune 
 is,- that I am certain they are false, — as false as Roman- 
 ism, — though even in that system mariolatry and purgatory 
 are material and gross statements of spiritual facts, which I 
 think our systems neglect. But then I cannot by an act of 
 volition receive a system for the sake of the comfort which 
 I know to be to me a lie. It is at my peril that I thus falsify 
 my inmost nature, and consent to be deluded by a figment. 
 To those to whom it is not a lie, I do not dispute — nay, I 
 cordially, and I hope, charitably, believe — that the system 
 may be elevating, purifying, life-giving ; but I had rather 
 stand alone in a waste howling wilderness, tempted by Satan, 
 and conscious of having stripped myself of all unreality, 
 than accept the happiest consolation that the more inhabited 
 world could give me. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 May, 1850. 
 Do you believe in God ? Dare you not trust yourself like 
 a child to Him "i Oh, what is your baptism worth if it has 
 not taught you that blessed central truth of all, — that He is 
 your Father? Dare you bo stifle His voice in your soul, 
 which comes in the simple rushings of earnest thought, and 
 then call it conscience ? Are you sure that you may not be 
 shutting out a ray from heaven, although you fear that it is a 
 meteor from hell ? .... I tried no arguments against Roman- 
 ism, for I feel that Romanism is only an infinitely small and 
 sensualistic embodiment of truths, — a living human form 
 shrunk into a mummy, — with every feature there hideously 
 lifelike, especially when it, by force applied from without,
 
 A ROMAN CATHOLIC. 175 
 
 by wires or galvanism, moves humanly God made 
 
 the soul to correspond with truth. Truth is its own evidence, 
 
 as the lightning-flasli is, as the blessed sunlight is Alas ! 
 
 alas ! you do not believe that you have a soul, — you do not 
 believe in God, — you do not believe that His Spirit can 
 find your soul, — you believe in the dial, and not in the 
 sun, — you dare not be alone with Christ, — you do not 
 feel the solitary yet humbling grandeur of being in this vast 
 universe alone as He was, with your Father. His life is 
 not the pattern of your life, and His divine humanity is 
 not the interpretation of the mysteries of your solitary 
 being. You cannot walk the valley of the shadow of death 
 fearlessly, as David did, because " Thou art with me." You 
 
 must have a crowd of and a number of other good 
 
 men by some hundred thousands to assure you that you are 
 not alone. All this universe is God's blessed sacrament, 
 the channel of His Spirit to your soul, whereof He has 
 selected two things as types of all the rest: the commonest 
 of all elements, water, and the commonest of all meals, 
 a supper, and you cannot find Him except in seven ! Too 
 many, or else too few ; but even in that protest against the 
 Protestant limitation of grace to two channels I recognize 
 a truth, only distorted and petrified as usual. 
 
 Oh, be brave and wait ! These are dark days, — lonely 
 days, — and our unbelieving impatience cannot bear to wait, 
 but must rashly, and by impetuous steps of our own, plunge 
 after the ignis fatuus of light. Peace at once ! Light at 
 once ! I cannot wait my time, and I will not ! I do not say 
 all this as one who is utterly unable to comprehend " the de- 
 lusion of people who cannot be content with the sound and 
 excellent principles of our incomparable liturgy." I only 
 comprehend too well the struggles and the agonies of a soul 
 that craves light and cannot find it. And as to our " incom- 
 parable Church," why it does not require a prophetic spirit 
 to see that in ten years more she must be in fragments, out
 
 176 TO A FRIEND ABOUT TO BECO^IE A CATHOLIC. 
 
 of which fragments God will reconstruct something for which 
 I am content to wait, in accordance with His usual plan, which 
 is to be forever evolving fresh forms of life out of dissolu- 
 tion and decay. If not in my time, why then still I wait. I 
 am alone now, and shall be till I die, and I am not afraid to 
 be alone in the majesty of darkness which His presence peo- 
 ples with a crowd. I ask now no sympathy but His. If He 
 should vouchsafe to give me more I shall accept it gratefully ; 
 but I am content to do without it, as many of His best and 
 bravest must do now. Why cannot you live with Him ? 
 
 I have no superstitious evangelical horror of Romanism, 
 but Alas ! alas ! for the substitution of an artificial, cre- 
 ated conscience for the sound and healthy one of humanity, 
 whose tides are distinct and unmistakable in their noble mu- 
 sic, like those of nature's ocean in its irresistible swell ! 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 November 25, 1850. 
 
 Till to-day I did not know of your loss, which, it seems, is 
 
 now no longer a fresh grief, so swiftly does time pass. No, 
 
 God and time are the only cures for sorrow, and they do 
 
 cure. I feel that the blest are the dead. To live is unvaried 
 
 trial Your last letter seemed to breathe a misgiving 
 
 about the constancy of my trust and friendship, in conse- 
 quence of your change. You need not doubt : I wish you had 
 taken a more daring, braver, and truthful course. I wish you 
 had dared to live alone with God for a few years. I believe 
 that you will not find peace long in Rome. But the fact of 
 your being there does not alter my feeling towards you in 
 one iota. Beneath, far beneath all forms of the sight and 
 feeling, I joyfully recognize the unity of that spirit which 
 forms the basis of all true lives. At bottom we mean — all 
 good minds mean — substantially the same thing ; and I look 
 forward more and more yearningly to the day when we shall 
 see this, as well as take it for granted. For yourself I am
 
 mS LONELINESS. 177 
 
 in less apprehension, for I know that if you are spared, you 
 will not die a member of the Church of Rome. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 I am where I was, gathering fresh accretions round the 
 nucleus of truth ; I hold surer every day that my soul and 
 God seek each other, and am utterly fearless of the issue. 
 I am but " an infant crying in the dark, and with no lan- 
 guage but a cry " ; nevertheless I am not afraid of the dark. 
 It is the grand awful mystery ! but God is in it, the light of 
 the darkest night. 
 
 I am alone, lonelier than ever, — sympathized with by 
 none, because I sympathize too much with all. But the All 
 sympathizes with me. I have almost done with divinity, — 
 dogmatic divinity, that is, — except to lovingly endeavor to 
 make out the truth which lies beneath this or that poor 
 dogma, miserably overlaid as marble fonts are with white- 
 wash 
 
 I read Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Coleridge, 
 Philip Van Artevelde, for views of man to meditate upon, 
 instead of theological caricatures of humanity ; and I go out 
 into the country to feel God ; dabble in chemistry, to feel 
 awe of Him ; read the life of Christ, to understand, love, 
 and adore Him ; and my experience is closing into this, that 
 I turn with disgust from everything to Christ. I think I 
 get glimpses into His mind, and I am sure that I love Him 
 
 more and more A sublime feeling of a Presence 
 
 comes upon me at times, which makes inward solitariness 
 a trifle to talk about.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Letters of Mr. Robertson. — Complexity of his Character. — His Sensi- 
 tiveness. — His Knowledge of Men. — His Life in Society. — Effect of 
 Climate upon him. — Exquisite Perception of Natural Scenery. — Im- 
 pressions received from Art, and how he used them. — Appreciation of 
 Poetry. — Intensity of Enthusiasm and of Indignation. — His Eloquence 
 and its Characteristics. — Hatred of the Reputation of a "Popular 
 Preacher." — The natural Morbidity and the dangerous Tendencies of 
 his Character. — The Means he employed to conquer them. — His 
 noble Truth and Self-devotion. — Causes of the Gloom which appears 
 in his Letters. 
 Letters, August and September, 1849. 
 
 IT was in this year, 1849, that Mr. Eobertson be- 
 came the constant correspondent of several persons. 
 From henceforth the account of his outward and his 
 inward hfe is so largely given by himself, that a biog- 
 rapher has fortunately but little to say. But the 
 letters and extracts of letters need in some sort a pre- 
 face, for many of them are so pecuhar, and even start- 
 ling, from their extremely passionate expressions and 
 morbid excitement, that doubts have been entertained 
 as to the advisability of publishing them. But if they 
 had been kept back, so much of the real essence of the 
 man, so much of that w^hich was most distinctive in 
 him, would be left undisclosed, that no true conception 
 of his character and of his genius would be possible. 
 The extreme complexity of that character, a complexity 
 which naturally accompanied its great powers, will 
 always render it liable to be mistaken. Apparent con-
 
 SYMPATHY WITH ALL MEN. 179 
 
 tradictions, apparent inconsistencies, strange minglings 
 of strengtli and weakness, continually arise before us, 
 as we read his letters. It would be possible to give to 
 the world a picture of him, the harmonies of whose 
 colors would be easily seen by all ; but it would not 
 be a true picture. The picture painted in these letters 
 is difficult to comprehend, and the harmonies of its 
 colors are subtly and perplexedly involved. Many will 
 not understand it, and not understanding will misrep- 
 resent it ; but to those who can find the key, it will be 
 as varied and interesting as it is full of teaching. 
 
 The root of all that was peculiar in Mr Robertson's 
 character and correspondence lay in the mtense sensi- 
 tiveness which pervaded his whole nature. His senses, 
 his passions, his imagination, his conscience, his spirit, 
 were so delicately wrought, that they thrilled and 
 vibrated to the slightest touch. His great power of 
 sympg-thy arose out of this sensitiveness. 
 
 My misfortune or happiness (he says) is power of sym- 
 pathy. I can feel with the Brahmin, the Pantheist, the 
 Stoic, the Platonist, the Transcendentalist, perhaps the Epi- 
 curean. At least, I feel the side of Utilitarianism which 
 seems like truth, though I have more antipathy to it than 
 anything else. I can suffer with the Tractarian, tenderly 
 shrinking from the gulf blackening before him, as a fright- 
 ened child runs back to its mother from the dark, afraid to 
 be alone in the fearful loneliness ; and I can also agonize 
 with the infidels, recoiling from the cowardice and false rest 
 of superstition. Many men can feel each of these sepa- 
 rately, and they are happy. They go on straightforwai-d, 
 like a one-eyed horse, seeing all ctear on one side. But I 
 feel them all at once, and so far I am allseitig^ ein ganzer 
 Mann. But I am not such in this sense, that I can harmo-
 
 180 HIS KNOWLEDGE OF MEN. 
 
 nize them all ; I can only feel them. For this greatness 
 there must be an all-feeling heart, together with an all-seeing 
 eye. This world and its inner music is like a perfect band. 
 Each instrument, alone, is harsh, incomplete ; all together 
 are harmony. The world is a full concert: he who hears 
 only one tone, hears imperfectly : he who hears all separately, 
 hears out of tune, discordantly, and confusedly : he only 
 understands the universe who can hear all or most at once. 
 So also with sight. To a perfect vision the impression on 
 two retinas is felt as only one. 
 
 Yet there is comfort in this thought. To feel all sepa- 
 rately is one step towards feeling all harmoniously. So a 
 town begun in different parts, as Munich, is painful to look 
 at. In years or centuries it will form one whole. Or a 
 country whose railway plans are only partially executed is 
 unpleasant to journey over, for you are perpetually inter- 
 rupted in your travels. Yet the time is coming when it 
 shall be a perfect network, and every detached bit shall help 
 to connect the rest, and communication with every part shall 
 be had. So I feel as much as I can. I will get every kind 
 of Bewusstsein. They will harmonize at last. 
 
 His knowledo;e of men was also due to his sensitive 
 sympathy. He seemed to feel by it, as if by a sixth 
 sense, the character of those with whom he came into 
 contact. It was not through knowledge of the world, 
 nor through reasoning on the actions of men, that he 
 recognized what they were. He felt them. Hence 
 he had a very strange and great power. He almost 
 always felt, in the presence of others, not his own feel- 
 ings, but theirs. He identified himself with them for a 
 time. He was thus enabled to reveal men to them- 
 selves, to tell them what their life meant, and how to 
 idealize it and to ennoble it ; to draw out in them what
 
 HIS LIFE IN SOCIETY. 181 
 
 was best and highest ; and all this with a gracious tact, 
 due also to his sensitiveness, which seldom did too little 
 and never went too far. Thus he had pre-eminently 
 the gift of goveiTiing the hearts of men : and it is high 
 and deserved praise to say of him, that the two great 
 dangers which beset this gift, the danger lest the power 
 of governing should be degraded into the lust of domin- 
 ion, — the danger lest the desii'e of retaining that power 
 should end in truckling to men, or in suppression of the 
 truth through fear of giving offence, — were always by 
 him avoided and abhorred. 
 
 His sensitiveness followed him into society, and 
 constituted his pleasure and his pain. He was easily 
 jarred ; but when in tune with those around him, when 
 in the company of those he loved and trusted, the har- 
 mony of his nature imparted itself to all around him. 
 In his happier moods he was as radiant as a child : he 
 joined with a fascinating cheerfulness in the games and 
 merriment of young people ; it seemed a relief to him 
 to throw off with them the whole burden of life, and to 
 forget the sorrow and disappointment with which his 
 career was beset. His whole being blossomed under 
 the sunshine of love and comprehension : in such so- 
 ciety he difiiised peace, and drew out from each all that 
 was best and purest; but where he felt that he was 
 suspected and misunderstood, he would often sit silent 
 for the whole evening. 
 
 The aspect of outward nature, which was society to 
 him, affected him in a like manner. He basked and 
 seemed to live more vividly in broad sunshine. On 
 the other hand, when his nervousness had increased 
 from the pressure of disease, it made all the difference
 
 182 mS LOVE OF BEAUTIFUL SCENERY. 
 
 between rapidity of thought, ease of arrangeinent of his 
 subject, and laborious failure, whether he wrote in a 
 room wdiich faced to the south or north. At that time, 
 and in a lesser degree always, a gloomy day influenced 
 him like a misfortune, and an ugly, inharmonious color 
 brought on nervous irritation. 
 
 He had therefore an exquisite perception of natural 
 scenery. Those who have heard his sermons will re- 
 member how often and delightedly he spoke of the sun- 
 sets at Brighton : not indulging in vague description, 
 but, with the artist's power of seeing, italicizing, as it 
 were, the essential and characteristic points of form and 
 color in the clouds and sky. His wanderings in the 
 Tyrol and Switzerland were never forgotten. Certain 
 scenes, especially, seem to have been engraved upon 
 his memory. There is a vivid description of one of 
 these in one of his lectures upon Poetry which is worth 
 quoting : — 
 
 I wish I could describe one scene which is passing before 
 my memory at this moment, when I found myself alone in 
 a solitary valley in the Alps, without a guide, and a thunder- 
 storm coming on : I wish I could explain how every circum- 
 stance combined to produce the same feeling, and ministered 
 to unity of impression : the slow wild wreathing of the vapor 
 round the peaks, concealing their summits, and imparting 
 in semblance their own motion, till each dark mountain- 
 form seemed to be mysterious and alive; the eagle-like 
 plunge of the lammergeier, the bearded vulture of the Alps ; 
 the rising of the flock of choughs, which I had surprised at 
 their feast on carrion, with their red beaks and legs, and their 
 wild shrill cries startling the solitude and silence, till the 
 blue lightning streamed at last, and the shattering thunders 
 crashed as if the mountains must give way. And then
 
 AN ALPINE STORM. 183 
 
 came the feelings which in their fulness man can feel but 
 once in life : mingled sensations of awe and triumph, and 
 defiance of danger, — pride, rapture, contempt of pain, hum- 
 bleness, and intense repose, as if all the strife and struggle 
 of the elements were only uttering the unrest of man's 
 bosom : so that in all such scenes there is a feeling of relief, 
 and he is tempted to cry out exultingly. There ! there ! All 
 this was in my heart, and it was never said out until now. 
 
 Here the accurate delineation of the outward scene 
 and the immediate combination of it with the mental 
 analogue to it in his own mind, are peculiarly charac- 
 teristic of his genius. He moralized Nature, not wil- 
 fully, but unconsciously. Phenomena lay in his brain 
 as pictures upon sensitive paper, till thought seized on 
 them as illustrations; and in proportion to the vivid- 
 ness with which the impression had been received, was 
 the clearness and concinnity of the thought and its 
 illustration. Nothing can be better, e. g.^ than the 
 comparison of the invisible church existing in the idea 
 of God, and the visible church mixed w^ith human in- 
 firmity and sin, to the Rhone as it issues purple and 
 clear from the Lake of Geneva, and the same river dis- 
 colored after its junction with the Arve. 
 
 The same sensitiveness regulated the effect of art 
 upon him. He had no ear for music ; but, in certain 
 states of feeling, beautiful sound — only as beautiful 
 sound, not as scientific music — made his mind creative, 
 and lingered so upon his ear that he could not sleep at 
 night. His love of paintings and sculpture arose not 
 so much from the education of the connoisseur, as 
 from the feelings they awakened. He allowed a pic- 
 ture to produce its influence upon him, without, at
 
 184 DIPKESSIONS FROM NATUEE AND ART. 
 
 least at first, an active exercise of his own mind upon 
 the picture. His was the " wise passiveness " which 
 allowed the spirit of the work to liave its own way 
 with him before he began to criticise. Two illustra- 
 tions of this will be found in his lectures on Poetry : 
 one, a Madonna at Blenheim, which he "could not 
 gaze upon without being conscious of a calming influ- 
 ence " ; the other, a print of a dying camel in the des- 
 ert, anticipating in despair its doom from the vultures. 
 " You cannot look at the print," he says, " without a 
 vivid sense and conception of despair. You go through 
 street after street before the impression ceases to haunt 
 
 you." 
 
 The impressions thus received he retained. He had 
 not, on their reception, " hooked them to some useful 
 end," and so destroyed their freshness and universality. 
 Afterwards they came in naturally and freely, as illus- 
 trations of ideas and assistance to thought, and, as was 
 often the case, in different connections and with dif- 
 ferent meanings. In art, as in other things, he grasped 
 the spirit and scorned the letter. Hence there was a 
 freedom of usage possible to him, which could not be- 
 long to the mere critic who had settled the purport of 
 the picture, and so limited its meaning. He was one 
 of the first to recognize the genius displayed in the 
 early efforts of the pre-Raphaelites. When most per- 
 sons ^aw only the crude, hard coloring, the ungracious 
 outlines, and the startling way in which features were 
 represented, as if they were seen through a magnifying- 
 glass, he felt at once the power and the truth in the 
 new School of Art, and prophesied its future influence 
 and excellence.
 
 APPRECIATION OF POETRY. 185 
 
 The same principle belongs to his appreciation of 
 poetry. He allowed it to make its own impression. 
 Delicacy of passion and subtlety of feeling made that 
 impression indelible. Presenting his heart in passive- 
 ness thus to receive, it was in his power to gain many 
 diverse ideas from the same portion of any poem, the 
 diversity depending on his state of health or mind at 
 the time. The impressions and ideas thus received he 
 then assumed lordship over, and used them as it pleased 
 him. He brought intellect to bear upon them, and 
 became the student and the critic. Thus he relates 
 in his letters, that late one night he was reading the 
 murder-scene in " Macbeth " ; and it arose so vividly 
 before his imagination, that he went up stairs to bed 
 w^ith almost the very dread which Macbeth had in his 
 own heart, and was obliged to go back again, to prove 
 to himself that he was not a child afraid of its own 
 shadow. It was easy to see that out of such a strong 
 realization as this, was born the power which produced 
 his critical explanation of that very scene in his lecture 
 upon Poetry. He had been himself Macbeth. When 
 he divided himself from that experience, he looked back 
 to it, and argued upon it. 
 
 Hence it was also a unique pleasure to hear him read 
 poetry. " No one," says one of his friends, " ever in- 
 terpreted more musically the rhythm, or with more 
 appreciation the beauties, of a poet." But he seldom 
 read aloud ; he required to feel that those who listened 
 listened with the heart. 
 
 In the same way as he felt Art, he felt the thoughts 
 of books and men, with an acuteness prophetic of brain- 
 disease. The pleasure he received on hearing of a
 
 186 HIS INDIGNATION AGAINST VICE. 
 
 noble act was so keen, that it bordered upon pain. 
 Men still recall the deep, almost stern, enthusiasm of 
 joy with which he spoke of the great obedience of the 
 soldiers who died in the wreck of the "Birkenhead" ; 
 and the tones of his voice when he described the cry of 
 the Hungarian nobles, " Let us die for our king, Maria 
 Theresa ! " The indignation, on the other hand, with 
 which he heard of a base act was so intense that it 
 rendered him sleepless. His wrath was terrible, and it 
 did not evaporate in words. But it was Christ-like in- 
 dignation. With those who were weak, crushed with 
 remorse, fallen, his compassion, long-suffering, and ten- 
 derness were as beautiful as they were unfailing. But 
 falsehood, hypocrisy, the sin of the strong against the 
 weak, stirred him to the very depths of his being. " I 
 have seen him," writes one of his friends, "grind his 
 teeth and clench his fist when passing a man who, he 
 knew, was bent on destroying an innocent girl." " My 
 blood," he writes himself, after a conversation on the 
 wrongs of women, " was running liquid fire." 
 
 From all this arose his eloquence and its power. 
 His mind was crowded with images which he had re- 
 ceived and arranged in an harmonious order. With 
 these he lit up the subjects of his speech, flashing upon 
 abstruse points the ray of an illustration, and that with 
 a fulness of apt words, and with, at the same time, a 
 reticence, which did not swamp the point in the illustra- 
 tion. 
 
 He had also an extraordinaiy power of expression 
 and arrangement. This belonged to him partly from 
 the sensitiveness of his ear to rhythm, — for, like many 
 who have no ear for music, he was acutely conscious
 
 HIS ELOQUENCE. 187 
 
 of the melody of ordered words, — and partly from the 
 sensitiveness of his imagination and of his intellect : the 
 imagination unsatisfied, unless it had grasped the heart 
 of the thought ; the intellect unsatisfied, unless it had 
 cut, polished, and placed in the finest setting, the dia- 
 mond of the thoucrht. To such a deo;ree is this true, 
 that even where the form of a sentence seems to be 
 faulty, its force is often lost if the w^ords be transposed. 
 " I cared almost as much for the form^'' writes one, 
 " as for the substance of what he said, and often asked 
 him, ' You said so and so ; tell me how you put it ? 
 This he could not endure.' " 
 
 So entirely was his heart in his words, that, in public 
 speaking especially, he lost sight of everything but his 
 subject. His self-consciousness vanished. He did not 
 choose his words, or think about his thoughts. He 
 not only possessed, but was possessed by, his idea ; and 
 when all was over, and the reaction came, he had for- 
 gotten, like a dream, w^ords, illustrations, almost every- 
 thing. It w^as always as great a mental exertion to 
 recall as to think out a sermon ; and he w^as frequently 
 unable, if he waited till Monday, to write out the notes 
 of what he had delivered on Sunday, unless it had been 
 partially written beforehand. After some of his most 
 earnest and passionate utterances, he has said to a 
 friend, " Have I made a fool of myself? " 
 
 But though he was carried away by his subject, he 
 was sufficiently lord over his own excitement to prevent 
 any loud or unseemly demonstration of it : he never 
 transgressed the boundaries of what is called pulpit 
 modesty. If the most conquering eloquence for the 
 English people be that of the man who is all but
 
 188 mS ELOQUENCE 
 
 mastered by his excitement, but who, at the very point 
 of being mastered, masters himself ^ — apparently cool, 
 while he is at a white heat — so as to make the au- 
 dience glow with the fire, and at the same time respect 
 the self-possessed power of the orator, — the man being 
 always felt as greater than the man's feelings, — if that 
 be the eloquence which most tells upon the English 
 nation, he had that eloquence. He spoke under tre- 
 mendous excitement, but it was excitement reined in 
 by will. He held in his hand, when he began his ser- 
 mon, a small slip of paper, with a few notes upon it. 
 He referred to it now and then ; but before ten minutes 
 had gone by, it was crushed to uselessness in his grasp ; 
 for he knit his fingers together over it, as he knit his 
 words over his thought. His gesture was subdued: 
 sometimes a slow motion of his hand upwards ; some- 
 times, bending forward, his hand drooping over the pul- 
 pit ; sometimes, erecting himself to his full height with 
 a sudden motion, as if upraised by the power of the 
 thought, he spoke. His voice — a musical, low, clear, 
 penetrative voice — seldom rose ; and when it did, it 
 was in a deep volume of sound, which was not loud, 
 but toned like a great bell. It thrilled, also, but that 
 was not so much from feeling as from the repression of 
 feeling. Towards the end of his ministry he was wont 
 to stand almost motionlessly erect in the pulpit, with 
 his hands loosely lying by his sides or grasping his 
 gown ; his pale, thin face, and tall, emaciated form, 
 seeming, as he spoke, to be glowing as alabaster glows 
 when ht up by an inward fire. And, indeed, brain and 
 heart were on fire. He was being self-consumed. 
 Every sermon in those latter days burnt up a portion
 
 EE^^:RED BY HIS CONGREGATION. 191 
 
 peared. It was never known, but shrewdly suspected, 
 that he had himself carried off the obnoxious volume, 
 and committed it in triumph to the flames. There are 
 praises which' are insults, which cannot be received 
 without the receiver feeling self-contempt. He could 
 not understand what he had done to deserve this tor- 
 ture. Such applause galled him, and stung him into 
 galling words. He spoke of being made a stump- 
 orator, of the infinite degradation inflicted on him by 
 popular opinion, of the self-scorn which it engendered. 
 He wrote of it, at the beginning of his ministry at 
 Brighton, in words as strong as those which follow, 
 which date from its close : — 
 
 If you knew how sick at heart I am with the whole work 
 of parle-ment, talkee, palaver, or whatever else it is called ; 
 how lightly I hold the " gift of the gab " ; how grand and 
 divine the realm of silence appears to me in comparison ; 
 how humiliated and degraded to the dust I have felt, in per- 
 ceiving myself quietly taken by gods and men for the popu- 
 lar preacher of a fashionable watering-place ; how slight the 
 power seems to me to be given by it of winning souls ; and 
 how sternly I have kept my tongue from saying a syllable 
 or a sentence, in pulpit or on platform, because it would be 
 popular ! . . . . 
 
 There was something morbid in this. He was so 
 wrung by the false admiration which was given him, 
 that he could not feel the true reverence of those who 
 formed the body of his congregation. Indeed, there 
 was an element of morbidness in all the developments 
 of his sensitiveness. But it was a morbidness which 
 had not grown upon him from without like a fungus on 
 a tree, but which was the natural outcome of his con-
 
 192 STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS. 
 
 stitution and temperament. It was born with him. 
 He never could have been entirely free from it, unless 
 he had been a soldier in constant warfare. It was in- 
 creased by physical disease, till it threatened to become 
 a tyrannous power. But here, where his greatest 
 weakness lay, appeared his greatest strength. If he 
 could not exactly say, " Most gladly, therefore, w^ill I 
 glory in mine infirmity, that the power of Christ may 
 rest upon me," yet those who have closely known his 
 character can say for him that he turned his necessity 
 to glorious gain. He transmuted the dross of his nature 
 into gold by the alchemy of Christian effort. ''He was 
 the most inflexible person," says an intimate friend, 
 " with all his almost morbid delicacy of feeling, — an 
 iron will, impossible to move when it was fixed by prin- 
 ciple." Another writes, — 
 
 His sharpest griefs never got the better of his power of 
 concentrating himself in thought or in action. He could 
 put them aside, as if they did not exist. Some of his finest 
 sermons were thought out when distress of mind, it might 
 be supposed, only gave him leave to feel. Some of his hard- 
 est work in the world was done when his spirit was most 
 keenly wounded. 
 
 He possessed a clear view of the dangers to which 
 he was exposed by his sensitiveness and impressibihty. 
 He might have been wrecked on the same rock as 
 Coleridge. But his resolution was early taken : he 
 would be, by God's help, a man after the pattern of 
 Christ Jesus. He labored from his earliest years to 
 conquer the perilous tendencies of his nature. They 
 arose sometimes from the excessive nervous irritation 
 which the fierce excitement of mental exertion pro-
 
 DANGEROUS TENDENCIES OF HIS CHARACTER. 193 
 
 duced. He met them tlien by severe physical exercise. 
 Into this, when it was possible for him, — and that was 
 but seldom, — he entered with the eagerness with which 
 he did everything. He had a lithe form ; his step was 
 quick, his carriage soldier-hke, and it was refreshing to 
 meet him as he walked, his motion breathed so of ac- 
 tivity. It was almost amusing to go with him when he 
 went out shooting over a moor. He was entirely ab- 
 sorbed in his work. He would walk for hours after a 
 single bird, and reluctantly leave off the pursuit of this 
 coy grouse when night began to fall. He would sit for 
 hours in a barrel sunk in the border of a marsh, wait- 
 ing for wild-duck. His excitement kept him from feel- 
 ing weariness, ennui, or discomfort. These hours of 
 delight he obtained about once a year, and, in the 
 earlier years of his ministry at Brighton, they refreshed 
 him. But towards the end, when he had lost nervous 
 force, the severity of the exercise wdiich he sometimes 
 took was a mistake. He reduced irritation by it, but 
 he robbed himself of strength when he had none to 
 spare. 
 
 But when the dangers to which his character was 
 liable arose from mental or spiritual causes, he met 
 them differently. When he was tortured by the noise 
 of slander which surrounded him, and by the petty 
 party opposition to which he was subjected, he had re- 
 course to the healing influence of poetry, or took refuge 
 in the study of chemistry, and in the dignity and calm- 
 ness of the laws of that science forgot for a time the 
 pain he suffered. He did not fall into the common 
 mistake of endeavoring to eradicate his natural qualities 
 because they seemed to tend to evil : he rather tried to 
 
 VOL. I. 9 M
 
 194 EFFORTS TO COUNTERACT THEM. 
 
 restrain, balance, and exalt them by a higher motive. 
 He fought with evil, he said, as Perseus fought with the 
 sea-monster, — from above. His rule of life was not 
 *' Crush what is natural," but " Walk in the spirit, and 
 ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh." Far above all 
 other motives was his love to Christ. That was the 
 root of his life, and the life of all his effort. It was a 
 conscious, personal, realized devotion. It was too hal- 
 lowed a feeling for him to speak much of. It colored 
 and pervaded every thought; was an unceasing pres- 
 ence with him ; lay at the foundation of every en- 
 deavor, and was brought to bear on every action in life, 
 on every book he read, and almost on every word he 
 spoke. 
 
 Temptations and doubts he strove to solve by work- 
 ing among the poor. The indulging in mere aspira- 
 tions he would not permit himself: he freed his ideal 
 world from its atmosphere of sloth and vague cloud- 
 land, by putting, as far as he could, his aspirations into 
 action. No work was too small for him. He did not 
 despise the dullest intellect ; and was fair, patient, and 
 gentle in argument, even with the intolerant. He 
 listened to a child with interest and consideration. 
 Somehow, he reached the most dense in a Sunday- 
 school class. He led the children to elaborate for 
 themselves the thought he wished to give them, and to 
 make it their own. No pains or patience were spared 
 in doing this. It was strange to see so fiery a nature 
 drudging on so meekly, and gently, and perseveringly, 
 content to toil at striking sparks out of apparently hope- 
 less clay. But untiring earnestness and unflinching 
 resolution in duty made him do all things as in God's 
 sight.
 
 THE HIDDEN CONTEST WITH HBISELF. 195 
 
 The pleasure of using fine words about religious feel- 
 ings, and loud-sounding phrases about social wrongs, he 
 despised with a true man's scorn. He spoke much of 
 Courtesy ; and a friend has said of him, " that his bear- 
 ing towards inferiors was marked by the most polished 
 delicacy ; that his consideration for the comfort of ser- 
 vants was so great, that they adored him. He spoke 
 much of Truth, and he was crowned with its crown, — 
 the crown of thorns. He spoke much about Self-sacri- 
 fice, and he gave up his own pleasures and pursuits to 
 almost any one. He gTudged a sixpence spent on per- 
 sonal gratification, and retrenched in what was even 
 needful, that he might give to the necessities of others, 
 and — he died at his post with his armor on to the last. 
 He spoke much about the wrongs of woman ; and it is 
 very touching to know that during the last year of his 
 life he fi-equently went forth at night, and endeavored 
 to redeem the fallen women of Brio-hton. This was 
 the way In which he waged the battle against himself. 
 It was a stern and a concealed contest. His suffering 
 was great; but he kept it to himself. Only to one 
 friend he compares himself to the Spartan boy who held 
 his cloak around him while the fox was gnawing at his 
 entrails. The physical pain he endured during the 
 last six months of his life was excruciating. And yet, 
 through all this, nothing is finer than this quiet devotion 
 to all small duties, his steadfast mastery over himself, his 
 unwaverino; adherence to a course of teachino; which 
 brought upon him the censure and slander which, how- 
 ever his reason might despise them, stung his heart to 
 the last. 
 
 But he could not always restrain himself. Some-
 
 196 CAUSES OF THE GLOOM IN HIS LETTERS. 
 
 times, when he was sure of sympathy, his passion broke 
 forth in a redundance of sorrowful words ; or his views 
 of life, when physical exhaustion had made him less 
 master over dark thoughts, were poured out in the re- 
 lief of almost wild expression. It is these passages in 
 his letters which his friends have hesitated to give to 
 the public. But without them, I repeat, any view of 
 his character would be incomplete. Its strength could 
 not be understood unless through what men may call 
 its weakness. Moreover, in these states of excitement, 
 — which were partly natural and partly unnatural, 
 partly true and partly untrue, — some of his finest 
 thoughts and most delicate analyses of feeling, and 
 some of his most startling eloquence, were produced. 
 Pain made him creative : it was when his heart's blood 
 was being drawn that the heart of his genius was re- 
 vealed. 
 
 The letters which are- inserted after this and the fol- 
 lowing chapter were written in 1849 and 1850. It 
 must be distinctly kept in mind by the reader who 
 wishes to distinguish between the work of Mr. Robert- 
 son and his feelings, w^ho wishes to separate the appar- 
 ent unmanliness of some of his expressions from the 
 manliness of his life, — first, that in these years ill 
 health of a serious character began to throw its sombre 
 shade over life, and extreme nervous irritability and 
 pain to follow every intellectual exertion ; secondly, 
 that in these years, also, he recognized clearly, with a 
 sorrow proportioned to his passionate desire for sympa- 
 thy, the loneliness to which his teaching doomed him, 
 and the systematic opposition which he prophesied, only 
 too truly, would increase year by year in virulence.
 
 CAUSES OF THE GLOOM IN HIS LETTEES. 197 
 
 One other cause there is for the gloomy hue of some 
 of his letters : it is, that few men have ever felt more 
 deeply than he with the sorrow of the world. Brought 
 much into contact with grief, and pain, and guilt, — • 
 realizing by the force of his imagination the sufferings 
 of the battle-field, and the cry of thousands, homeless, 
 miserable, and done to death by the selfishness of men, 
 — appalled by the sin and crime which he saw every- 
 where and in their true light, — he was often crushed 
 to the earth by the thought of the guilt and suffering 
 of Humanity. He felt them personally, acutely, as 
 if they were his own. It was no fictitious pain, no 
 ideal grief; he could not put it aside. And, in connec- 
 tion with this, the terrible contradiction which all this 
 sorrow, pain, and sin seemed to give to the truth that 
 the Ruler of this world is Love, pressed upon him with 
 a force which fiercely demanded a solution. Abraham's 
 awful question, " Shall not the Judge of all the earth 
 do right ? " rang in his ears, and again and again was 
 the expression of his inmost thought. He felt that life 
 was not worth living, unless he could find the answer 
 to that question. In proportion to the strange depth 
 of his power of suffering with men, and to the almost 
 preternatural keenness with which he felt the mystery 
 of the great problem of the universe, was the slowness 
 with which he found the answer. But he did find it, 
 as the reader of his letters will see, — and in the Cross 
 of Christ. Once found, he acquiesced in its teaching, 
 quietly and faithfully. All questioning, all doubt left 
 him as he drew near to the close of his career. He 
 could look beyond the scene in which Humanity suf- 
 fers, to the larger stage where Suffering has its result
 
 198 FICHTE. 
 
 in Perfection, and bow humbly before the wisdom of 
 the infinite Charity. But, In the mean time, the Inward 
 pain he suffered, both from the doubt and that which 
 suggested It, continually emerges in his writings, and 
 colors his A^ews of life. 
 
 LETTERS AND EXTRACTS. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 August, 1849. 
 
 My dear , — The translation I sent you of Fichte is 
 
 not the best. It was reckoned a failure : so, if you like to 
 wait till the new one comes, which will be to-morrow, you 
 can; or, if you prefer that, and then compare it with the 
 other, perhaps that may be better, as it is only by degrees, 
 and with some toil, that any one gets at Fichte's meaning. 
 I have begun to-day a work of his, which I had never read 
 before, with wonder and delight, — partly because it must 
 perforce elevate, and partly because it is but the scientific 
 exposition of views to which gradually and unscientifically 
 I have worked my own way ; in which I may henceforth 
 progress, but go back never. The first chapter singularly 
 resembles, even in expression, the views of last Sunday's 
 sermon, — God being apprehended by thought, and in no 
 other way approachable by us. Yet it is scarcely singular ; 
 for Plato, or the little I read of Plato, gave me an impulse 
 which can never end thi'ough eternity, and Fichte's view 
 is scientific Platonism. 
 
 My whole being, love and thought, must form themselves 
 round this, and after the spirit of the supersensuous, or else 
 never exist at all. O that I could grasp the sublime 
 truths which have floated before my soul as the solution of
 
 HOME IN THE SUPERSENSUOUS. 199 
 
 life's mystery for years, and which to the mass of minds are 
 but the world of shadows, — to me the only realities ! . . . . 
 I am compelled to penetrate into a region that is invisible, 
 and there, somehow, in the eternal and the unalterable, which 
 is not subject to the vicissitudes of that which is perishable, 
 — transient emotions, vexatious circumstances, — I seem to 
 
 find a home But this is an unsatisfactory, and, what is 
 
 worse, an unproductive state. It may be grand to expatiate 
 in a world of feeling and loneliness into which human 
 voices do not penetrate. But we have a work to do on this 
 earth : and I am almost sure that that work is done best by 
 those minds which are definite, deal in formulas, and are 
 not haunted by the sick dream of the unfound beauty, and 
 pervaded by a conviction of the unreality of everything ex- 
 cej)t thought and the invisible. 
 
 From within we must fetch our strength ; for dependence 
 upon aught external to our own souls leaves us strengthless, 
 
 when its presence is removed or delayed Our best 
 
 blessedness can only be shaken to the centre by ourselves. 
 Life is what we make it. And there are delicately-organized 
 minds in which a mental error, — a fault in the tone of 
 thinking, — can produce more misery than crime can in 
 coarser minds. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 My dear Friend, — I do most earnestly rejoice that 
 people have felt an improvement and a softened purified 
 tone in my ministry. 
 
 I will endeavor to develop the Catechism into the sense 
 in which I am at present content to accept its very words. 
 " He bore my sins," for instance, I am willing to say, and in 
 deep humiliation, in a deeper sense than many mean ; though 
 I doubt not, because deep and because connected with the 
 great principle which awfully pervades the universe, there- 
 fore, for that very reason, counted a heterodox sense.
 
 200 "MY SINS NAILED HIM TO THE TREE." 
 
 It is often said, " My sins nailed Him to the Tree.'' There 
 is a sense in which this contains a deep and extensive truth, 
 — another in which it is merely the statement of an ab- 
 surdity. 
 
 The crisis of the conflict between the kingdoms of Good 
 and Evil took place in the death of Christ: the highest 
 manifestation of Good in Him, — the highest manifestation 
 of Evil in the persons of those who saw the Divinest Ex- 
 cellence, and called it Satanic Evil. To call evil good, and 
 good evil, — to call Divine Good Satanic Wickedness, — 
 there is no state lower than this. It is the rottenness of 
 the core of the heart: it is the unpardonable because irre- 
 coverable sin. 
 
 With this evil, in its highest development, the Son of Man 
 came into collision. He died unto sin. The Prince of this 
 World came and found nothing congenial in Him. He was 
 his victim, not his subject. 
 
 So far as I belong to that kingdom or fight in that warfare, 
 it may be truly said, the Saviour died by my sin. Every 
 time I hate a good man for his meekness or his goodness, — 
 find bad motives to account for the excellence of those who 
 differ from me, — judge sins of weakness more severely 
 than sins of wickedness, — shut God out of my soul to sub- 
 stitute some lie of my own or of society, — I am a sharer 
 in the spirit to which He fell a victim. He bare my sins 
 in His body on the Tree. ^ 
 
 Similarly, He Himself says of the prophets, — " The blood 
 of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of 
 the world, shall be required of this generation." Why? 
 " Because they bare witness that they allowed the deeds 
 of their fathers." In their day they did the same thinjlj'^ 
 spirit which their fathers did in theirs. So, in the Sanhe- 
 drim, Stephen saw the same brood of vipers which had stung 
 Moses and the Prophets. So, too, the indulger of hatred ia 
 guilty of murder, and takes his place with murderers.
 
 ESTIMATE OF HIS CRITICS. 201 
 
 But to say that He bore my sins in this sense, — that He 
 was haunted by an evil conscience and its horrors for this 
 lie of mine, and that cruel word, &c., is to make a statement 
 of which it is not enough to say that it is false ; it is abso- 
 lutely unmeaning, as well as destructive of all real concep- 
 tion of the enormity of sin. No effort can get any conception 
 of what is meant by conscience of another's sin. It repre- 
 sents Him as suffering under a delusion, and makes the 
 whole agony base itself upon a figment, as unreal as a re- 
 covery at law under the noms de guerre of " Doe and Roe," 
 invented by those who had to defend themselves against the 
 monkish chicanery of the Middle Ages by subtleties as in- 
 genious as their own. Quite rightly do the advocates of this 
 " Redemption by a figment of Law " call this system of 
 justijication a "forensic proceeding." 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Enclosed you will find one of those letters which provoke 
 me, though meant in kindness. Is it pride which makes such 
 things offensive, since annoyance implies conscious superi- 
 ority to the praiser, and seems inconsistent with the apparent 
 humility which disclaims power? I think not. Two gen- 
 tlemen come into my chapel, — one uncertain of my ortho- 
 doxy, the other strongly prejudiced against the belief of it : 
 both go away satisfied that all is right, and magnanimously 
 condescend to intimate approval, which, being interpreted, 
 means all is harmless, old, regular, dull. Whereat I have 
 no right to take offence ; but the assumption of a right to 
 approve is a little galling, because it implies the idea of 
 being in possession of a measure by which the approver is 
 entitled to try, and, if necessary, blame. To award appro- 
 bation, is to retain the power and right of awarding rebuke. 
 From an indisputable superior that can be borne, from a 
 friend it is delightful, for then it is only the answer of a 
 second and a purified conscience. No one is insulted by
 
 202 ESTIMATE OF HIS CRITICS. 
 
 what his own conscience, the most sacred part of himself, 
 affirms. But when it comes from a stranger who has no 
 claim to friendship, and has no right at least to assume supe- 
 riority, it seems to me very like the comments of a master 
 on a schoolboy's exercise, which he certainly would have 
 scored if it had had faults, and perhaps even given him an 
 imposition. I disclaim the power of ninety-nine out of every 
 hundred who hear me to even judge of what I say ; and that, 
 not because I think myself superior to them, and am there- 
 fore proud, but because I live in a realm of thought which 
 is not theirs, and they do not know the existence of the 
 problems which I cannot solve, nor can they guess the diffi- 
 culties. In entering the narrow channel of the Bermudas, 
 the pilot stands not at the helm, but at the bows, looking 
 down into the deep water, clear as crystal, to see the coral 
 reef above which, or rather through which, he is threading 
 his dangerous way. Sometimes there is scarcely twice the 
 ship's own breadth between point and point; yet between 
 those he must go, cannot pause, and ten feet divergence on 
 either side would be shipwreck. He may do his work very 
 awkwardly, and even be conscious of great mistakes ; but 
 with the most perfect humility he may utterly disclaim the 
 power of any one standing on the shore to judge his seaman- 
 ship, who is looking along a smooth level surface, instead 
 of looking down upon a bed of rocks that lie beneath the 
 surface. No wonder that his tacks, and turns, and zigzag 
 eccentricities of course are perfectly unintelligible. "I would 
 have steered direct to that point." "Yes, my good friend, 
 but did you see the rock? and if not, what can you know 
 about the matter? Come up here, and then give me an 
 opinion if you can." Now, the pilot who is up there, is not 
 a wiser man than the other, but he has got a different point 
 of view, and from that point he defies all human judgment, 
 until you go and sit beside him.
 
 CONNECTION WITH THE FUTUEE. 203 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 You ask for an explanation of Tennyson's expression, — 
 When I felt the days before me. 
 
 I think it is one of those of which you cannot distil the 
 quintessence without crushing the flower. The work of anal- 
 ysis in the laboratory is always a coarse one. Earthern cru- 
 cibles and hammers, and cold furnaces and blowpipes, no 
 doubt, scientifically resolve all things into their elements, but 
 the graceful forms of things disappear in the midst of the 
 rude apparatus. However, I will try. 
 
 Our connection with the future may be a dead or a living 
 one. Freshness of anticipation and hope make it living. Re- 
 peated disappointment or satiety dull that feeling, and, as it 
 were, benumb the sense by which we vividly felt the connec- 
 tion thrill our being. A wire of metal connects you with the 
 electrical machine, and every spark travels to your frame. 
 A rod of glass connects you, too, but not electrically, being a 
 non-conductor. You do not feel the innate real force, the 
 spiritual life which is in the machinery before you. It is only 
 machinery. Or, again, did you never in fishing feel the life 
 that is throbbing at the other end of the hue when a fresh 
 untired fish is running out all the tackle? Did you never 
 observe how all this changes into a dull, dead drag when 
 either the animal is worn out, or a piece of lifeless sea-weed 
 has got entangled on your hook, and draws it perpendicu- 
 larly, heavily downwards ? Magnify that, — fancy the vig- 
 orous pull of a whale drawing a thousand fathoms of rope 
 after him, and the boat joyously plunging after at an appall- 
 incr rate throu2;h an ocean which has no bounds visible on 
 either side, the gunwale brought level with the waves, and 
 the breakers dancing in their spray, with just sufficient risk 
 to make the excitement wilder; and then, I suppose, you 
 have a kind of illustration of a poet's young heart when " he 
 feels the days before him, the wild pulsation of the strife."
 
 204 ON SOUVEXIES. 
 
 When the life of the future slackens, the mighty mass slowly 
 gravitates, and the pull is a dead one, down rather than up ; 
 or else it rises to take breath, and lies flat, — to plunge no 
 more into the unfathomable. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 September, 1849. 
 
 My dear , — What do I think of souvenirs ? I like 
 
 them much, provided they are not costly. Yet I know not 
 "whether I do not like even more to dispense with symbols 
 altogether. For they gather round them, by constant use, 
 new associations, by which the old are obliterated, the pre- 
 cious and hallowed first ones. All things worn or often seen 
 are liable to this. The old habit of erecting an altar of 
 stones to commemorate any signal event was different. It 
 was revisited only at the iuterval of years, and infallibly 
 brought back the old feeling with which it had stood in con- 
 nection once. But ornaments, and such things, collect accre- 
 tions of daily incidents which they sugg^, and the symbol 
 does not naturally, but only arbitrarily, recall the person or 
 idea intended to be consecrated by it. I have an insupera- 
 ble objection to presents, — almost a monomania; I am hap- 
 pier without receiving. 
 
 There is a pretension in what is costly, too, that is pro- 
 voking. It seems to affect to interpret in one kind of value 
 that which is precious in another order altogether, — feeling 
 by gold, — and feeling is simply incommensurable except by 
 feeling. Gold no more interprets it or symbolizes it than 
 things seen can resemble things heard. Whereas trifles — 
 humble and unpretending — do not challenge an indignant 
 comparison between the preciousness of the material and the 
 preciousness of the feeling, and simply standing as memo- 
 rials may become valuable. 
 
 I do not think I have rightly made clear, even yet, why 
 purchased presents dissatisfy me. The reason is, perhaps,
 
 ON SOUVENIES. 205 
 
 dimly felt, rather than definitely made plain, even to myself. 
 It has been an instinct which I have not thought it necessary 
 to analyze. Let me try. I think I am pained rather than 
 pleased by such souvenirs, because they are arbitrary sym- 
 bols of regard. They are like the symbols used in algebra 
 to represent any number, say 745. You take a letter, x or y. 
 You say that y equals and represents 745, — a connection 
 purely arbitrary. To-morrow y may represent 20, if you say 
 that it is to do so. It is only by an act of the will that the 
 letter represents a number. Take it out of that connection — 
 let the arbitrary meaning pass — and the natural idea sug- 
 gested is a sound. 
 
 Similarly with purchased presents. I get a piece of metal 
 or stone, and say, " let it represent my regard." This is arbi- 
 trary ; for the only connection which subsists between it and 
 me, really, is that I paid for it a certain number of pounds or 
 shillings. It is not my idea or device executed in metal (for 
 then, indeed, the metal does become a secondary, and the de- 
 vice a primary thought, — provided the material be not so 
 costly as to overwhelm and annihilate the idea of design and 
 designer) ; nor is it my work, nor any thing which is pecu- 
 liarly associated with my history, for the laws of such tokens 
 absurdly lay a stress upon the gift being new. So that in 
 fact I have merely given my friend an algebraic symbol, 
 which might have represented another as well as myself, and 
 will in truth some day represent Am, if he die, and it become 
 the property of a relation. Now it may even happen, and I 
 think generally does, that this arbitrary meaning is not the 
 one naturally suggested by the symbol, but is rather one 
 which it requires a distinct effort of the will to call up and 
 recreate. I use the pencil-case which my friend has given 
 me, daily ; but that daily use surrounds it with manifold as- 
 sociations. I used it perhaps, for instance, to write a letter 
 in some desolate place in the Alps, where I could get no ink ; 
 well, that association, in spite of myself, rivets itself to the
 
 206 ON SOUVENIES. 
 
 token of my friend's affection. It lies before me ever after, 
 suggesting that sublime scenery, and calling up the forms and 
 features of the friends or strangers who were with me then, 
 rather than those of the donor. Or, perhaps, instead of one 
 vivid association, it may connect itself with innumerable 
 weaknesses which it suggests when I look at it, — sometimes 
 one, sometimes another. It is very plain that its represen- 
 tation of my friend is now no longer the natural, but only an 
 arbitrary one. I can by an act of will recall the algebraic mean- 
 ing, and recollect that it was said. Let case = a b c's regard. 
 But by an act of will I can also recall that regard itself with- 
 out the presence of the pencil-case ; so that the symbol is no 
 real assistance to keeping him in mind, because it requires 
 exactly the same effort which would have succeeded without 
 its intervention. 
 
 I have no objection to receive costly presents from per- 
 sons I do not value (except so far as a feeling of indepen- 
 dence revolts against accepting them), because I possess a 
 thing which is in itself worth having, and I do not feel any- 
 thing inadequate in the representation, for they represent 
 themselves these valuable gifts, wliich is all I want. But 
 with any one for whom I feel regard, a souvenir provokes 
 me to look at it, just as an illuminated cloud does at sunset, 
 because I know the glory will soon pass and leave the dull 
 cloud behind alone. The gold will be there on the finger 
 or on the table as usual; but the beauty of its significance 
 will be gone or dimmed. 
 
 There are, of course, some gifts which are not arbitrary, 
 but natural symbols, and suggest all that is desired without 
 efforts. If Sir Charles Napier would give me the horse 
 he rode at Meeanee with the great scar still remaining, no 
 subsequent association could supersede that. The shot he 
 gave my father which grazed him in the action, a letter, 
 something that has been used or worn, — these are natural 
 memorials significant forever of one thing, and never by any 
 possibility of a second in the same degree.
 
 ON SOUVEXIES. 207 
 
 So mucli for receiving. I do not mind giving ; for though 
 I cannot bear to profane, by meaner associations, anything 
 which has once reminded me of a friend, I feel no pain at 
 the idea of that which has belonged to me being profaned. 
 Indeed, I should not apply such a word to it. I give for 
 the pleasure of giving, and also for present use or present 
 pleasure. When those are passed, I Hke to give again, 
 something which may be of new use and new pleasure. 
 Some years ago, when I could ill afford it, I gave a man a 
 gold snuff-box like a boy : I was not a bit hurt by seeing 
 that same box last year, dull, in evident disuse, lying among 
 a number of gimcracks on a side-table. I know he values 
 me as much as he did when I was a boy. But in receiving 
 it is quite different. 
 
 As iu this bad world below, 
 Noblest things find vilest using. 
 
 I cannot bear to profane, by common iise, even the writing 
 of one I care for. A direction on a parcel or an envelope 
 I carefully tear off and put in the fire, before I could con- 
 vert the paper even into the cover of a book or another 
 parcel. So much of superstition, — is it such? — clings to 
 minds which fancy themselves entirely emancipated from 
 all the delusions of materialism. 
 
 For these reasons I am painfully fastidious about receiving. 
 I had rather have nothing, far rather, when I must. I dis- 
 like everything except it be of a character such as I have 
 indicated in the class of things enumerated above. Not 
 arbitrary, but natural 
 
 I say a flower is more precious than gold or jewels, — 
 not simply as precious, but more precious, just because it 
 has no intrinsic value, and because it will so soon wither. 
 Its withered leaves are more treasured than a costly gem, 
 and more sacred because they have not two kinds of value, 
 but only one. Such gifts are as disembodied spirits, — all 
 spirit, and pure.
 
 208 ON DESULTORY EEADING. 
 
 All sombre thoughts pass away beneath the genial influ- 
 ence of this serene, cloudless sky. Wliat a soft, pure, pearly 
 blue ! and the white smoke rises up into it in slow and most 
 indolent wreaths, as if it were resolved to enjoy itself and 
 recline upon cushions of summer air, robed in loosest, thinnest 
 morning drapery of gauze. 
 
 Does not every fresh morning that succeeds a day of gloom 
 and east wind, seem to remind us that for a living spirit, 
 capable, because living, of renovation, there can be no such 
 thing as " failure," whatever a few past jesLVs may seem 
 to say? 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 My dear , — It is very surprising to find how little 
 
 we retain of a book, how little we have really made our own 
 when we come to interrogate ourselves as to what account 
 we can give of it, however we may seem to have mastered 
 by understanding it. Hundreds of books read once have 
 passed as completely from us as if we had never read them ; 
 whereas the discipline of mind got by writing down, not 
 copying, an abstract of a book which is worth the trouble, 
 fixes it on the mind for years, and, besides, enables one to 
 read other books with more attention and more profit. I am 
 very anxious to do what good I can while it is allowed me. 
 To this, as to every other thing which has light and life, 
 perhaps the night cometh. Then feelings pass, hopes perish : 
 that which was becomes more faint and dreamlike every 
 day, — that which is done alone remains with permanency. 
 But a man must prepare aIo?ie ; for, as Goethe says, '• men- 
 tal power elaborates itself in solitude." All else is only 
 valuable as an impulse and an excitement to this. Much of 
 our time is necessarily taken up, but we should force our- 
 selves resolutely sometimes to be alone Broken and 
 
 interrupted as life is, it demands all the more earnest effort 
 to prevent it all falling into fragments. I knew the restless-
 
 SACEIFICIAL EXPRESSION. 209 
 
 nes8 and misery of time occupied in a desultory way, — the 
 hurried scramble into which it converts existence, and the 
 loneliness and aimlessness which it leaves behind, and which 
 tempt one to get rid of them by the same unprofitable seek- 
 ing of distractions again. 
 
 ****** 
 
 All devotional feeling requires sacrificial expression. There 
 is a "sacrifice of the lips," and there is also the sacrifice 
 of an offering which involves expense and suffering. The 
 first, being the readiest at command, is the most usually 
 given ; but, being given, it unfortunately prevents the other, 
 because, first of all, costing little, words are given prodigally, 
 and sacrificial acts must toil for years to cover the space 
 which a single fervid promise has stretched itself over. No 
 wonder that the slow acts are superseded by the available 
 words, the weighty bullion by the current paper-money. If 
 I have conveyed all I feel by language, I am tempted to 
 fancy, by the relief experienced, that feeling has attained 
 its end and realized itself Farewell, then, to the toil of 
 the " daily sacrifice ! " Devotion has found for itself a vent 
 in words. 
 
 Now there seems to me to be a great difference in the 
 effects produced by these two kinds of sacrificial expression. 
 That by words is simply relief, — necessary, blessed, — with- 
 out which smothered feeling would be torture, — sometimes, 
 in some minds, madness. But, being only relief, it does 
 not strengthen the feeling, except so far as it prevents 
 morbidness. It rather weakens it by getting rid of the pain- 
 fulness. It is a safety-valve ; but the danger is that so much 
 force should escape by an impetuous rush through this, — ■ 
 that there should be little left to bring higher energies into 
 action. For this reason I rejoice, even though made rest- 
 less, when my words cannot be commensurate with emotions. 
 The other kind of expression, on the contrary, — the sacri- 
 fice of acts, — is not only a relief, but a strength to feeling. 
 
 N
 
 210 EFFECTS OF SUSPICION ON CHARACTER. 
 
 You condense your floating vague desires in something that 
 does not disperse into thin air. There it is, visible, — done ; 
 one of the facts of life ; part of your history, credit realized 
 in gold ; a pledge for the future, for this reason, that if your 
 feelings should aker afterwards, all those acts which have 
 cost so much are throwTi away, and become so much time, 
 suffering, expense, lost forever. You guard the feeling for 
 the sake of not losing all this. Thus deeds become a home 
 which arrest and bind to themselves the feeling and the love 
 which built them up. Your heart becomes the inmate of 
 its own acts, and dwells in the midst of its expenditure. It 
 has given away its home, and it has no other home except 
 in remaining near the one to whom all this has been given. 
 Thenceforth two spirits dwell together. I think the heavenly 
 philosophy of this is contained in those words, " Sell that 
 ye have, and give alms .... for where your treasure is, there 
 will your heart be also." We cannot afford to lightly throw 
 away that person or that cause on which we have ventured 
 so much. 
 
 No friendship is worth the name, unless it does the highest 
 good, assisting to escape from the manifest forms of selfish- 
 ness, and to look at duty with fresh impulse. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 It is impossible to calculate the effects which may be pro- 
 duced by distrust and suspicion. They make the heart col- 
 lapse, and wither the character. I believe that universal dis- 
 trust would ruin any character. 
 
 If anything hke insincerity or aiming at effect be hinted, it 
 is but natural to endeavor to remove such impressions ; but 
 this can be only done by making every word and act look as 
 probable and as natural as is possible. True feelings and 
 true words are suppressed, if they do not seem likely, even 
 supposing that untrue ones are not simulated instead, because
 
 WHAT IS PRAYER ? 211 
 
 they seem likely. All this produces a secret sense of acting 
 a part : true it is that the part is only this, to seem what we 
 are ; but that itself is acting, and it is the commencement 
 of a habit of insincerity. Not really insincerity in itself, it 
 is yet in feeling so like to the feeling of insincerity that the 
 transition from one to the other is fearfully facilitated. When 
 the feeling of real duplicity or insincerity actually presents 
 itself, the mind is already half familiar with it, having been 
 familiar with the semblance, and does not recoil with that 
 vehemence which marks a heart that has never suspected 
 itself, nor been suspected. I would engage, if it were not a 
 Satanic task, to make any child a liar by cross-questioning 
 every assertion, and showing him that I suspected every 
 thought and feeling. He would soon learn to dwell in the 
 region of plausibilities, and cease to breathe the fresh, free 
 air of unconscious truth. 
 
 I must have expressed myself very ill for you to have mis- 
 taken what I said respecting prayer. I did not mean that 
 the change of heart cannot be obtained by prayer. I only 
 said, though evidently not with sufficient distinctness, that 
 Simon Magus's leaning upon Peter's prayer was of a piece 
 with the rest of his conduct, and belonged to a mind which 
 looked for marvellous effects from external agency. Money, 
 imposition of hands, prayer, — it was all the same, — some- 
 thing that could be performed independently of character, 
 anything but inward moral effort. Prayer was to Simon of 
 the nature of a charm ; certain cabalistic words, of the secret 
 of making which efficacious Peter was in possession. I think 
 there is a great difference between Simon's praying himself, 
 and asking another to pray for him. Of course, the latter is 
 also done by Christians, rightly ; but in the mouth of a man 
 like Simon, such a request is only superstition, if you com- 
 pare it with the rest of his character. Indeed, I believe that 
 the reliance which many people now place on the interces- 
 sion of others for them, leading, as I have seen it lead, to an
 
 212 TEE INWARD CHANGE. 
 
 indolent feeling of some mystenous transaction going on 
 without the sphere of their cognizance, in which they are 
 interested, and the results of which will some day be com- 
 fortably their own, is very much of the same nature, — a 
 mere belief in magic. 
 
 It is also possible that even a man's own prayer may as- 
 sume this character, and be little more of a spiritual act than 
 the Calmuck's rotation of a metal plate, on which the prayer 
 is inscribed : such, unquestionably, was the prayer of the 
 Pharisees, who expected that " they should be heard for their 
 much speaking." Whenever praying degenerates into saying 
 prayers, or when prayer becomes prayers^ measured and 
 counted, acts instead of utterances, I think this has taken 
 place. Only in this sense could I say that the soul cannot 
 invest itself with the Spirit through prayer. 
 
 As to the remainder of your question, — where the inward 
 change begins ? — there you touch a point on which I hold it 
 impossible to give theoretical satisfaction, though it does not 
 seem to be ditficult to answer it to our own selves practically. 
 The question, in fact, touches the great difficulty of the union 
 of the Spontaneous with the Necessary. A reply, one of the 
 best I know, is given in a book I am reading ; whether it 
 will satisfy you I cannot yet say : — • 
 
 " What makes a man turn to God in the first instance ? " 
 Unquestionably, the Spirit that is seeking him ; but which is 
 also seeking us, which requires a reciprocal effort on our 
 part. I firmly believe that the Universal Spirit, " not far 
 from any one of us," is seeking all ; and, in the union-point, 
 where the will of the Finite is changed by, and voluntarily 
 adopts as its own, the will of the Infinite, lies the answer to 
 the deep question you have put, — " What makes a man turn 
 to God in the first instance ? " I despair of ever giving, or 
 ever seeing given, a clearer reply than this, which leaves the 
 matter still unfathomable ; for plainly there is something in 
 it deeper than the farthest-reaching minds have yet pene-
 
 NECESSITY AND FEEE WILL. 213 
 
 trated. Once it was a question of torture to me, interfering 
 with energy, and paralyzing me with the feeling of being a 
 mere machine, acting under the delusion of spontaneousness. 
 Now I am pretty well satisfied with the practical solution of 
 the question, except in moments when thought works darkly, 
 apart from action, — God's own appointed eye-salve for the 
 blinding disease of speculative tendencies. My reply (for 
 myself sufficient) is this : — Reasoning tells me I am a leaf, 
 blown about by the breath of the Spirit-wind as it listeth. I 
 review the reasoning step by step, find no flaw in it. Noth- 
 ing but a horrible predestination environs me. Every act 
 of my past and future life, external and internal, was neces- 
 sitated. The conclusion is irrefutable. I act upon this. Im- 
 mediately I find that, practically, I have got wrong. I can- 
 not act upon the idea of being fated, reft of will, without 
 injuring my whole being. My affections are paralyzed, my 
 actions disordered. I find, therefore, that the view which is 
 theoretically truth, translated into conduct becomes practi- 
 cally a lie. Now, on the other hand, conscience tells me I 
 am free. I am to seek God. I am not to lie passive, wait- 
 ing for the moving of the waters, but to obey a voice within 
 me which I recognize as divine, and which says, " Arise, take 
 up thy bed and walk." My intellect stands in contradiction 
 to my conscience ; but conscience is given me to act by. In 
 matters of duty, therefore, I am bound to obey my conscience 
 rather than my intellect. I believe the voice which says, 
 " You can seek God and find him," rather than the one which 
 says, " Poor victim of fantasy, you cannot stir, you can only 
 wait ! " There is the best concise reply I can give you to 
 your question. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 A Character. 
 
 I thought I saw that sympathy and questionings had roused 
 her, and anything is better for her than a dead calm, when
 
 214 A CHAEACTER. 
 
 the sails hang flaccid by the masts. I build the hope of use- 
 fulness upon this kind of influence with more certainty than 
 upon any other, and it is a great delight to me to find that it 
 is not yet exhausted, but still tells ; just the same kind of 
 delight which a pilot, I suppose, feels when, in the midst of 
 a long tropical lull, the ship once more acknowledges the 
 helm in his hand. And this is only one of the many indica- 
 tions which make the wants and needs of her character intel- 
 ligible to me. Excitement. The word, unfortunately, only 
 has a bad sense, and we have not another for the correspond- 
 ing good one ; as our phlegmatic national character cannot 
 acknowledge any excitement to be good or natural, and there- 
 fore provides no name for such an idea. Excitement, — by 
 which I mean that which stilus, and gives us a vivid conscious- 
 ness of actually being, — is at once the health and disease, 
 the food and poison, the need and the bane, of her existence. 
 Some people can be wound up, and go for years without 
 "winding up again ; but you cannot wind up a Geneva watch 
 in that way. The longer a habit is persevered in, the easier 
 it becomes to them. It is not so with her : she needs per- 
 petually the construction of a set of habits, in order to save 
 her from the weariness of " unchartered freedom " ; but no 
 Booner has habit threatened to become inveterate than it 
 passes into monotony, and she pants for freedom, — she 
 wants then again to feel 
 
 The wild pulsation that she felt before the strife. 
 
 When she heard the days before her, and the tumult of her life. 
 
 The truth is, that it is a living life that she needs, — suc- 
 cessions of the habitual and the impulsive : the habitual, to 
 give her rest ; the impulsive, to make her feel voluntariness, 
 — the life of feeling instead of the horrid deadness of ma- 
 chinery. But every time she passes from one of these states 
 into the other, will be a state of trial, — settling down from 
 excitement, rousing up from monoton5% Both will cause 
 her suffering, just as drowning and resuscitation are both
 
 A CHAEACTER. 215 
 
 miserable sensations. The only remedy against this would 
 be to discover, if possible, a new invigorating excitement 
 before the old has worn out. She is happy, calm, bright, 
 active, good, energetic, when she has been moved ; for I 
 perceive, — and how well I understand it ! — that her heart 
 sets her intellect and other powers in motion, not her intel- 
 lect her heart. I wish I knew how deep necessity for ex- 
 citement could be harmonized with equally deep need of rest. 
 No form of life will do that which does not healthily com- 
 bine satisfactions for both these wants. I have not said all 
 I want to say about excitement. It seems to me, as things 
 are, to do her more harm than good; she takes it indis- 
 criminately of all kinds. That astonishing description given 
 by De Quincey of the experience of an opium-eater, passing 
 from sublimities almost celestial into horrors quite infernal 
 .... or that strange state which I felt for twelve hours 
 under the influence of chloroform, and vainly attempted to 
 describe. If she would use the chloroform of life prudently, 
 under control, to assuage pain, it might be well. Her ex- 
 quisite susceptibility, managed with a philosophy which she 
 is capable of, and which is but the application of and the 
 only real use of self-anatomy, would fit her to be one of 
 the noblest beings I ever conceived. I speak thus out of 
 painful experience. My nature resembles hers in many 
 things, — impulsive, sustained in good by stimulus, flagging 
 without it ; and yet exhausted sometimes to a state in which 
 I could call Dante's conceptions of the Inferno dull. For 
 example, the thought of drudging on here at the same work, 
 unvaried ; two sermons a Sunday, inspiration by clockwork 
 for several years, is simply the conception of an impossi- 
 bility. I want perpetually the enthusiasm which comes 
 from fresh views of duty and untrodden paths of usefulness, 
 — new impulse from the heart ; yet that in itself, when it 
 comes, leaves me worn to the extremity of endurance. Some- 
 thing of this I have observed in her, with keener suscepti-
 
 216 A CHAEACTEE. 
 
 bllities and less of the necessity which, at the same time 
 that it galls, forces me to work at a given time. Conse- 
 quently, I make no doubt, she suffers more and has fewer 
 remedies. My safety lies, or rather lay, in the resolve to 
 work up to the collar, hot and hard, without intermission to 
 the last, not leaving time or coolness to feel the parts that 
 were galled, and raw, and wrung. It would, I suppose, have 
 ended soon, only in doing all this I stirred the human feel- 
 ings of others for good However, I have that which 
 
 she has not, — a routine It is from this similarity that, 
 
 knowing myself, I think I partly know her and her needs. 
 Tlie key to aU her character is its impulsiveness, and the 
 whole secret of her moral improvement and inward happi- 
 ness lies, not in the blunting but in the right direction of 
 
 it Strength is what we want in all trials, small or great. 
 
 The cup did not pass, even at the entreaty with tears which 
 came from Him, but there was seen an angel strengthening 
 Him to bear, and to drink in gentleness, not to put aside. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Another. 
 
 Often it is the safest way to shut the eyes and be half- 
 blind to many things in a friend's character, which must be 
 
 taken as it is, for better for worse ; but in 's character 
 
 I am grateful to find that his perfect transparency reveals 
 only the more delicately the moss-fibres, which are not 
 blemishes but beauties in the rock-crystal. I was prepared 
 to discover many faults, but I was not prepared to find that 
 the very faults and the things which disappoint will bear the 
 magnifying-glass, and only give fresh insight into a charac- 
 ter which perfectly astonishes me by its exquisite delicacy. 
 I do verily believe that his imperfections are like pearls in 
 the sea-shell, — aberrations from healthful nature, if you will, 
 but more tender and tinted with heavenlier iridescence than 
 even the natural shell itself.
 
 A CHARACTER. 217 
 
 Some failings are so precious that they command rever- 
 ence, and touch deeply, like the fine blue mould which grows 
 on sweetness, and which you gently brush aside until a closer 
 scrutiny has shown you how curiously and finely beautiful 
 it is. I can trust that character. 
 
 Altogether, my conviction receives fresh accessions of 
 strength that in all that belongs to the finest as well as the 
 loftiest of character, I have never met anything that came 
 near what I dreamed, — a being not conventionally right, 
 not correct by rule, not stiffened into propriety by a little 
 horde of maxims, but moving often in new worlds amidst 
 relationships and spheres of feeling where others would be 
 bewildered, and left without chart or compass, and yet guided 
 unerringlj^ by a kind of sublime instinct, as the bird of pas- 
 sage is, in its high flight for the first time through fields of 
 air, where the sound of wings was never heard before. The 
 more I see, the more I honor that marvellous heart, the 
 more I feel it is unlimited and incalculable ; in this way pos- 
 sessing that of the infinite, without which I suppose it would 
 be impossible to feel towards anything with perfect security 
 of permanence. 's character is a living one, inexhausti- 
 ble. None can prophesy what he will say or do under giveil 
 circumstances ; but when the event has shown, then all is 
 found in harmony with the rest, and beautiful ; and the dis- 
 covery of these new traits is a source of perpetual surprise 
 and ever-fresh pleasure. From the first, I perceived that 
 
 was not to be tried by the laws by which others are 
 
 fairly tested, just because their life is guided by them. I 
 
 should as little think of referring 's life to the ordinary 
 
 maxims of convention, as I should of applying the simple 
 ellipse of the common planet's revolution to determine the 
 course and aberrations of the comet ; yet the comet is vague 
 and eccentric only to an astronomy which is not advanced 
 enough to estimate the larger number and the complication 
 of the forces which are at work within it and without it. 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 218 THE SENSE OF EARTHLY BEAUTY. 
 
 Its wild and wondrous flight is just as really in obedience to 
 a law within itself, as the career of a common star, — only 
 a higher and more comprehensive law, — and its apparently 
 capricious movements might be calculated with as much 
 certainty, if only the mathematics large enough were found. 
 I like a mind and heart which I cannot calculate, and yet 
 in which I have the firmest trust that there is in them no 
 caprice, and which are forever ruled by law. I can re- 
 pose on such an one in faith, even when I cannot under- 
 stand. Only by faith can friendship with such an one 
 subsist. Nothing has struck me more than the refined per- 
 ceptions in reference to a friendship that is passed. It is 
 very rare and very beautiful to see feelings which once were 
 
 true, respected after their truthfulness has passed away 
 
 There is strength as well as delicacy in one who can still 
 respect, and be just to the memory of obliterated friendship. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 A Stray Thought. 
 
 Perhaps no man can attain the highest excellence who is 
 insensible to sensuous beauty. A sense of earthly beauty 
 may, and often does, lead to softness, voluptuousness, and 
 defilement of heart; but its right result is to lead on as a 
 stepping-stone to the sense of a higher beauty. Sensuous 
 beauty leaves the heart unsatisfied ; it gives conceptions 
 which are infinite, but it never gives or realizes the infinite. 
 
 For human beauty is a sight 
 To sadden rather than delight, 
 Being the prelude of a lay 
 Whose burden is decay. 
 
 Still it leads on to the infinite. It answers partly to a sense 
 which it does not satisfy, but leaves you craving still, and, 
 because craving, therefore seeking. The true objective of 
 that sense is moral beauty ; and by degrees we find and feel,
 
 THE SENSE OF EARTHLY BEAUTY. 219 
 
 as the outward fades and crumbles away, that it is a type 
 of real beauty hidden under its seeming. Through the 
 sensuous we perceive the supersensuous ; through the visible 
 the invisible loveliness. Through disappointment at the 
 unreal phantom, we learn to believe in and live for the un- 
 changeable. No man knows the highest goodness who does 
 not feel beauty. The beauty of holiness is its highest as- 
 pect. To act right because it is beautiful, and because noble, 
 true, self-denying, pure acts commend themselves to a soul 
 attuned to harmony, is the highest kind of goodness. " To 
 see the King in his beauty" is the loftiest and most un- 
 earthly attainment. Can any one be keenly alive to this 
 who has no heart for external beauty ? Surely he who is 
 callous to form and color, and unmoved by visible beauty, 
 is not above, but below^ our nature; he may be good, but 
 not in the highest order of goodness. Goethe says that the 
 Beautiful is above the Good: probably meaning that the 
 beauty of an action is a more spiritual and elevated notion 
 than its obligation or its usefulness.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OCTOBER, 1849 — DECEMBER, 1850. 
 
 Visit to Cheltenliam. — New Interest in the Lives of others and in Minis- 
 terial Work. — Depression. — Great Intellectual Activity. — Afternoon 
 Lectures on the Book of Genesis. — Gorham Case. — Sermons on Bap- 
 tism, on the Sabbath, on the Atonement. — Virulent Opposition. — 
 Solitary Position. — Summing up of Life. — Internal Dissension in the 
 Workingman's Institute. — Proposition to admit Infidel Publications 
 into the Library. — His Speech on the Occasion. — Its Meaning. — Its 
 partial Success. — Reconstruction of the Association. — His Letters on 
 the Subject. — Speech at the Meeting against the Papal Division of 
 England into Dioceses. — Two Letters of Gratitude from Workiugmen. 
 Letters from October, 1849, to December 31, 1850. 
 
 IN October, 1849, Mr. Robertson paid a short visit to 
 Cheltenham. He walked and rode over the haunts 
 which had been endeared to his youth. He renewed 
 some old acquaintances, and rekindled the embers of old 
 associations. There were many happy and many ex- 
 quisitely painful recollections awakened wdthin him. 
 *' These cases," he says, speaking of some disappoint- 
 ments he had suffered, and some opportunities he had 
 lost, " have come like the odor of newly-turned earth 
 upon my heart." On the whole, the visit appears to 
 have done him good. Perhaps the comparison which 
 it forced him to institute between the past and the pres- 
 ent made more plain than before his own advance in 
 intellectual energy and spiritual knowledge. It is by 
 comparing periods, not days of life, that progress be- 
 comes manifest. He returned to Brighton convinced
 
 UNWEARIED FRIENDLINESS. 221 
 
 that he had gained clear views of truth. In the Tyrol, 
 in 1847, he had despaired ; now, though he was wearied 
 of life, he could say, " I know the right, and even in 
 darkness will steer right on." 
 
 There arose in him about this time, also, a greater 
 interest in the lives of others. He had thought too 
 much about his own trials and difficulties. He had 
 been a " self-torturing sophist." Speaking of his past 
 life, he says of himself, " Formerly, my eyes but slept 
 to look within : all my interest in the outward world 
 faded in comparison with my intense interest in the 
 inner world." But now he had discovered new inter- 
 ests. He found among his congregation some whose 
 mental and spiritual difficulties were similar to those 
 which had been his own, and to whom he could give 
 the sympathy and help which are born of a Suffiiring 
 which has passed into Victory. All his powers were 
 aroused. By entering fully into the lives of others he 
 freed himself from much of that painful self-conscious- 
 ness which is the curse of a sensitive character. In 
 proportion as his friendship was deep was his imagina- 
 tion penetrative into the characters of his friends, and 
 that to such a degree that he took their lives into his 
 own. And for all in whom he became interested, he 
 was untiring in effort. He invented new plans for 
 their lives, new interests, new pursuits. He sought 
 ceaselessly for remedies for their trials, and means of 
 escape from their perplexities. There never lived a 
 truer friend. 
 
 It was at this time also that his interest in his minis- 
 terial work became greater, though, from his letters, 
 the contrary might be imagined. But the passages in
 
 222 GEEAT ACTIVITY. 
 
 which he describes liis dislike of preaching and his own 
 coldness of heart are, in reality, descriptions of the reac- 
 tion of feeling after the intense excitement of preaching. 
 Such passages are almost always to be found in letters 
 written on Monday. They are in themselves proof of 
 the almost awful intensity with which he labored. He 
 could not do his duty with the quiet monotonousness 
 which neither wears out the mind nor exhausts the 
 body. He did it with a repressed fierceness which, 
 when the time of its expression — on Smiday — was 
 over, left him a prey to thoughts which, in healthier 
 moments, he denied to be his own. " I am not fit," ho 
 says, "for ministerial work. I want years and years to 
 calm me. My heart is too feverish, quivers and throbs 
 too much as flesh recently cut by the surgeon's knife." 
 Thus the deeper his interest in his work, the greater 
 was his excitement; and the greater the excitement, 
 the more morbid was the reaction, the more gloomy the 
 aspect in which he saw his labors, the darker his mis- 
 givings of their success. 
 
 And it is no wonder that he was at this time so ex- 
 hausted and so painfully depressed, for his mental work 
 was great. Never, during his whole life had his intel- 
 lect been more productive. In October, he preached 
 upon the question of the Sabbath, which was being 
 tlien ao-Itated in Brighton in connection with some new 
 post-office regulations. The sermon is published in the 
 first volume, under the title of the " Shadow and Sub- 
 stance of the Sabbath." In November, he embodied 
 in a sermon, — " Caiaphas's View of Vicarious Sacri- 
 fice," — his partly original theory of the Atonement. 
 In December alone he preached sixteen times, — mostly
 
 ONE MONTH'S WORK. 223 
 
 on the advent of Christ. He delivered to crowded 
 congregations on Friday mornings four Advent lectures 
 on Christianity in contact with the Greek, the Roman, 
 the Barbarian, and the Jew^, which were in their way 
 unique. He preached on Sunday mornings such ser- 
 mons as " The means of reahzing the Second Advent " 
 (1st Series, p. 179); "The Principle of the Spiritual 
 Harvest " (Ibid. 241) ; and " The Loneliness of Christ " 
 (Ibid. 258). In the afternoons, he finished his lectures 
 on the Acts of the Apostles, with which he had begun 
 the year. Towards the end of the month, he preached, 
 on the day of public mourning for the Queen Dowager, 
 the only sermon published during his lifetime, — "The 
 Israelite's Grave in a Foreign Land." Most of these 
 sermons have been preserved ; and they are, even in a 
 literary point of view, wonderful, considering the short 
 time in wdiich they were produced, for their sustained 
 power of thought and of expression, for their research 
 and originality. None of them are unworthy of the 
 others ; none of them betray carelessness of prepara- 
 tion, or dependence on mere fluency of diction. It is 
 fortunate that they were preserved, though their pres- 
 ervation cost him more labor than their preparation. 
 They were written out for a friend, from memory, the 
 evening of the day on which they were delivered. 
 Every one knows how irksome it is to recall, in cold 
 blood, w^hat has been said in excitement ; to write out, 
 in the study, alone, what has been brought out by the 
 presence of numbers. It was peculiarly irksome and 
 irritating to him, but he did it freely and gladly, be- 
 cause impelled by fr^iendship. He forgot the toil ; but 
 the toil did not forget to produce its fruit of exhaustion.
 
 224 LECTURES ON GENESIS. 
 
 If tliere be added, to complete this account of one 
 month's intellectual work, that almost every day he was 
 engaged in prepanng the pupils of the Training School 
 for examination, it is astonishing that he was not more 
 morbid in feeling and outw^orn in body. 
 
 Early in January, 1850, he went away to recruit his 
 health and to visit some friends in Ireland; but the visit 
 was not long enough to restore his strength. On his 
 return, he commenced lecturing in the afternoons on 
 the Book of Genesis. His letters prove how syste- 
 matically and fully he prepared for this work. The 
 lectures, w^hen pubHshed, will show with what mingled 
 wisdom and freedom he met the difficulties of the earlier 
 chapters ; how fairly he stated the claims of scientific 
 and historical truth, even when they were in conflict 
 with the narrative of the sacred text ; and "while declar- 
 ing that the Mosaic cosmogony could not be reconciled 
 with geological facts, still succeeded in showing its inner 
 harmony, in principles, with the principles of scientific 
 geology. Neither did he shrink from putting his con- 
 gregation in possession of the results of German criti- 
 cism upon Genesis. He made them acquainted with 
 the discussion on the Jehovah and Elohlm documents, 
 but he did not deny tlie Mosaic compilation of these 
 documents. He discussed fully the question of the 
 universality of the Flood. He spoke with a boldness, 
 adorned with a rare reverence, upon the vexed and 
 generally avoided subjects of the confusion of tongues, 
 the destruction of the cities of the plain, the tempta- 
 tion of Abraham. In no case, however, w^as his preach- 
 ing destructive, but constructive. Men went away from 
 his chapel opposed, it is true, to the popular theory of
 
 INSPIRATION. 225 
 
 inspiration, but deeply convinced of an inspiration. It 
 was, indeed, impossible, in treating of these matters, to 
 avoid the great question of Inspiration, and its limits ; 
 it was, therefore, introduced incidentally, from Sunday 
 to Sunday. His mind became stirred on the subject. 
 But the only result of this interest was his translation 
 at this time of Lessing's small treatise on the " Educa- 
 tion of the Human Race." * The following sentence 
 occurs in one of his letters, written in March, 1850: 
 
 I projected once a work on Inspiration, and had wellnigh 
 resolved to do it, — a year ago, when the impulse to do great 
 things and to be a standard-bearer was renewed with mighty 
 force. Had I kept to this resolve, Lessing's remarks, and 
 some other fragments, should have been translated as pio- 
 neers ; for the Enghsh mind is not prepared yet, and Les- 
 sing's advice (67, 68, 69,) t is worth attending to. 
 
 In March, while these lectures on Genesis were still 
 continuing, the Gorham case was decided. With the 
 decision given he fully agreed; but he thought it 
 necessary to meet the whole question openly before his 
 congregation, and endeavor, as was his custom, not to 
 reconcile the opinions of both parties, or to steer a mid- 
 dle course between both, but to discover a higher truth, 
 
 * Published in London. Smith, Elder, & Co. 1858. 
 
 t 67. " The youth must consider his Primer as the first of all books, that 
 impatience at being only preparing may not hurry him on to things for 
 which he has, as yet, laid no basis. 
 
 68. " And that is also of the greatest importance now. Thou abler 
 spirit, who art fretting and restless over the last page of the Primer, — 
 beware ! Beware of letting thy fellow-scholars mark what thou perceivest 
 afar, or what thou art beginning to see ! 
 
 69. " Until these weaker fellow-scholars are up with thee, rather return 
 once more back into this Primer, and examine whether that which thou 
 takest only for duplicates of the method, for a blunder in the teaching, is 
 not, perhaps, something more." 
 
 10* O
 
 226 THE GORHAM CASE. 
 
 in which all that was true in the opposing views might 
 be retained, and all that was false discarded. This was 
 done, as he beheved, in the two sermons which have 
 been published.* 
 
 They created a great sensation in Brighton. They 
 displeased, of course, both the extreme parties; but 
 they reconciled to the Church many who had despaired 
 of ever accepting the teaching of her Baptismal Ser- 
 vices. 
 
 Thus, within the short space of six months, which 
 perhaps were the most important in their results on 
 Brighton, and through his published sermons on the 
 general public, he had, — not with that pharisaic liber- 
 alism which thanks God that it is not as other men are, 
 — not from the desire of being peculiar, — not with 
 any thought of self, but from faithful following and 
 brave speaking of what he believed to be true, — put 
 himself into opposition with the whole accredited theo- 
 logical world of Brighton on the questions of the Sab- 
 bath, the Atonement, Inspiration, and Baptism. The 
 results were sad and dreary for him. His words were 
 garbled ; passages from his sermons, divorced from their 
 context, were quoted against him ; persons who could 
 not understand him came to hear him and look at him, 
 as a strange phenomenon ; be became the common talk 
 of all the theological tea-tables of the town. People 
 were solemnly warned against him; those who knew 
 little of his doctrines, and less of himself, attacked him 
 openly, with an apparently motiveless bitterness. He 
 had dared to be different from the rest of the world, 
 and that in itself was revolutionary. He was called 
 
 * Second Series, pp. 75, 105.
 
 VmULENT OPPOSITION. 227 
 
 Neologian, Socialist, Sceptic : all the cruel armory of 
 fanaticism, and especially the weapon of bhnd terror, 
 was used against him. 
 
 In December, 1849, he writes, — 
 
 It is not all smooth sailing. Indeed, the bitterness and 
 virulence of which I hear in every direction are quite un- 
 accountable .... and women are even more violent in their 
 bitterness than men. Once these things moved me: it is 
 strange how little I care for them now. Once I met them 
 with defiance, and scorn for scorn : now I wonder they ever 
 could have provoked me. I desire to be as meek and gentle 
 under dispraise and dislike as I am indifferent to flattery. 
 O that I could breathe the Spirit of Him who, when He 
 was reviled, reviled not again ; when He suffered, threatened 
 not ! For, in His case, all was undeserved ; but I cannot 
 tell how much, in my case, rashness and pride have irritated 
 people. This, however, I have learnt, — that three years 
 of perpetual warfare with the world, and the repayal of 
 hatred for love, were no trifling endurance. To simply bear 
 the dislike which had been provoked, was not so difficult; 
 but to persevere in exasperating it day by day, and never 
 flinch, even when His loving spirit sank and flagged in the 
 wilderness, and in Gethseraane, and still go on, till hatred 
 did its worst, — I think I know what that must have 
 been to a loving spirit, when I so felt it with a stern one ! 
 
 And on January 1, 1850, he writes, speaking of the 
 sermon on the death of the Queen Dowager, — 
 
 The sermon will be published, I expect, this week. It will 
 be some time before I rush into print again ; and that was 
 not the sermon to have selected. It has nothing in it — at 
 least, nothing that I know of — good or bad ; though, I doubt 
 not, the heretic-hunters will find plenty of tendencies towards 
 Mahometanism, Red Republicanism, Puseyism, and Sweden-
 
 228 HIS SOLITARY POSITION. 
 
 borgianism. I was tormented into publishing, and in an evil 
 hour of weakness gave way, for which weakness I now feel 
 the twinges of remorse. How long will sermonizing con- 
 tinue ? With all my heart, I hope not to the end of life, 
 unless life is very nearly done ; for it is a kind of mean mar- 
 tyrdom by a lingering death, like the benevolent system of 
 roasting at a slow fire, in which the good Christian people 
 of former times manifested the extent of their Christian 
 proficiency. 
 
 Thus, a partaker of the destiny of those who dare to 
 preach Truth higher and more spiritual than is recog- 
 nized by the teachers of their time, he stood apart, — a 
 very solitary man. On the last day of 1849, he preached 
 on the Loneliness of Christ. The sermon (1st. Series, 
 p. 257) was an unconscious but vivid portrait of his 
 own career and life ; it was written wdth the blood of 
 his own heart. And no one can be astonished, who 
 places himself in his position, and realizes his ultra-sen- 
 sitiveness, at the summing-up of his work at Brighton, 
 written in February, 1850. It is almost needless to say 
 that this summing-up, though time to his own point of 
 view, was not in reality true. His labors had been 
 most successful ; the greater part of his congi'egation 
 were devoted to him ; he was reverenced and loved by 
 them with an unobtrusive reverence and a silent love, 
 which were too deep to be openly expressed. But this 
 very silence of affection and veneration, so different 
 from the loud applause given generally to a popular 
 preacher, he, most strangely, almost wilfully, refused to 
 recognize. He only saw in the mass of congregation 
 those who came to criticise or sneer, or to listen to him 
 as a stump-orator; he only heard the slander, the bitter 
 speaking, the theological clamor of his opponents. To
 
 SUMMmG-UP OF LIFE. 229 
 
 all the rest he was blind and deaf. He sums up thus, 
 in a most touching manner, his life : — 
 
 February 11, 1850. 
 A year has passed, nearly, since I resolved to hve above 
 this world. O God ! how little has been done ! High, bright, 
 enthusiastic hopes of things impossible, and of things possible 
 still, how they teemed in my imagination ! The ideal, of 
 course, always transcends the actual, and now experience of 
 life again, with its manifold struggles, " fallings from us, van- 
 ishings," has left a sobered, saddened, but unconquerable re- 
 solve to live in earnest. 
 
 Life is real, life is earnest, 
 
 And the grave is not its goal; 
 " Dust thou art, to dust returnest," 
 
 Was not written of the soul. 
 
 Farewell, all visions and wishes of distinction, — farewell 
 to them forever ! But not farewell to something holier and 
 better, far lowlier, and more worthy of beings whose divine 
 spark is mixed with clay. I can hear in my heart the " still 
 sad music of humanity," and selfishness seems to me even 
 more contemptible than it did, now that I am more distinctly 
 conscious of an end to live for. My career is done. And 
 yet I do not look on life with any bitter or disappointed feel- 
 ing, but gently and even gratefully. I read the last stanza 
 of Wordsworth's " Intimations of Immortality from the Rec- 
 ollections of Childhood," which have something of the sub- 
 dued and chastened feeling which I am beginning to real- 
 ize: — 
 
 Thoiigh nothing can bring back the hour 
 
 Of splendor in the grass, or glory in the flower, &c. 
 
 I am not sorry that the wild throb of romantic, boyish an- 
 ticipation of a future can never be felt again. I know the 
 realities of a world of error now, but whose Maker's name I 
 am profoundly convinced is Love. I feel its grand, sad laws,
 
 230 THE WORKINGMAN'S INSTITUTE. 
 
 and I bow myself to them submissively, not wishing them 
 other than they are. 
 
 These were his thoughts in March, 1850. It was 
 now, while everything connected with him had a curi- 
 ous interest for the little world of Brighton, that the 
 Institute for Workingmen, to the welfare of which he 
 had united himself from the beginning, began to suffer 
 from internal dissension. He had long foreseen the 
 possibiKty of this. There was a radical error, in his 
 opinion, in the constitution of the society. In his 
 preface to the "Address on the Question of the Intro- 
 duction of Sceptical Publications into the Library of the 
 Institute " he states this error clearly, and its results. 
 After narrating the origin of the Institute and its ob- 
 jects, he proceeds : — 
 
 It was, of course, foreseen tliat the rock on which such a 
 plan might be wrecked, would be any successful effort to 
 divert the funds and machinery of the Institute from its 
 original intention to the purposes of a political party. 
 
 But, in this case, the withdrawal of all well-disposed per- 
 sons would leave the association to dwindle till it became 
 quite extinct. For its very existence depended upon num- 
 bers. The experiment, therefore, appeared to be a perfectly 
 safe one, inasmuch as perversion of its purposes must inevi- 
 tably be followed quickly by annihilation. 
 
 One fatal oversight (such, at least, it appears to the author 
 of these pages) in the constitution of the society realized the 
 foreseen danger. It had been justly held that the working- 
 men ought to have in their own hands the management of 
 their own society, lest the smallest suspicion should arise 
 that there was any desire in those who were their benefac- 
 tors to coerce or trammel them. Every attempt at interfer 
 ence was scrupulously avoided. All this was wise and just.
 
 PROPOSITION TO ADMT INFIDEL BOOKS. 231 
 
 But beyond this, not only was the domination of the upper 
 classes made impossible, but even their assistance and advice 
 excluded, by making honorary members incompetent to vote 
 or act on committee ; a mistake which originated in an over- 
 scrupulous generosity on the part of one who suggested it, 
 but fatal, because false in principle. 
 
 To have vested the power of unlimited control or rule in 
 the richer classes, would have been a surrender of the very 
 principle on which the plan rested. But to reject all co- 
 operation and assistance from them, to receive their contribu- 
 tions and refuse their advice, was to create and foster a spirit, 
 not of manly, but of jealous independence, and to produce 
 in a new form that vicious state of relationship between 
 class and class which is at this day the worst evil in our 
 social life, — the repulsion of the classes of society from 
 each other at all points except one, so as to leave them touch- 
 ing at the single point of pecuniary interest. And thus the 
 cementing principle of society is declared to be the spirit of 
 selfishness, — the only spirit which is essentially destructive. 
 A fatal blunder ! 
 
 It was on Thursday, March 28, that the proposition 
 to admit infidel publications was discussed in a meeting 
 of the members of the Institute. He wished to go, 
 and " to impart," as he said, " a healthier tone, if pos- 
 sible;" but on the same night he writes, — 
 
 I did not attend the meeting of the Workingmen's Asso- 
 ciation, as I told you I had intended, and am almost sorry I did 
 not ; but some of the committee were afraid for me of vio- 
 lence and rudeness from the Socialists, and thought, too, that 
 even if I swayed the vote by a speech against the infidel pub- 
 lications, they would only say that it had been done by the 
 influence of priestcraft. On this consideration I left them to 
 fight the battle for themselves, and I sincerely hope that they 
 have got a signal victory. But I find by inquiry that So-
 
 232 HIS PUBLIC ADDRESS 
 
 cialism has made terrible strides in England : Louis Blanc's 
 views are progressing swiftly. They say we must get rid of 
 the superstitious notion of an invisible God. Till that is 
 done, nothing can be effected. And then, of course, Com- 
 munism and a scramble for property ensue. 
 
 A 'strong radical told me that he can remember the time 
 when Toryism was in the ascendant in public meetings here, 
 and the Radicals only just able to make head against it. 
 Then Radicalism became triumphant; but now Radicalism 
 is to Socialism what Toryism was to Radicalism, — a kind of 
 feeble aristocracy which can scarcely show its head, so com- 
 pletely is it put down by the ultra-socialism of Louis Blanc's 
 school. 
 
 A few days afterwards he writes again, — 
 
 I have been all the morning interrupted by deliberations 
 respecting the affairs of the Workingmen's Institute, which 
 
 is in terrible disorder. Poor is dead ! and there is no 
 
 one to stem the torrent of infidelity but myself. I am going 
 to make a desperate attempt in a public address. 
 
 It was almost imperative that he should do so, for he 
 was bound up with the interests of the Institute. He 
 felt that he was personally compromised by its proceed- 
 ings. He felt that the whole cause of the elevation of 
 the w^orkingman was in jeopardy. He would not be 
 silent. He asked no advice of either party ; alone, he 
 took the whole responsibility of a public address. It 
 was a great responsibility. For, on the one hand, 
 there was the large minority of sceptical and socialist 
 members in the Institute, wdio would call his effort 
 " priestcraft," and prate about being lorded over by a 
 clergyman and a gentleman, and perhaps attempt per- 
 sonal violence ; and, on the other hand, outside of the
 
 IN THE TOWN HALL. 233 
 
 Institute, there were not only those who, exasperated 
 against him already, were likely to become more so by 
 the bold way in which he felt he ought to speak, but 
 also others, who, having seen enthusiastic folly in the 
 whole scheme from the beginning, would now think 
 this last attempt to save a sinking ship the crowning 
 folly. 
 
 With that fine confidence so characteristic of him, he 
 threw himself upon the sense and candor of the men. 
 
 His speech was long remembered for its tact. The 
 great room of the Town Hall was crowded to excess. 
 Every class in Brighton was represented in the audi- 
 ence. All the workingmen of the Institute were there. 
 The large minority of sceptical socialists had come de- 
 termined to make a disturbance, — to hoot him down. 
 They had dispersed themselves in parties throughout the 
 room. He began very quietly, with a slow, distinct, and 
 self- restrained utterance. He explained the reason of 
 the meeting. When he spoke of himself as the person 
 who had summoned them, — as one who was there to 
 oppose the introduction of the infidel books, knots of 
 men started up to interrupt him ; a few hisses and 
 groans were heard ; but the undaunted bearing of the 
 man, the calm voice and musical flow of pauseless 
 speech, powerful to check unregulated violence by its 
 regulated quietude of utterance, went on, and they 
 could but sit down again. Again and again, from dif- 
 ferent parts of the room, a man would suddenly spring 
 to his feet and half begin to speak, and then, as if 
 ashamed or awed, subside. There were murmurs, pas- 
 sionate shuffling of feet, a sort of electricity of excite- 
 ment, which communicated itself from the excited men
 
 234 HIS PUBLIC ADDKESS 
 
 to every one in the room. At last, when he said, 
 "You have heard of a place called Coward's Castle, — 
 Coward's Castle is that pulpit or platform, from which 
 a man, surrounded by his friends, in the absence of his 
 opponents, secure of applause, and safe from a reply, 
 denounces those who differ from him," there was a dead 
 stillness. He had struck the thought of the turbulent, 
 — the very point on which, in reference to the address, 
 they had enlarged; and fi'om that moment there was 
 not a word, scarcely a cheer, till the last sentence was 
 given. It seemed, said one of them, and what he said 
 was confirmed by others, as if every man in the room 
 were thrillino; with the same feelmo;s, as if a mairnetic 
 power flowing from the speaker had united them all to 
 himself, and in him to one another. The address was 
 the most remarkable of all his speeches for eloquence, 
 if eloquence be defined as the power of subjugating 
 men by bold and persuasive w^ords. It was remarkable 
 for two other reasons, which may not occur to the ordi- 
 nary reader. First, in it he revealed much of his inner 
 life and character. He was forced by the circumstances 
 under which he made the address to speak of himself. 
 The personal explanations into which he entered were 
 an overt self-revelation. But there was one passage in 
 the address in which, without the knowledge of his 
 hearers, he disclosed the history of the most momentous 
 period of his life. It has been already quoted (p. 109), 
 and is the most important passage in all his works for 
 any one to study who wishes to know what he suffered, 
 and how strongly he emerged from his suffering at the 
 great religious turning-point of his life. Few men 
 thought, as he delivered those maonificent sentences
 
 IN THE TOWN HALL. 235 
 
 with stern and suppressed emotion, that they were 
 forged in the fire of his own heart. But all did feel 
 that he was disclosing to them the central principle of 
 his whole life, the result of all his past religious strug- 
 gle, when he spoke the following words : — "I refuse 
 to permit discussion this evening respecting the love a 
 Christian man bears to his Redeemer, — a love more 
 delicate far than the love which was ever borne to 
 sister, or the adoration with which he regards his God, 
 — a reverence more sacred than man ever bore to 
 mother." 
 
 This address is also remarkable, because in it he 
 boldly threw down the gauntlet to his opponents. It 
 was not only an address to the workingmen, it was an 
 address to the whole of Brighton. Perhaps he did not 
 do this consciously. But those who knew the state of 
 feeling against him which has been described above, 
 felt that he was making his apology, not in the sense 
 of a recantation, but in the same sense as Socrates 
 made his apology before the Athenian people. He was 
 out of the pulpit. He could speak more freely. He 
 appeared not so much as the clergyman as the man. 
 It was remarked by more than one that he wore a black 
 cravat. When he said that infidelity was often the cry 
 of narrowness against an old truth under a new and 
 more spiritual form, — sometimes the charge caught up 
 at second-hand, and repeated as a kind of religious hue- 
 and-cry, in profoundest ignorance of the opinions that 
 are so characterized, — when he denounced the " re- 
 ligious " newspapers, — when he said, "I have learned 
 to hold the mere charge of infidelity very cheap," — • 
 when he poured pity, instead of anathemas, on Shelly,
 
 236 REVULSION IN POPULAR FEELING. 
 
 because " God was represented to liim as a demon, and 
 Christianity as a system of exclusion and bitterness," — 
 when he declared that the existence of God could not 
 be demonstrated to the Understanding^ — when he de- 
 fended himself for having said that there was " a moral 
 significance in the w^orks of Dickens," and called the 
 objection '^ cant," — when he spoke of the taunts which 
 he had heard levelled against " his friends the working- 
 men," and his connection with them, — w4ien he re- 
 fused to join in the cry of men, terror-stricken by events 
 upon the Continent, that to instruct the w^orkingmen 
 and to side with them was giving sinews to infidehty 
 and socialism, — he was in reality appealing to the gen- 
 eral public against the private clamor which had been 
 raised against his teaching, and boldly asserting that 
 he stood undismayed by his opinions ; that, in spite of 
 all, he would not bate one inch, but steer right onward. 
 And as such it was accepted. Many men who had 
 taken up the blind clamor against him, listened, and 
 went away saying, " That is a true man ; a man differ- 
 ent from that which I imagined him to be ; a man with 
 whom I do not agree, but in the attack against whom I 
 will join no more." The manliness of Brighton, even 
 where it differed most wddely from liim, was, after that 
 address, always on his side. Nor was the mode in 
 which he made this defence unworthy of himself or of 
 a Christian man. It was daring, determined, but in 
 spirit gentle. Speaking of the suspicion, misrepresen- 
 tation, and personal dislike he had incurred, he says, — 
 
 I do not say this in bitterness. I hold it to be a duty to 
 be liberal and generous even to the illiberal and narrow- 
 miaded. And it seems to me a pitiful thing for any man
 
 RECOXSTRUCTION OF THE INSTITUTE. 23 T 
 
 to aspire to be true and to speak truth, and then to complain 
 in astonishment that truth has not crowns to give, but thorns ; 
 but I say it in order that you and I may understand each 
 other. 
 
 The result of the address on the members of the 
 Institute was more successful than he had expected. 
 Some of the sceptical minority were convinced that 
 they were wrong ; the rest separated in a body, and, 
 carrying off with them a large portion of the library 
 and property, established a new society, which did not 
 long exist. The majority, along with some waverers 
 who were confirmed into truer views of social questions, 
 combined to carry out the views of Mr. Robertson. 
 The first thing done was to rescind the old rule that no 
 gentlemen were to be admitted to vote or act on the 
 committee, and to reconstruct the association on this 
 amended footing ; the second was to ask Mr. Robertson 
 to be their new president. The two following letters 
 will show how readily he entered into the difficulties 
 which beset the first, and how wisely he refused the 
 second. 
 
 No. 1. 
 
 I will pledge myself, if your society is formed, and con- 
 tains in it the elements of vitality, to give either an open- 
 ing address or a lecture before the close of the year. 
 
 But it seems to me a matter of great importance that 
 public attention should not be ostentatiously called again 
 so soon to your efforts at self-restoration, so long as they 
 are only efforts. If the Institute is needed, really craved, 
 and earnestly desired by the workingmen, they will enroll 
 themselves in sufficient numbers to insure its existence with- 
 out the excitement of an address. If they would not with-
 
 238 LETTERS TO THE COMmTTEE. 
 
 out this, then I am sure that to attempt to secure their 
 adhesion by such means would be very dangerous. 
 
 On the former occasion nearly 700, in a fit of transient 
 enthusiasm, joined themselves, I believe, and (out of about 
 1,300) withdrew directly after. If artificial means are neces- 
 sary to preserve its existence, then the society will soon die 
 a natural death ; and we should be again covered with the 
 shame of an abortive attempt. The cause of the working- 
 men cannot afford this. Better fail silently than make an- 
 other public confession of incapacity. 
 
 Now, an address at present would draw the attention of 
 the town. It w^ould perhaps induce waverers to join, as all 
 public excitement does ; and it might secure immediate ready 
 money. But these are trifles compared with the risk of 
 the w^ithdrawal of many soon after. And suppose that 
 enough to support did not join ? 
 
 Let me propose therefore, — Begin your society as soon 
 and as quietly as possible ; that is, as quietly as is consistent 
 with that publicity w^hich is necessary to acquaint the w^ork- 
 ingmen with the fact of a new association being in process 
 of formation. If sufficient members do not present them- 
 selves, then the thing quietly dies away till a better oppor- 
 tunity ; and be sure that no artificial excitement could have 
 given it permanence, though it might have caused a prema- 
 ture abortive birth. 
 
 After some months, if the association lives with internal 
 strength, then we may try external aids. I, for my part, 
 pledge myself as I have said. But the great lesson for us 
 all, in these days of pufiing advertisements, is to learn to 
 work silently and truly, and to leave self-advertisement and 
 self-puffing to people who are on the verge of bankruptcy. 
 
 No. 2. 
 
 In reply to your letter of this day, I may briefly say that 
 the idea of my accepting the presidentship of the Institute
 
 LETTERS TO THE COMMTTEE. 239 
 
 is quite out of the question. I do not consider myself com- 
 petent for such an office, nor am I sure that it would be to 
 
 the advantage of the society I believe I could assist 
 
 the members more truly, at all events more independently, 
 in a subordinate position. Prominence and power are things 
 for which I have no taste. 
 
 I am very anxious that there should be no second failure, 
 but I think that the greatest wisdom and experience are need- 
 ful to prevent it The workingmen have shown that 
 
 even a right-minded majority is unable to protect itself 
 against a turbulent minority, without the introduction of 
 other elements of society to support them, — to support, not 
 dictate; for I should be very sorry to see a majority of 
 gentlemen on the committee. But they want some, of weight 
 and wisdom, to fall back upon. And, indeed, this is the 
 only true democratic principle to my mind, — not an oligar- 
 chy of the poorest, but a fusion of ranks, with such weight 
 allowed, under checks, as is due to superior means of ac- 
 quiring information. 
 
 What grieves me to the heart is to see distrust in the minds 
 of workingmen of those wealthier than themselves; and 
 nothing is more mischievous or unchristian than to gain pop- 
 ularity with them by fostering these feelings, and insinuating 
 that the clergy and the religious and the rich are their ene- 
 mies, or only espouse their cause for an end. 
 
 I must not accept any high office ; I am their friend, but 
 I want nothing from them, — not even influence, nor their 
 praise. 
 
 If I can do them even a little good, well ; but for their 
 sakes I must not take anything which could leave on one of 
 their minds the shadow of a shade of a suspicion of my mo- 
 tives. 
 
 The society, af^er working admirably for some years, 
 has lately, to the great regret of many, been closed for
 
 240 THE ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES BILL. 
 
 want of support. It does not appear, after Mr. Robert- 
 son's death, to have been taken up by any person, with 
 the exception of Mr. Ross, outside of the actual sphere 
 of the workingmen. 
 
 After the dehvery of the above-mentioned address, 
 Mr. Robertson did not appear in pubhc, except in the 
 pulpit, for many months. 
 
 The end of 1850 is celebrated for the mistake which 
 the Church of Rome made, and for the short and fool- 
 ish blaze of excitement kindled by it in England. The 
 mistake of the Church of Rome was, in departing from 
 the quiet method of conversion they had been using. 
 The foolishness of the English people was, in making a 
 great noise, only to end in the pretentious nonentity of 
 the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. Brighton was, of course, 
 convulsed. Platforms and pulpits rang with a jangle 
 of denunciations. The only man who seems to have 
 kept his head was Mr. Robertson. His speech at the 
 "great meeting" was a model of good sense and calm 
 knowledge ; a quiet protest against what he called, with 
 fine irony and with accurate acquaintance with ecclesi- 
 astical history, " an act of schism on the part of the 
 Church of Rome." What he thought privately of the 
 w^hole matter will be found in the following extracts : — 
 
 This foohsh act of the Pope has made Protestants nearly 
 beside themselves with terror. Already they see the fires 
 of Smithfield lighted, thumbscrews at work, and the " mys- 
 tery " of the Apocalypse throned at Canterbury. We have 
 a great meeting here on Thursday to which I look forward, 
 only expecting a vast deal of foolish talking, and perhaps re- 
 crimination, bandied back against the Church of England. 
 Here have the bishops been coquetting with semi-Popery for 
 fifteen years, but the moment it assumes an attitude invasive
 
 mS SPEECH ON THE SUBJECT. 241 
 
 of their spiritual privileges, " the Right Reverend Fathers in 
 God " rise as one man, the noble champions of the faith, and, 
 much as they dislike controversial preaching, recommend all 
 their clergy to preach, disseminate tracts, &c., against the 
 '' mother of abominations," and so forth. On Sunday I could 
 not help saying, at the end of my sermon, " I have purposely 
 abstained from entering on the subject upon which the public 
 mind is nearly frantic ; I could easily have roused your in- 
 dignation and inflamed passions, but for myself I do not like 
 that kind of work. Assume, if you will, in the week, the 
 attitude of defiance ; but let us, for one Sabbath-day, keep 
 free from that, and take the attitude of humiliation." The 
 subject of the sermon was, " I am a sinful man, O Lord ! " 
 
 Thursday. 
 To-day was spent in a long-protracted meeting at the Town 
 Hall, on the subject of the Papal division of England into 
 dioceses ; it was crammed to the window-sills. I went deter- 
 mined not to say a word ; but, after two persons had spoken, 
 several voices called out my name : this was repeated so often, 
 becoming clamorous at last, that in the close of the day, in an 
 evil hour, I rose. I heartily wish now I had not, for I was 
 unprepared and hampered, partly by seeing a Romanist there, 
 a former friend, for whom my heart winced at every severe 
 expression, and partly from disagreement with the words of 
 the address. Afterwards I had a long conversation with 
 
 M (discussion, rather), which lasted until two or three in 
 
 the morning. At last I said, " Now, M , it is not often 
 
 one man lets another see the core of his heart: I do not 
 mean to let you see mine, but I have told you much of my 
 views. You know what I do not believe, and what I do. 
 You would call my creed meagre, - — I call it large, for there 
 are many points on which I am in perplexity. What I be- 
 lieve, I believe strongly. You have heard me preach, too. 
 You saw that crowd ; you know what it costs me to address 
 
 VOL. I. 11 p
 
 242 LETTERS FEOM WOEKDsGilEN. 
 
 them ; now tell me, as an old friend, would you advise me to 
 go on or retire ? " He said, with enthusiasm, " I do not hesi- 
 tate one moment, — go on. I tell you frankly there were points 
 in your sermon I did not quite agree with. I wished the evan- 
 gelical element had been there ; but I felt, if it were only 
 there, — no I cannot tell you what I feel, for it would look 
 like extravagant flattery. I will only say, I felt it would be 
 a o-lorious thing for a man to stand up as you stand in a place 
 like Brighton : but, never mind, perhaps it is better as it is. 
 Men come to hear you who would not come if you thought 
 as I do." I verily believe that if M had only said " Re- 
 tire," I should have retired forthwith. 
 
 The year closed for him heavily. His health had 
 visibly decayed. He suffered keenly, though he denied 
 it, from the loneliness of his position. A gloom deep- 
 ened over his heart. But now and then a gleam of 
 happiness shot across his spirit when he learnt that he 
 had done some good to a human soul. Two letters 
 which touched him greatly are inserted here ; they 
 complete the history of this period : — 
 
 An Anonymous Letter, enclosing a Present of V)s. 
 
 Rev. Sir, — An humble individual begs the acceptance 
 of the enclosed as an Easter offering, and as a grateful ac- 
 knowledgment, in some sort, for the many wise lessons he 
 has received of truth, honor, charity, and love ; and for the 
 hope of immortality with which he is now impressed, which 
 has begotten a cheerfulness of mind to which for years he 
 has been a stranger. 
 
 May God in His infinite mercy long spare you to us in 
 
 health and prosperity, and bless you ! is the sincere wish of, 
 
 faithfully yours. 
 
 The Writer.
 
 LETTERS FROM WORKINGMEN. 243 
 
 An Anonymous Letter, accompanying a pair of Candlesticks^ 
 the work of the Writer. 
 
 Sir, — A humble individual, desirous of acknowledging 
 the unflinching kindness you have shown towards the work- 
 ing classes of this town, begs the acceptance of the enclosed ; 
 and, in doing so, he hopes you will pardon what I am afraid 
 you will think an un-English way of sending a note without 
 a name. My apology must be, that as you do not know me, 
 you will not put any wrong construction as to my motive in 
 doing so. Nothing but the profoundest respect would have 
 induced me to take the liberty I have. 
 
 Believing you to be a man as well as a gentleman, that 
 you can come down to the level of workingmen, and under- 
 stand them (a rare qualification now-a-days in one in the 
 class that circumstances have placed you), all workingmen 
 think it so much the more valuable to have your advice and 
 assistance. May it long be continued ! 
 
 I do not complain that we have not the sympathy of the 
 upper classes. I believe we have ; but there is not one in 
 fifty that can come down to our circumstances, to the bond 
 of our common nature, — to comprehend that althou'gh the 
 mechanic and artisan of this country are deep thinkers, yet 
 they often stand in need of advice and the assistance that 
 education gives. We have their good wishes and pecuniary 
 assistance, — thanks for it, — but sometimes a little kindly 
 advice would do far more. It is this difference that makes 
 us feel we could grasp you by the hand as a brother in the 
 cause of progress of the nation. Would that there were 
 more such ? Plow much more would true religion, morals, 
 and sound intellect be brought out ! No fear then of the 
 Pope or the Devil. 
 
 Believe me. Sir, I am very respectfully yours.
 
 244 "FEATS ON THE FIORD." 
 
 LETTEES EROM OCTOBER, 1849, TO DECEMBER, 1850. 
 XXXIX. 
 
 October 17, 1849. 
 
 I have just finished " Feats on the Fiord." Miss Marti- 
 neau's graphic powers are uncommon. I seem to see a Fiord, 
 like a valley spread with water into the land ; the vast flocks 
 of wild fowl ; the sun only dipping in summer below the 
 horizon ; the outline of the reindeer on the mountain, cut 
 against the sky, and the Lapp slyly running off with the 
 cheese laid on the mountain-ridge as an offering to Nipen. 
 A Lapp's hut must, I think, resemble an Alp for filth, and 
 be somewhat like it altogether. An Alp is a Tyrolese herds- 
 man's hut. On the mountains there are patches of vegeta- 
 tion among the pine-forests ; these in winter are covered 
 with snow, but in the summer months afford pasture for 
 cattle. The herdsmen ascend, having under their charge the 
 cows of several lowland farmers. Each superintends the 
 cattle of many farms. They milk them, make cheese, and 
 at the end of the season each farmer receives a number of 
 cheeses, in proportion to the number of cows that he con- 
 tributes. I never knew what filth was until I tried to break- 
 fast, when chamois-hunting, in an Alp. I had taken bread 
 with rae, and endeavored to improve it by the addition of 
 cream, butter, and cheese ; but the room was nearly ankle- 
 deep in dirt, the human beings in it scarcely tolerable within 
 six yards; the cream black and white in about equal pro- 
 portions, from the soot which had fallen in; the butter 
 kneaded up with hair, as mortar sometimes is; and the 
 cheese yielded to scarcely anything less violent than a 
 hatchet. I fancy the four-feet-liigh Lapps would feel quite 
 at home in an Alp. 
 
 What I like in Miss Martineau, too, is her genial heart, 
 — her willingness to "live and let live." She feels the
 
 RELIGIOUS SUPERSTITIONS. 245 
 
 falsehood and the injury of religious superstitions. She has 
 no false sentiment about their romantic beauty. They take 
 the manhood from the breast, the self-reliance and the trust 
 in God, — leaving behind a restless attempt to propitiate 
 fickle, capricious, malicious beings, whose only superiority 
 lies in power. The worship of power singly is always a 
 degrading w^orship ; submission to caprice is always demoral- 
 izing, — submission producing trickiness, subtlety, and trust 
 in cunning rather than in rectitude. All this Miss Marti- 
 neau sees; yet, whether it be heathen or Christian super- 
 stition, she nearly always has a healthy and just allowance 
 for the necessary admixture of error with all that is human, 
 and sees that, not by anathemas, but by gradual enlighten- 
 ment, such errors are to be expelled. In short, she sees the 
 difference between pernicious error and wilful vice. 
 
 I began that book at sunrise, and finished it a little after 
 breakfast-time. It gave me a healthy glow of feeling, a 
 more cheerful view of life. I believe the writer of that book 
 would rejoice that she had soothed and invigorated one day 
 of a wayworn, tired being in his path to the Still Country, 
 where the heaviest-laden lays down his burden at last, and 
 has Rest. 
 
 Yes, thank God! there is rest, — many an interval of 
 saddest, sweetest rest, — even here, when it seems as if even- 
 ing breezes from that other land, laden with fragrance, 
 played upon the cheeks and lulled the heart. There are 
 times, even on the stormy sea, when a gentle whisper breathes 
 softly as of heaven, and sends into the soul a dream of 
 ecstasy which can never again wholly die, even amidst the 
 jar and whirl of waking life. How such whispers make the 
 blood stop and the very flesh creep with a sense of myste- 
 rious communion! How singularly such moments are the 
 epochs of life, — the few points that stand out prominently 
 in the recollection after the flood of years has buried all 
 the rest, as all the low shore disappears, leaving only a few 
 rock-points visible at high-tide !
 
 246 ON TRAGEDY. 
 
 XL. 
 
 October 18, 1849. 
 I have been pondering over your question as to the prob- 
 able effect of tragedies such as " Phedre," &c., upon the 
 mind. Now Aristotle's deep view of the end of the tragic 
 drama is this ; that it aims, through the medium of two feel- 
 ings which it represents in action, — terror and fear, — to 
 refine those very feelings in the spectators. To refine, of 
 course, means to take off the rudeness and painfulness of 
 such emotions, and make them almost pleasing sensations. 
 That is, the terrible and pathetic in real life are painful 
 things to witness ; but in the mimic representation the worst 
 part is taken away by the consciousness that it is unreal, at 
 the same time that it is sufficiently like life to produce an 
 impression somewhat similar to that which would be called 
 forth by reality. The feeling thus made faint becomes 
 pleasurable, just as warmth is enjoyment, though heat be in- 
 tolerable. Of course it is plain that this refinement of feel- 
 ing unrealizes it, — unfits for the contemplation of the terrible 
 and pathetic in real life, — substitutes the mimic emotion 
 which is useless, a merely artificial production, for the true 
 one which the Creator has appointed to rise in the bosom 
 in such circumstances for the express purpose of leading to 
 action, exciting sympathy, hardening against danger, and so 
 on. A person who is refined by high-wrought scenes in 
 novels is necessarily sure to shrink from such scenes in real 
 life, because in the mimic case he had all the excitement 
 without the pain, and he will turn aside from circumstances 
 where excitement cannot be had without pain. And such 
 an one is sure to be found wanting when true feeling is re- 
 quired for use, because the feelings have got the habit of 
 being roused, without leading to exertion. They have got 
 this habit in the unreal, and they will keep to it in the real. 
 They will rise at the sight of distress or pain : but they have 
 never been trained to pass promptly into the work of sympa-
 
 UNHEALTHY EMOTION. 247 
 
 thizing and relieving, and accordingly such persons seem and 
 come to be looked upon as callous amidst the trials of otliers 
 over which they wept in the romance. This, I fancy, is 
 Aristotle's "refinement" of feeling, and this must be the 
 danger in all refinement of society. The tragedy and the 
 romance, therefore, only begin to appear when the mind of 
 a large portion of the nation is at leisure to cultivate hot- 
 house feelings, which are always feeble monstrosities. The 
 bull-fight and the amphitheatre only begin when war and the 
 chase have ended. The emotions which found in these a 
 healthy exercise once, get their unhealthy repast by seeing 
 without any call for acting. 
 
 It is plain to me that in this way all such reading is in- 
 jurious to the generality. All the feehng we can command 
 we want for acting. When we come to act, the feeling is not 
 there to make acting easy ; and what we have to do we must 
 either leave undone, or do with a cold heart, simply from 
 having been accustomed to train the feelings to refinement, 
 and not to action. 
 
 I wish that nature could do her own healthy work upon all 
 our hearts. I could conceive a marvellously healing power 
 to come from opening the soul, like a child's, to receive spon- 
 taneously, without effort, the impressions of the unliving, — 
 and yet how living ! — world around us, with all the awe that 
 accompanies them. 
 
 One impulse ft-om a vernal wood 
 
 Will teach you more of mau, 
 Of moral evil and of good, 
 
 Than all the sages can. 
 
 Also I suspect that speculative philosophy is not good to 
 read, however interesting ; at all events not alone. It has 
 too little of a basis of proved fact to rest upon, and depends 
 for its truth too much upon feeling. Positive science, such 
 as chemistry, natural philosophy, mineralogy, and geology, 
 rests on facts : and the effect of certainty which it produces
 
 248 ON SABBATH OBSERVANCi:. 
 
 on the mind is always a health} feeling. Here again it is as 
 I said above. The cure is to come in contact with Nature 
 and with Fact, instead of exhausting strength by mighty 
 blows struck at random on the yielding air, in the region of 
 conjecture and bewildering mystery. I love that region ; it 
 is indeed the region of Faith, but it requires a brain practised 
 much on more earthly precipices to avoid being dizzy and 
 lost in the immense abyss. 
 
 XLL 
 
 October 19. 
 
 I am convinced there is a deep truth in the strict view 
 which many take of the observance of Sunday. I am certain 
 that their arguments are wrong, — that the Sabbath is not a 
 perpetual obhgation; that it was Jewish, and that it passed 
 away with Christianity, which made all days and places holy. 
 
 Nevertheless, I am more and more sure by experience that 
 the reason for the observance of the Sabbath lies deep in the 
 everlasting necessities of human nature, and that as long as 
 man is man the blessedness of keeping it not as a day of rest 
 only, but as a day of spiritual rest, will never be annulled. 
 Almost everything may become an object of doubt, but, in 
 the midst of a wilderness of shadows, broken and distorted 
 in every way, of one thing I am certain, — one thing is real, 
 the life of God in the soul of man. I am quite sure that 
 there is One who is seeking us rather than sought by us, that 
 He will seek and find the earnest ; and I am sure that this 
 hidden communion may become an object of actual expe- 
 rience so soon as the seeking is reciprocal. If I have not 
 yet acted on it, I know that not with the intellect, but with 
 the spirit, man finds God ; in other words, by that which is 
 allied to God in our souls, we touch Him. The Jews required 
 " a sign," that is, something that would prove God to their 
 sensuous nature. The Greeks sought after wisdom ; that is, 
 by reason and mental tension they expected to realize the
 
 CHEERFUL LIFE WITH GOD. 249 
 
 Divine ; but St. Paul's conviction was, that the spiritual man 
 alone, — that is, the man who sought with his spirit, — could 
 understand the things of God. By the spirit, I suppose he 
 means that which I called above, the part in our nature which 
 is allied to God, which shows itself, not in cleverness and 
 nimbleness of apprehension, but in devotion, in the submis- 
 sive heart, in gentleness, humbleness, and love. I fancy that 
 Sunday has lost its meaning, unless this part of our being is 
 called into energy. I have been beating the air in vain 
 with investigation. The true way was much nearer. Not 
 by soaring high or diving low do we get the Anointer, but by 
 something very near to us, — trusting. Is not that the sub- 
 stance of those verses which so many people find difficult, 
 Eomans x. 6, 7, 8, 9 ? 
 
 I could not quite satisfy myself with the desolate feeling 
 which instinctively I feel as often as you talk of resolving to 
 fix your heart on God alone. Is not this that which ought to 
 make me supremely happy? But as I was walking in the 
 town to day, in a back street, and musing over this, I de- 
 tected the reason of it not doing so at once. God is Life, not 
 Death : He is not to be found, as the Legion-haunted tried to 
 find Him, among the tombs. I do think that the spirit in 
 which you sometimes despondlngly speak of living for Him 
 alone, really means nothing more than the burial alive of a 
 nun who is taking the black veil and thinking to become thus 
 the spouse of Christ. You speak of living for God and with 
 God, as if it were dying to all that is bright and cheering 
 and beautiful and blessed. You speak as one would speak of 
 going into a parish union, which is good only when there is 
 nothing else to do. No wonder that, involuntarily and almost 
 without a distinct analysis of the feeling, I feel a kind of 
 shudder and a vague cheerlessness when you talk so. No, 
 be vouee if you will, but it must be au hlanc, with more cheer- 
 ful and more grateful tones, — not as if to serve God and to 
 hear the eternal prison-doors clank behind you were identi- 
 11*
 
 250 THE POSITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 cal. Serve Him, love Him, live to Him, and you will be 
 bright and full of hope, and noble. " They shall renew their 
 strength." The heart vainly pants " for some celestial fruit, 
 forbidden to our wants." Yes, but how unjust and unreason- 
 able to complain if our expectations are not fulfilled ! A 
 sailor, I fancy, would not have a right to count himself of a 
 superior order of beings, if he sat dripping on a rock, and 
 pined for wings instead of sails. Sails are not so swift as 
 wings, and are much more coarse : but there is nothing for it 
 but to patiently content himself with his limitations, and 
 humbly follow in the wake of the laws of nature, making such 
 use of wind and steam as the constitution of his being per- 
 mits, — and not look up, envying the sea-birds in the air. 
 That will not get him on many knots an hour, I fancy. And 
 besides, even with wings, they will live and die gulls ; where- 
 as the very limits that cramp him call out the energies of a 
 day-by-day diviner manhood. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 My dear , — A woman's position is one of subjec- 
 tion, mythically described as a curse in the Book of Genesis. 
 Well, but I ween that all curses are blessings in disguise. 
 Labor among thorns and thistles, — man's best health. Wo- 
 man's subjection ? What say you to His ? " Obedient," a 
 " servant " ; wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him. 
 Methinks a thoughtful, high-minded woman would scarcely 
 feel degraded by a lot which assimilates her to the divinest 
 Man : " He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister." 
 I have always conceived that you had learned to count that 
 ministry the sublimest life w^hicli the world has seen, and its 
 humiliation and subjection precisely the features which were 
 most divine. The Greeks at Corinth wanted that part to be 
 left out, and it was exactly that part which Paul would not 
 leave out, — Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ crucified, which 
 the Evangelicals rob of all its beauty. Trust me, a noble
 
 INARTICULATE SORROWS. 251 
 
 woman laying on herself the duties of her sex, while fit for 
 higher things, — the world has nothing to show more like the 
 Son of Man than that. Do you remember Wordsworth's 
 beautiful lines to Milton ? — 
 
 Thy soul was as a star, and dwelt apart ; 
 
 Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: 
 
 Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free. 
 
 So didst thou travel on life's common way, 
 
 In cheerful godliness : and yet thy heart 
 
 The lowliest duties on itself dixl lay. 
 
 I do not know anything of Alfieri's " Life." By whom is 
 it written ? The misfortunes of genius, its false direction, its 
 misery, I suppose rise partly from the fact of the life of 
 genius being that which is chiefly given to the world. Many 
 a soldier died as bravely and with as much suffering as Sir 
 John Moore at Corunna ; but every soldier had not a "Wolfe 
 to write his death-song. Many an innocent victim perished, 
 — yes, by hundreds of thousands, — on the scaffolds of 
 France, and in the dungeons of the robber barons, but they 
 died silently. A few aristocrats whose shriek was loud have 
 filled the world with pity at the tale of their suffering. Many 
 a mediocre boy have I seen spoilt at school , — many a com- 
 monplace destiny has been marred in life : only these things 
 are not matters of history. Peasants grow savage with do- 
 mestic troubles, and washerwomen pine under brutal treat- 
 ment : but the former are locked up for burying their misery 
 in drunkenness, — the latter die of a broken heart, with 
 plenty of unwritten poetry lost among the soapsuds. I fancy 
 the inarticulate sorrows are far more pitiable than those of 
 an Alfieri, who has a tongue to utter them. Carlyle in this 
 respect seems to me to hold a tone utterly diverse from that 
 of the Gospel. The worship of the hero, that is his religion : 
 condescension to the small and unknown, that was His ! 
 
 A little plan which I have found serviceable in past years, 
 is to put down every night the engagements and duties of 
 the next day, arranging the hours well. The advantages
 
 252 AEE.INGEMENT OF DAILY LIFE. 
 
 of this are several. You get more done than if a great part 
 of each day is spent in contriving and considering " what 
 next?" A healthful feeling pervades the whole of life. 
 There is a feeling of satisfaction at the end of the day on 
 finding that, generally, the greater part of what is planned 
 has been accomplished. This is the secret of giving dignity 
 to tritles. As units they are insignificant ; they rise in im- 
 portance when they become parts of a plan. Besides this, — 
 and I think the most important thing of all, — there is gained 
 a consciousness of Will, the opposite of that which is the 
 sense of impotency. The thought of time, to me at least, is 
 a very overpowering and often a very annihilating one for 
 energy: Time rushing on, unbroken, irresistible, hurrying 
 the worlds and the ages into being, and out of it, and making 
 our " noisy years seem moments in the being of the eternal 
 Silence." The sense of powerlessness which this gives is 
 very painful. But I have felt that this is neutralized by such 
 a little plan as that. You feel that you do control your own 
 course; you are borne on, but not resistlessly. Down the 
 rapids you go, certainly, but you are steering and trimming 
 your own raft, and making the flood of Time your vassal, and 
 not your conqueror. I first, I think, began this plan after 
 reading a valuable little book, and a sunny, cheerful one, 
 Abbott's " Way to do Good." It has been omitted for years, 
 but I have begun it again these last few days. 
 
 "There is nothing in the drudgery of domestic duties to 
 soften," — you quote that. No, but a great deal to strengthen 
 with the sense of duty done, self-control and power. Be- 
 sides, you cannot calculate how much corroding rust is kept 
 off, — how much of disconsolate, dull despondency is hin- 
 dered. Daily use is not the jeweller's mercurial polish : but 
 it will keep your little silver pencil from tarnishing. 
 
 I have been interrupted by the visit of a lady of my con- 
 gregation, who came to take leave ; one, it appears, who has 
 been warmly attached to the instruction given there. She
 
 THE SUNDAY POSTAL DELIVERIES. 253 
 
 told me the delight, the tears of gratitude, which she had 
 witnessed in a poor girl to whom, in passing, I gave a kind 
 look on going out of church on Sunday. What a lesson ! 
 How cheaply happiness can be given ! What opportunities 
 we miss of doing an angel's work ! I remember doing it, 
 full of sad feelings, passing on, and thinking no more about 
 it ; and it gave an hour's sunshine to a human life, and light- 
 ened the load of life to a human heart, — for a time ! 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 October 24. 
 
 I have just returned from Lady G 's, — a party of ten 
 
 or twelve to dinner. Conversation after, chiefly military, 
 turning on Indian battles ; so I talked. Afterwards had a 
 
 discussion with Mr. about the post-office regulation of 
 
 transmitting letters on Sunday, in opposition to which there 
 is to be a meeting to-morrow. I maintained the difficulty of 
 the question : he asserted its facility. I instanced the case 
 of my being thrown out for the last train on Saturday night ; 
 what would have been done had there been no train on Sun- 
 day morning ? The inestimable value of a day of physical 
 repose and spiritual rest is granted ; but the details of that 
 must be modified by circumstances. Sailors must work a 
 ship on Sundays ; ships must arrive on Sundays ; battles 
 must be fought; news must travel. Life and death, or, — 
 what is equivalent, — property to an immense amount, must 
 often be involved, if the business of a great country, and 
 much of the correspondence, receives a sudden shock in the 
 metropolis and all country towns. Two days in the week 
 there would be no delivery. Moreover, it is a matter of de- 
 gree. The question is not an easy one. For, on the other 
 hand, the compulsory working of so many thousands on the 
 day of rest is almost identical with smothering the life of 
 religion in the soul. I certainly do feel by experience the 
 eternal obligation because of the eternal necessity of the
 
 254 THE PUEITAN SABBATH. 
 
 Sabbath. The soul withers without it; it thrives in propor- 
 tion to the fidelity of its observance. Nay, I even believe 
 the stern rigor of the Puritan Sabbath had a grand effect 
 upon the soul. Fancy a man thrown in upon himself, with 
 no permitted music, nor relaxation, nor literature, nor secular 
 conversation, — nothing but his Bible, his own soul, and 
 God's silence ! What hearts of iron this system must have 
 made. How different from our stuffed-arm-chair religion 
 and " gospel of comfort ! " as if to be made comfortable were 
 the great end of religion. I am persuaded, however, that 
 the Sabbath must rest not on an enactment, but on the neces- 
 sities of human nature. It is necessary not because it is 
 commanded; but it is commanded because it is necessary. 
 If the Bible says, "Eat the herb of the field," self-sustenance 
 does not become a duty in consequence of the enactment, but 
 the enactment is only a statement of the law of human nature. 
 And so with the Sabbath, and this appears to be a truer and 
 a far more impregnable base to place it on. For as to the 
 enactment, great part of it is indisputably dispensed with. 
 The day, the mode of observance, the manner of computing 
 the twenty-four hours from twelve to twelve, or from sunset 
 to sunset. If these be ceremonial, who is to prove that the 
 number one in seven is not ceremonial too, and that it might 
 not be changed for one in ten ? If all this is got rid of, and 
 " no manner of work " is construed to permit hot dinners and 
 fly-driving on the Sabbath, then it is only an arbitrary dis- 
 tinction to call any other part or even the whole of it of 
 moral and eternal instead of ceremonial obligation. You 
 cannot base it on a law : but you can show that the law was 
 based on an eternal fitness. There I think it never can be 
 dislodged. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 I have been dining at Mr. E 's, and escaped at 9.20 ; 
 
 a pleasant party enough ; that is, there were a good many
 
 ON THE IXDIGXATION OF CHRIST. 255 
 
 intelligent men, and the conversation was of a better order 
 
 than usual. Mr. E remarked, in conversation, that our 
 
 Lord never once used irony. I alleged Mark vii. 9 : " Full 
 well ye reject," &c., which, after a long discussion, and the 
 production of Greek Testaments, &c., was universally ad- 
 mitted to be decisive. Then came the maxim, that the indig- 
 nation expressed by Him against hypocrisy was no precedent 
 for us, inasmuch as he spoke as a Divine person. A gentle- 
 man of the name of maintained this. I contended 
 
 that it was human, and that if a man did not feel something 
 of the same spirit under similar circumstances, if his blood 
 could not boil with indignation, nor the syllable of withering 
 justice rise to his lips, he could not even conceive His spirit. 
 Mr. E agreed to this, to my surprise, and told an anec- 
 dote. " Could you not have felt indignation for that, Robert- 
 son ? " My blood was at the moment running fire, — not at 
 his story, however; and I remembered that I had once in my 
 life stood before my fellow-creature with words that scathed 
 and blasted ; once in my life I felt a terrible might : I knew, 
 and rejoiced to know, that I was inflicting the sentence of a 
 coward's and a liar's hell. 
 
 I feel most as I should be when my mind is in the atti- 
 tude of — do you remember the dear old simile of Shelley, 
 which I have not quoted for so long, though it has been 
 again and again in my meditiations ; that I used to quote 
 so often? There is something in the feeling of that simile 
 that is quite after my own heart: the solemn night, the 
 purity of the thread of light, the divine compassion of the 
 placid Thing above, the quiet devoted sadness of the soli- 
 tary inhabitant of night and air below, a butterfly in all but 
 gaudiness. No, I have not given the serene feeling and 
 sacred sensations of the simile. It is quite peculiar, and 
 I have repeated it to myself a thousand times. Resigna- 
 tion was the word I wanted. The homage of resignation 
 beneath the clear pale sky of night, with Eternity and Im-
 
 256 OPIATES. 
 
 mensity all round, imparting themselves to the look upwards. 
 It is all in vain, I do not express it. Shelley's single line 
 says it all. The sound of the words responds to the thought 
 and image which they suggest. I cannot tell you what a 
 stillness they produce in me, and how entirely, more than 
 anything I know, they image what I feel. 
 
 I have been asked to go to Switzerland, and a man ought 
 to go there to feel intensely at least once in his life. The 
 only question is, it will scarcely be possible for me to exceed 
 seven Sundays of absence. 
 
 I fear it is not possible, but what a dream ! The valley 
 of Rosenlaui, that loveliest of earthly spots ; the stern gran- 
 deur of the Grimsel, where the wildest and loneliest thoughts 
 were in my heart four years ago ; and the fall of the Aar 
 at Handek, where I got a sensation new in life ; or the spots 
 of the Tyrol, where I wandered for long weeks alone. For 
 a time I almost think I would give up the rest of the year, 
 anything for that. But, no ; a few weeks soon pass, though 
 they leave behind a memory which tints all existence, and 
 apparently absorb all existence into themselves. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 My dear , — I implore you, do not try morphine 
 
 ever; no, not once. I will trust you not to do so, not to 
 take any opiate whatever. I ask it humbly. Pledge me 
 your word that you will honorably comply with this, in the 
 letter and in the spirit too. It is a wicked and cowardly 
 attempt to rule the spirit by the flesh. It is beneath you. 
 If you do it I can honor you no longer ; the results upon 
 the system are slow, sure, and irreparable, and the habit 
 grows until it is unconquerable. I am deeply, anxiously in 
 earnest. You are not worthy the fidelity of my friendship 
 if you try to drown misery in that way. Except in the 
 grossness of the effect, where is the difference between the
 
 SUOT)AY SERVICES. 257 
 
 opiate and the dram ? Do you not know what keeps the gin 
 palaces open ? — Misery ! The miserable go there to forget. 
 You must not, and shall not do it, for it is degradation. I 
 would have you condescend to no miserable materialism to 
 escape your sorrow. Remember what Maria Theresa said 
 when she began to doze in dying, " I want to meet my God 
 awake." Remember that He refused the medicated opiate 
 on the cross. Meet misery awake. May I borrow sacred 
 words : " Having begun in the spirit, do not be made per- 
 fect through the flesh." Summon the force to bear out of 
 your own heart, and the divine that dwells there, — not out 
 of a laudanum bottle. I have spoken ruggedly, but not 
 rudely. Forgive me ; I am not myself to-night ; I would 
 gladly sustain the depression I feel by opiate, or by anything 
 else ; but I resist, because it is despicable. 
 
 XLVL 
 
 Another Sunday done : crowded congregations, pulpit steps 
 even full, ante-room nearly so. Morning, the Sabbath sub- 
 ject ; the afternoon, the conclusion of Acts xviii. I sat in 
 church, thinking, " Now, how this crowd would give many 
 men pleasure, flatter their hearts with vanity, or fill them 
 with honest joy. How strange that it is given to one who 
 cannot enjoy it, who takes no pains to keep it, who would 
 gladly give all up, and feels himself in the midst of all a 
 homeless and heartless stranger." In the afternoon, for a 
 few minutes, some gentler thoughts came, and there was a 
 rush of warmer, perhaps better feeling in some parts of my 
 sermon where I was speaking of ApoUos's character, — bril- 
 liant and gifted, yet sitting humbly to be taught by Priscilla ; 
 and also where St. Paul, taking a vow, seemed to indicate 
 that there was in his heart a lingering attachment to the 
 ceremonies, and even the superstitions, hallowed by early 
 associations. 
 
 * * * # * * 
 
 Q
 
 258 IS HUMAN lo\t: idolatry? 
 
 has been here since eight o'clock. He had been 
 
 reading Fichte's " Blessed Life." We had a long talk about 
 it; he is but a beginner in these matters, but was deeply 
 interested. I will tell you a thought which came out in 
 conversation, and which I expressed. Fichte seems to dis- 
 countenance attachment to the individual and the visible. 
 The clinging, which to cut away would be cutting the heart 
 to the quick, he w^ould call an indication of a mind not set 
 on the Invisible. And yet how is this? Then they who 
 feel least, and attach themselves least, are the religious of 
 the earth. The gentlest and tenderest, who have forgotten 
 self in the being of another, are consoled with the pleasing 
 assurance, that "they have neither part nor lot" in the 
 blessed life. And he, whose tears flowed so freely over the 
 grave of friendship, and over his country's doomed metropo- 
 lis, who loved John with so peculiar and selective an attach- 
 ment, — what are we to say of Him? O, it cannot be. 
 It cannot be, that God has given us beings here to love, and 
 that to love them intensely is idolatry. I can understand 
 self-annihilation for another dearer than self; but I can- 
 not understand the annihilation of those dear affections, 
 nor the sacrifice of a bleeding heart at the shrine of Him 
 whose name is Love. I do not, however, comprehend any- 
 thing of the matter. It is all dark. I do not understand 
 why the tenderer the heart is, the more it is exposed to 
 being torn, and rent, and tortured. Separations, bereave- 
 ments, deaths, broken hearts, — there is something very stern 
 in the aspect of this world, when you penetrate below the 
 superficial smile it wears ; very stern, and every day makes 
 life a more serious thing, more suggestive of grave thought. 
 Then, the next moment there is, perhaps, a burst of light- 
 heartedness, unworthy of one who thinks and feels ; but here 
 again Elena's lay in " Philip Von Artevelde " gives the true 
 account of that : — 
 
 The human heart cannot sustain, &c.
 
 ST. PAUL'S ESTIMATE OF WOilEN. 259 
 
 And that very provision for liaj^piness or lightness, in spite 
 of such serious thought, seems to give us glimpses of the 
 truth that Love sits at the helm of this dark world's course, 
 after all. Else Talleyrand's hideous sneer might be almost 
 believed : " the happy are they who have hard hearts, and 
 hard," — how shall I euphonize it ? — " peptic powers." 
 
 XL VII. 
 
 I rather agree with the view of St. Paul having taken, 
 personally, a low estimate of women. It seems to me in- 
 separable from his temperament. I had a friend full of fire 
 and ardor like St. Paul, though wanting his tenderness, who 
 was blessed or unblessed with the same gift as St. Paul, and 
 he spoke in the same way, — not contemptuously, for he 
 liked to be soothed and flattered by them, but as if they were 
 born to be helpmeets for man, and that chiefly. That re- 
 spectful chivalry of feeling which characterizes some men 
 can only exist where that is found which St. Paul lacked, 
 and which was in many respects a gift ; still no man can 
 lack any one of the feelings of humanity, however much 
 misery he may escape by it, without loss in some other re- 
 spect. It is a matter of great interest, and even awe, to 
 me, to observe how the nobler feelings can exist in their 
 intensity only where the whole nature, the lower too, is in- 
 tense also ; and how that which is in itself low and mean 
 becomes sublimated into something that is celestiaL Hence, 
 in the highest natures I suppose goodness will be the result 
 of tremendous struggle ; just as the " bore," which is nothing 
 in the Thames, becomes a convulsion on the Ganges, where 
 the waters of a thousand miles roll like a sea to meet the 
 incomino; tide of the ocean. 
 
 I never, however, could reconcile that coldness of nature 
 in St. Paul, with the singular fire and passion of his char- 
 acter, nor with his remarkable and exuberant tenderness.
 
 260 THE AGONY OF SCEPTICISM. 
 
 Men are divided into three classes, — the irascible or pas- 
 sionate temperament, the sensual, and the melancholy. St. 
 Paul belonged to the first, which is no doubt the finest, and, 
 on the whole, the happiest. 
 
 Poor ! The secret, however, of his scepticism seems 
 
 to have been crime ; or was the crime the result of scepti- 
 cism ? for when the soul is tossed over that sea, without a 
 chart, and without a polar star, it is almost at the mercy of 
 any fitful gust of passion. I cannot blame severely what 
 others so condemn, — the bitterness of that sarcasm in the 
 
 . People often mistake a contortion of anguish for a 
 
 diabolical grin. Often the cry of despair is taken for a shout 
 of savage triumph ; many a brave man, and tender withal, 
 has struck a woman ruthlessly her death-blow. Yes, but 
 then the man was drowning. No one can understand the 
 horrid laugh of hopelessness which delights to scatter its scorn 
 on the falsehoods which are deluding others, after they ai'e 
 proved falsehoods, but he who has felt the ice of doubt crack- 
 ing beneath his feet, and seen himself alone on a single ice- 
 block, severed from mankind. I do not excuse, but I can 
 understand both the want of reverence and the immoral life 
 which result from such despair. 
 
 XL VIII. 
 
 October. 
 
 My dear , — I know little of the Countess Hahn 
 
 Hahn or Frederica Bremer, but I can easily understand that 
 the female character is very different in those places from 
 here. Tennyson, I remember, in his " Princess," which I 
 have not in my possession to refer to, but shall get to-day, 
 draws the distinction well between the characters of the 
 north and south : — 
 
 Oh, swallow, swallow, swallow flying south. 
 
 " Dark, tender, true," I think, are the epithets he applies to 
 the north : —
 
 THE NORTHERN TEMPERAMENT. 261 
 
 And dark and true and tender is the north. 
 
 The south, of course, passionate, impulsive, brief-lived in 
 feeling. I believe the former makes the nobler character. 
 At least, it has been given to the north again and again to 
 regenerate the vrorn-out south by the infusion of nobler 
 blood and more vigorous intellect. In the estimate formed 
 of women, I should think there cannot be a doubt which is 
 the truer and deeper, — that which makes her a plaything, 
 or that which surrounds her with the sacredness of a silent 
 worship. A temperament like that of St. Paul's is happier, 
 and for the world more useful. . . . 
 
 Still I think that tone of mind, which could only be found 
 in the north, only confers the power of suffering, — dignified 
 suffering if you will, but only suffering. In one or two cases 
 here and there you meet with those " whose hearts the holy 
 forms of young imagination have kept pure." But common- 
 ly, I believe, the very purity of these aspirations becomes a 
 dangerous gift. They lie very close to what is wrong, they 
 transform themselves very easily into tempters, — Lucifers 
 cast down from heaven. Tenderness transmutes itself into 
 something allied, yet different; disappointment becomes heart 
 ruin. Do you remember in the "Arabian Nights" the story 
 of the princess gifted with supernatural power, — using it 
 always nobly, — blowing flame of fire at the genie, and re- 
 duced to a heap of ashes in the conflict by her own fire the 
 very moment after victory ? It is all very mysterious. The 
 sons of dust crawl plodding on in safety to their journey's 
 end; and they who aspire to guide the fire-coursers of the 
 sun, or float through heaven on wings of waxen purity, are 
 precipitated into ruin, or else left in cold dank seas of disap- 
 pointment. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 October 30. 
 
 Walking down Regency Square, about four o'clock, I was 
 struck by the singular beauty of the sky. Two mighty con-
 
 262 THE PATRISTIC SYSTEM. 
 
 tinents of cloud stretched from above me in parallel lines 
 toward the horizon above the sea, where they seemed to 
 meet. A river of purest blue, broad above my head, narrow 
 by perspective in the distance, ran between them, seeming to 
 lave their shores. Each of them had a rim or edge of bright 
 gold, as if the river were rippling and glistening on the 
 banks ; and innumerable islets of gold were dotted along 
 both shores; the parallelism of them, producing that effect 
 of perspective which you see in an avenue of trees, gave a 
 strong perception of the boundlessness of distance, into which 
 they stretched away. Looking at sky and clouds, you scarce- 
 ly estimate distance. The vault seems very measurable, and 
 it does not occur to you that clouds which apj)ear only a few 
 yards in length are really acres and acres of vapor. This 
 combination of forms, however, forced me to realize the im- 
 mensity of space, and a deeper sense of grandeur and love- 
 liness came to me than I have felt for many weeks. It has 
 always been so. When I have not perfect union with hu- 
 manity, I find in trees and clouds, and forms and colors of 
 things inanimate, more that is congenial, more that I can in- 
 form with my own being, more that speaks to me, — than in 
 my own species. There is something in the mere posture of 
 looking up which gives a sense of grandeur ; and that, I sup- 
 pose, is the reason why all nations have localized heaven 
 there, and peopled the sky with Deity. 
 
 ****** 
 
 I have received a letter from to-day. It is full of 
 
 hope and touching in all its misery ! Her sorrows have been 
 great, and her trials are severe. She has attempted to find 
 peace in the patristic system, which she recommends to me, 
 but it is quite plain that she has tried it in vain. I replied 
 that I knew the system pretty well, having studied it once 
 with anxiety ; that I doubted not it had in it a remedy for 
 those who could believe it ; that I was not prepared to say 
 that to them it was not a real remedy, for the form of error
 
 A WALK IN HOVE CHURCHYARD. 263 
 
 often conceals a truth, and to many minds presents the truth 
 only, the wraj^ping being mstinctively rejected, as the grape- 
 skin or sugar-cane fibre is rejected by the palate when the 
 sweetness of which they are but the vehicle has been ex- 
 tracted ; that even of the worst of Eomish errors the same 
 might be said, as for instance, Mariolatry contains the sub- 
 lime truth of the adorableness and heavenliness of female 
 purity. But that no act of volition could extract this nutri- 
 ment from error when the conscience recognized it as error ; 
 and to adopt a system because others who believed it earnestly 
 have had their spiritual nature nurtured by it ; to believe it 
 for the sake of the advantage of it, must fail ; that it would 
 be destruction to the moral being ; that I would rather live 
 solitary on the most desolate crag, — shivering, with all the 
 warm wraps of falsehood stripped off, gazing after unfound 
 truth, — where bird doth not find bush, nor insect wing flit 
 over the herbless granite, than sit comfortably on more in- 
 habited spots, where others are warm in a faith which is true 
 to them, but which is false to me. I said this to her more 
 concisely in a few lines. 
 
 ****** 
 I went out this afternoon to get some fresh air, and cool a 
 little feverishness. After a walk I bent my steps to the spot 
 most congenial to my feelings at that time, the churchyard at 
 Hove. It was quite dark, but the moon soon rose and shed 
 a quiet light upon the long church and the wliite tombstones. 
 I went in, and was pleased to hear not a single human sound 
 far or near. The moon was rising, like glowing copper, 
 through the smoke at Brighton. Above there were a few 
 dense clouds, edged with light, sailing across a marvellous 
 blue, which softened towards the zenith into a paler and more 
 pearly cobalt, with clear innocent stars here and there look- 
 ing down so chaste and pure. I heard nothing but the seaj 
 that, however, very distinctly, chanting no " sea psalm," but 
 falling with a most dissonant heavy endless clang upon the
 
 264 KEBLE'S HYMN. 
 
 shore. It found for me the expression I could not put in 
 words. 
 
 I went to the tomb, and stood beside it quietly for some 
 time. I felt no bitterness, — infinite pity and tenderness, — 
 that was predominant. I did not kneel to pray ; I do not 
 know why. I passed E. M 's tomb, and paused one mo- 
 ment. The bridegroom lies beneath the hillock where so 
 many fell at ChilUan wallah ; the bride is desolate. Two who 
 were there are dead, both young. That marriage and that 
 
 death are singularly joined in my mind, for poor E was 
 
 planning her own wedding then, and settling that I should 
 
 marry her. Young R , too, has gone, but I do not envy 
 
 any of them, except the soldier, perhaps. I wish I had been 
 with my own gallant, wondrous regiment in that campaign. 
 
 I/. 
 
 November 5. 
 
 Keble on this occasion is scarcely equal to himself.* The 
 connection is forced. The mountain boy, getting hardened 
 by years, is very indistinctly linked with the thought of un- 
 forgivingness ; nor do I see why a mountain boy is peculiarly 
 called upon for the exercise of that grace. Besides the 
 " blest restraint " is not one calculated at all to produce any 
 real elevation of character. It is little more than an animal 
 existence, aiJd all those notions of peasant purity and pasto- 
 ral innocence are miserably false and sentimental. They be- 
 long rather to the heathen times of Corydon and Amaryllis 
 than the more true Christian conception of a new birth into 
 goodness and progressive excellence by knowledge of evil 
 and hatred of it. If the mountain boy had lived in that nar- 
 row " blessed range " all his life, I suspect his perception of 
 the beauty of the " snow-clad peaks of rosy light " would 
 have been very dim and dull indeed. It is education which 
 di'aws out the beauty of these things. I fancy my little 
 
 * Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity.
 
 INFLUENCE OF CARLYLE. 265 
 
 Charles would see more beauty in his regiment of leaden 
 soldiers than in the sublimest view in Switzerland. 
 
 lady, we receive but as we give, 
 And in our life alone does nature live. 
 
 A child's glance on nature is void of rapture, unless, by 
 some unfortunate precocity of constitution, feeling is very 
 early developed ; especially a boy's glance, to whom a beau- 
 tiful hill is rather a fine place for a scamper, or a good cover 
 for grouse, than a place for sensibility to expatiate in. The 
 sense of the loveliness of nature comes with the first suscep- 
 tibility of the spell of woman. I have little doubt that the 
 " thwarting cliffs " were never called by so poetical a name as 
 " thwarting " by the young gentleman of the hills, until he 
 found his rudeness checked by the vigorous chastisement of 
 Peggy's delicate fingers making his ears tingle. " Altered 
 day dreams " : why, the dreams of boyhood are nothing to 
 the dreams of manhood. The mysteries of this unintelligible 
 world, and the solemn beauty and wonder of existence, do 
 not begin in their fulness until the heart has begun to lose 
 itself in " life's seducing wild." 
 
 I do not quite know what to say about Carlyle. Sure I 
 am that his mind has had more influence on the thoughtful 
 young men of the day than any other I could name. His 
 thought is more moulded into many of the leading Americans' 
 thought, and his power has told more upon the tone of feel- 
 ing amongst the most highly educated manufacturers than that 
 of any, I suppose, in England ; and I am not prepared to 
 think that that is an attribute of mere talent. Formative in- 
 fluence is a prerogative of genius ; but the truth is, that talent, 
 at least, often becomes nearly as intuitive as genius. When 
 the mind is stored with a vast variety of thoughts, which by 
 digestion it has made its own, it is wonderful how rapid by 
 habit those combinations become, which we generally attrib- 
 ute to genius only. Then again, as Carlyle says of Mira- 
 
 VOL, I. 12
 
 266 "WALK IN THE SPIEIT." 
 
 beau, who was charged with using other men's materials, 
 " to make other men's thoughts really your own, and not sim- 
 ply reproduce them, is an evidence of genius. Why did they 
 not make as much use of the raw material of their own 
 thoughts as he did ? " 
 
 LI. 
 
 I will quote a passage which has struck me : — 
 " The true heart of moral culture is to balance extravagant 
 tendencies by quickening those which are languid. Growth 
 is a safer means of producing harmony in character than re- 
 pression." How often have I felt and said this ! You can- 
 not descend to the regions of the lower nature, and wrestle 
 with success there. You must go above and iight them, as 
 Perseus fought the dragon that would have destroyed An- 
 dromeda, on wings in the air. The lower is subdued, not by 
 repression, but by making it simply an instrument of the 
 higher. No fasting, for instance, will make the soul pure ; 
 but a noble attachment will keep all baser feelings in check 
 and ennoble them. By-the-by, that is a better remedy than 
 Cato's ; that was the very essence of St. Paul's system ; that 
 was the gospel according to him. Not repression, coercion, 
 law, — that only produces dreadful conflict. " Ye cannot do 
 the things ye would." " Walk in the spirit," — the higher 
 life of loftier motives, — " and then ye will not fulfil the lusts 
 of the flesh " ; and that is true particularly as well as gen- 
 erally. No court-martial or provost-marshal's cord would 
 stop thieving in a regiment, or make a coward brave ; but an 
 esprit de corps and honor have done it again and again. 
 
 I am quite sure that is the real answer to Tractarianism 
 nd Sabbatarianism. Those systems, " as systems," will not 
 produce animals as noble even as the dog is, though I admit 
 there are some of the noblest of the species hampered by 
 them, and also that some who never can be made noble re- 
 quire to be kept by them from doing harm.
 
 PEESENCE AND ABSENCE. 267 
 
 I sometimes believe that the expression of communion is 
 much more rich and varied where the presence is only that 
 of mind, than when friends are together, and hour after hour 
 passes, each taking for granted that all which he desires to 
 say is understood. The presence which is bodily, soothes and 
 contents, but perhaps for that very reason checks the utter- 
 ance of thought and feeling, which only become articulate 
 from a sense of want. Is not that the history of the origin 
 of speech itself? Is it not want which brings out the child's 
 first tones, and elaborates language as the requirements of 
 men, by civilization, become more multiplied and complex ? 
 And if we had perfect fulness of all things, the entire beati- 
 tude of being without a want, possessing all blessedness 
 within, should we not lapse into the eternal Silence of God 
 himself? 
 
 All the utterances of man, — his music and his poetry, 
 the heirloom which the gifted have bequeathed to their spe- 
 cies, — are but the results of a want, of a loneliness which 
 coarser and blunter spirits had been fortunate, or unfortunate, 
 enough not to feel, and which compelled them to articulate 
 expressions, like the thirsting baby, in moans, or cries of hap- 
 piness, as the case might be. 
 
 LH. 
 
 November 10. 
 
 I quite agree with what you say about sympathy produced 
 by fault, but I think you will not find my view inconsistent. 
 I only say that mercy which is shown by us sinners to sin- 
 ners is either deficient or extravagant. Fair, generous, firm 
 mercy is only shown by One who has been tempted and not 
 erred. I gave three examples, — Paul the apostle and David, 
 of severity ;' the former having not been tempted, and the 
 latter having fallen, — one of weak leniency, Saul the king, 
 who sympathized too much with Agag. 
 
 Miss is a kind, true friend, but I do not quite accept
 
 268 THE POETRY OF PROSAIC LIFE. 
 
 what she says about V 's life being too clumsy and real. 
 
 No ; remember, He had nowhere to lay his head ; that was 
 clumsy and real enough. Paul, whom I consider the sub- 
 limest of the human race, toiled at tent-making. Elizabeth 
 Fry went into dirty dungeons, and in Ireland would have, 
 with indomitable perseverance, done something in mud 
 hovels. I only wish there were more real coarseness forced 
 
 into V 's life. The outward and visible do not always 
 
 weigh down the inward; but often inward life wants more 
 pressure on it from without to make it salient. The noble 
 frigate looks heavy enough in calm, but springs to the gale, 
 like a sea-bird, gracefully. Rely upon it, the real poetry of 
 life is found where He found it, — in multiplying loaves and 
 fishes, in descending to things so mean as wine required for a 
 feast, in collecting a few rude simple people round Him, in 
 working the earlier part of His existence humbly* at the 
 
 carpenter's trade, in a very homely existence, and V 
 
 ought not to talk of submission, or of a nunnery. Did you 
 ever read Blanco White's description of a nun's life and 
 mind, — its stagnation, its anile childishness, its over-con- 
 scious purity, which is really impurity ; its miserable, crushed 
 natural tendencies, and the dreadful revenge nature takes in 
 asserting her rights ? Trust me, she who would be wiser 
 than her Maker is only seeming wise. She who nourishes 
 one part of her being by the extinction of another is but a 
 
 stunted monstrosity after all. Let V be sure that God 
 
 has given a woman no nobler destmy than that of an abun- 
 dant home, not the less noble for its trials. Her tone is not 
 a worthy one ; it is effeminate, not feminine. 
 
 I wish to speak firmly. V would despise me if I did 
 
 not. He was not a true friend, but a sentimentalist for the 
 moment, who was for taking all the coarseness and terre-a- 
 terre life out of the way, that his Divine Friend might lead 
 a languid, poetical life of comfort. I would not be a Satan 
 to her. No. Is a terre-a-terre life after all as sharp as the
 
 THE EFFECTS OF SOLITUDE. 269 
 
 cross ? Are howling winds and cold rooms as unpoetical as 
 Pilate's judgment-hall and the rude mock of the ruffian 
 soldiery ? 
 
 In speaking of " Knox's Eambles," and the effects of asso- 
 ciation with men in sharpening the intellect, you remark that 
 this seems inconsistent with the fact that great spirits have 
 been nursed in solitude. Yes, but not the ploughman's 
 solitude. Moses was forty years in Midian, but he had the 
 education of Egypt before, and habits of thought and obser- 
 vation began, as shown in his spirit of inquiry, with regard 
 to the burning forest. Usually, I suppose, the spark has 
 been struck by some superior mind, either in conversation or 
 through reading. Ferguson was, perhaps, an exception. 
 Then, again, stirring times set such master-minds to work 
 even in this solitude, as in Cromwell's case. I remember, 
 too, a line of Goethe's, in which he says : — 
 
 Talent forms itself in solitude, 
 Character in the storms of life. 
 
 But I believe both your positions are true. The soul collects 
 its mightiest forces by being thrown in upon itself, and co- 
 erced solitude often matures the mental and moral character 
 marvellously, as in Luther's confinement in the Wartburg. 
 Or, to take a loftier example, Paul during his three years iu 
 Arabia; or, grander still. His solitude in the desert: the 
 Baptist's too. But, on the other hand, solitude unbroken, 
 from earliest infancy, or with nothing to sharpen the mind, 
 either by collision with other minds, or the expectation of 
 some new sphere of action shortly, would, I suppose, rust the 
 mental energies. Still there is the spirit to be disciplined, 
 humbled, and strengthened, and it may gain in proportion as 
 the mind is losing its sharpening education. 
 
 I have just read Keble's hymn for the twenty-third Sunday 
 after Trinity. The last stanza but one is truly consolatory ; 
 and those lines about the dead leaves represent a feeling 
 which is irresistible in autumn. I recollect how sometunes
 
 270 AUTUMN LEAVES. 
 
 the heaps of soft leaves, the fluttering of the falling ones 
 through the air, have brought almost a pang to my heart. 
 Do you know, sometimes they have made me think of my 
 mother's gray hairs, with melancholy reminiscences of what 
 she was. The unmurmuring way in which the vegetable 
 creation resign their lives is very striking, as a thought, in 
 connection with the great law of being, for by the sacrifice of 
 life, voluntary or involuntary, and by that alone, can other 
 and higher life 'exist. The mineral soil gives its force to the 
 grass, and the grass its life to the cattle, and they sacrifice 
 theirs for man ; all that is involuntary, and of course there is 
 in it nothing great or good. But voluntary acquiescence in 
 and working w ith that manifested law or will of God is the 
 very essence of human goodness. Is it not another name for 
 Love? 
 
 LIU. 
 
 The difference between Moses and Anaxagoras, the Epis- 
 tles and the " Excursion," I believe is in degree. The Light 
 or the Word which dwells in all men, dwells in loftier degree 
 in some than in others, and also is of a nobler kind of inspi- 
 ration. Bezaleel and Aholiab, — artificers, — were men in- 
 spired, we are told. Why they more than other seers of the 
 Beautiful? But who would compare their enlightenment 
 with that which ennobles the life instead of purifying the 
 taste? And, again, who would compare a philosopher, phys- 
 ical or metaphysical, revealing in the one case the laws of 
 matter, and in the other the laws of mind, with the revealer 
 of spiritual truth? Is the dictum of Anaxagoras, that all 
 our sense of knowledge is delusive, to be compared with that 
 .which Moses reveals, — Jehovah is one Lord and Holy ? 
 The " Excursion " reveals some beautiful truths of our moral 
 being, but by how much our spiritual life is higher than our 
 sensitive and moral, so much are the Epistles above the 
 " Excursion," — higher in kind and higher also in degree of
 
 THE DEGREES OF INSPIRATION. 271 
 
 inspiration, for the Apostle's claim, in matters spiritual, un- 
 erring power of truth. Newton's revelation of the order of 
 the heavens, grand as it was, is inferior to that which we 
 technically call inspiration, by how much one single human 
 soul transcends the whole material universe in value. 
 
 I think it comes to this: God is the Father of Lights, and 
 — the King in his beauty, and — the Lord of Love. All our 
 several degrees of knowledge attained in these departments 
 are from Him. One department is higher than another ; in 
 each department, too, the degree of knowledge may vary 
 from a glimmering glimpse to infallibility: so that all is 
 properly inspiration, but immensely differing in value and in 
 degree. If it be replied that this degrades inspiration by 
 classing it with things so common, the answer is plain: a 
 sponge and a man are both animals, but the degrees between 
 them are almost incalculable. 
 
 I think this view of the matter is important, because in 
 the other way some twenty or thirty men in the world's his- 
 tory have had a special communication, miraculous, and from 
 God. In this, all have it, and by devout and earnest culti- 
 vation of the mind and heart may have it increased inimita- 
 bly. This is really practical. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 My morning was broken up. I could not go out to Hurst 
 until half an hour before two, just in time to see the children 
 off by the train. There was then an hour and a half to wait 
 for the next train. I sat down upon a bench, and read a 
 small work of Ullmann's, a professor at Heidelberg. It was 
 a wild day, with driving clouds, drizzling rain, and lurid 
 gleams of sunshine at intervals ; but warm. It was rather 
 fine to see the black and lead-colored clouds drifting over the 
 steep sides of the Downs, sometimes so dark and solemn in 
 their march that I felt a kind of awe creeping over me. I 
 am very fond of a driving sky, when it is not monotonous^
 
 272 A STORMY DAY. 
 
 and when the altitudes of the clouds vary a good deal, — 
 some sweeping quite low and only just topping the hills, 
 others sailing more slowly far above, and with tracts of clouds 
 between these. The variety of color, the great diversity of 
 speed, give a great charm to such an aerial effect: it impress- 
 es you more with the idea of supernatural life than when a 
 surface of cloud is drawn at one uniform speed across the 
 sky. Coming home, the heavens cleared brightly towards 
 the setting sun, while all the rest was denser and more leaden 
 by the contrast. Orange flakes and lines were shot across a 
 clear sea-green sky, passing into blue, but made green where 
 the yellow mingled with the blue, without any red to keep 
 the two from blending. But it was the wildness of the 
 whole, and the recklessness with which the whole air seemed 
 animated, that gave the day its peculiar character, and power 
 of exciting interest. I sat and read, and watched effect after 
 effect, until the air and I seemed friends. 
 
 The miserable Mannings were executed this morning; 
 they have been hawking the account of their last hours about 
 Brighton, but I have not yet seen it. There is something 
 disorustino- in the thought of a large class of human beings 
 
 O CD <D CD O 
 
 getting their livelihood out of a death so horrible. 
 
 I have not maturely considered capital punishment. The 
 questions are, does it deter from crime by example ? Does 
 it give a deeper dye to sin in public estimation ? or does it 
 harden by the spectacle, and enlist public sympathy on the 
 side of the criminal, instead of on the side of the law ? Or 
 rather, there is a previous question to be settled : is the ob- 
 ject of punishment threefold only, — to serve as an example 
 to others, to ameliorate the offender, and in some cases to de- 
 fend society by his entire removal ? Or is there a fourth 
 element, the expression of righteous vengeance ? for I ac- 
 knowledge I cannot look upon vengeance as merely remedial. 
 The sense of indignation which arises in the human bosom 
 spontaneously against some crimes must, in a degree, be a
 
 ON CAPITAL PUNISHMEXT. 273 
 
 reflection of that which resides in the mind of Deity. If so, 
 there is in Him that which the Scripture calls wrath, and we 
 are not entitled, I think, to assume that all penalty is intended 
 to effect, or can effect, the reformation of the offender. Prob- 
 ably some penalties are final, expressing infinite justice, and 
 then the higher award of human law must resemble that. It 
 is the indignation of society or mankind purified of all per- 
 sonal vindictiveness, expressed in a final punishment. For 
 doubtless man, — that is, society, as distinguished from indi- 
 vidual man, — speaks in a degree with the authority of God. 
 " He hath committed all judgment unto him, because he is 
 the Son of Man." All hangs on that. Is final penalty the 
 dignified expression of vengeance, putting aside the question 
 of remedy, social safety, and does not the element of ven- 
 geance enter into all punishment ? If not, why does the feel- 
 ing exist, not as a sinful, but as an essential part of human 
 nature ; in His words, too, and acts ? 
 
 I do not know any other ground on which I could defend 
 capital punishment, for the Scriptural authority, " whoso shed- 
 deth man's blood, &c., is quite inconclusive, being a Jewish 
 rule, and it would be hard to show that it belongs to the race, 
 as well as to the nation. Nor do I think there is much 
 weight in the horror which the idea excites of " hurrying the 
 sinner before his Judge," and taking from him what you can- 
 not restore. Perhaps there is something mawkish in this. 
 The law of society may be just as truly the voice of God, 
 declaring the termination of the criminal's existence, as a 
 fever, or an earthquake, or, as a better parallel, his own sui- 
 cide would be ; and if so, I would no more shrink from pro- 
 nouncing sentence than I would from defending my own life 
 by the destruction of another's. 
 
 On the other hand, the great difiiculty is, that a murder 
 committed suddenly, with half an hour's preparation, must 
 be visited with the same penalty as a crime such as that of 
 Rush or the Mannings. 
 
 12* B
 
 274 ON CAPITAL PUNISH^IENT. 
 
 And again, if the feeling of society be so strongly averse 
 to shedding blood that, as now, there is a morbid interest for 
 the criminal, and ladies sentimentalize, and send bouquets, and 
 use compassionating opera-glasses, while philanthropists rouse 
 public indignation against the law, then it is plain that, wheth- 
 er or not the public conscience has become diseased, it is 
 better to award a milder punishment to criminals, and so con- 
 tinue the public indignation felt against them, than to make 
 crime interesting, and its details the pungent element in such 
 books as " Jack Sheppard." 
 
 Whatever becomes of the abstract question of the right- 
 fulness of capital punishment, I feel persuaded that society 
 in England is fast approaching to a state in which it will be 
 perilous to the morals of the community to retain the prac- 
 tice much longer. Symptoms of disgust and sympathy are 
 beginning to be manifested so generally, that it is only in 
 atrocious cases, where a feeling of revenge for a horrible 
 cruelty satisfies itself with the criminal's death, that deep 
 murmurs of dissatisfaction can be suppressed. 
 
 Those are my crude thoughts on the subject. 
 
 You ask what is the meaning of Keble's line, — 
 Who for the spangles wears the funeral pall ? * 
 
 He has just said, that earth would not be worth having, if it 
 were all, even though affection's kiss brightens it often ; and 
 then compares those kisses to spangles on the pall. Who 
 would be in a coffin for the pleasure of having a velvet pall 
 with spangles over him ? What matters it to the dead ? It 
 is not a very polite insinuation, however, to " dear affection." 
 He means, who would live this dead life for the sake of a few 
 moments of affectionate happiness, or rather a good many, 
 for he says " oft " ? I reply, I would. 
 
 I agree with you about Shelley, as to his exquisite delicacy 
 and his power of expressing the inexpressible. There cer- 
 
 * HymD; Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity.
 
 SHELLEY'S GLOOM. 275 
 
 tainly was no coarseness in his mind ; still I do not know 
 whether that very refinement be not sometimes more danger- 
 ous than what is coarse. So thought Shakespeare : — 
 
 'T is too much known, that with devotion's visage 
 And pious action we do sugar o'er 
 The Devil himself. 
 
 I do not, however, really include Shelley in this, because 
 false, miserably false, as his creed and system were, I do be- 
 lieve that a soul truly refined, pure, and filled with a large 
 love, dwelt in him. There was, however, a fibre of madness 
 in his composition. That " Sunset " is very beautiful ; but 
 those lines are morbid, and belong to the region of spec- 
 tral phantasms, not real life, nor the life of sunny humanity, 
 
 peopled by 
 
 Creatures not too bright or good 
 For human nature's daily food. 
 
 The charnel-house, and the tombs with "dead selves," 
 " vexed ghosts," and a kind of madness, are all very well for 
 a being who is half insane, as Shelley certainly was ; but posi- 
 tively I will not walk with any one in these tenebrous ave- 
 nues of cypress and yew. I like sunny rooms, and sunny 
 Truth. When I had more of spring and warmth I could 
 afford to be prodigal of happiness ; love the " darksome lawn 
 brushed by the owlet's wing " ; and meditate for hours over 
 decay. Now I want sunlight and sunshine. I desire to enter 
 into those regions where cheerfulness, and truth, and health 
 of mind and heart reside. 
 
 In the seventh verse of Keble, it ought to be " were," 
 not " where." 
 
 LY. 
 
 November 16. 
 
 You ask if Christ's will was strong, simply because upheld 
 by the Spirit without measure in Him? I should reply, 
 because He was a perfect man. Perfect man is manhood 
 with all its appetites, affections, moral sense, aspirations, in-
 
 276 THE WILL OF CHEIST. 
 
 tellect in complete equilibrium. Fallen man is not a watch 
 with something wrong added (sin), but merely a watch 
 without the regulator; the mainspring runs the chain out 
 too fast. He alone had a mind in entire harmony with 
 God's. He alone could say, " I and my Father are one."' 
 "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." It was that 
 entire harmony with the mind of God which made His will 
 so strong. Self-wdll is weak sometimes, even in a Napoleon. 
 The will that moves with God must be strong, and ever 
 right. " My judgment is just." Why ? " Because 1 seek 
 not my owm wnll, but the will of Him that sent me." .... 
 
 You ask me about sins of thought. I suppose some per- 
 sons have sinned by the argument you mentioned, that, having 
 done as wrong as they could by an evil thought, there was 
 no reason why they should debar themselves of the rest. 
 But if this were an honest argument, it proceeded upon an 
 entire misconception of the passages which would be alleged. 
 The Saviour told men, who were priding themselves upon 
 being immaculate in act, that numbers of them would have 
 done the sin if they had had an opportunity, or if they had 
 dared. To have thought it and wished it, placed them on 
 a level with those over whom they were triumphing. But 
 it is one thing to say that a man who would do a crime if 
 he could, having already done it in his heart, is just as guilty 
 as if he had done it; and it is quite another thing to say 
 that a person who has had an opportunity and checked 
 himself, — for instance, spared his enemy's life when he was 
 on the point of taking it, — is as bad as if he had done it. 
 The difference is very plain : the one would if he could, — 
 the other could and would not. The great controversy 
 between Him and Judaism was respecting the value of acts. 
 They held that to have not been "extortioners, unjust," cfec, 
 entitled them to thank God they were not as other men 
 were. He announced that the act received its quality from 
 the spirit in which it was done. FeeUng decided the ques-
 
 SINS OF THOUGHT. 277 
 
 tion. Out of the heart jDroceed evil thoughts. Many a one 
 who was priding himself there, was just as bad as if he had 
 sinned. AVhat thanks to the rich Pharisee that he had never 
 been an extortioner like the needy publican ? In kind they 
 were guilty of the very sins which they condemned. " He 
 that is without that sin, let him first cast a stone." Is there 
 not many a murderer who has never taken away life, but 
 in his heart again and again killed with a deadly hatred ? 
 Now the test whether he is a murderer or not comes when 
 his foe is in his power, when the danger of detection seems 
 past, when there is nothing but his own will and conscience 
 to guide his act. David had such a chance, and so had 
 Saul. Neither slew the other, but Saul hurled his javelin 
 with a right good-will, and David at the very last moment 
 spared Saul and Nabal. Which was the murderer ? Which 
 had really slain the other in his heart ? And do you fancy 
 David might just as well have taken those two men's lives, 
 having resolved on it ? Why, there is the parable of the 
 son who said to his father, " I go not," and afterwards went. 
 The resolve of disobedience was made. Do we fancy tiiat 
 it was not in any way reversed or cancelled by the change 
 of purpose ? The comment of Christ is that he (that son) 
 did the will of his father. There is no passage in which 
 it is said that the sin of thought is equal to the sin of act. 
 It is simply said the sin of act may be done in thought, so far 
 as thought goes. Whether it is equivalent to an act, I think 
 entirely depends, as I said before, upon the question whether, 
 opportunity and safety being given, it is carried into action. 
 Where these are not actually given in this world, clearly 
 only God knows whether it would have been carried into 
 act. Of course I do not say that the sin of even resolve 
 is trifling. I only say that there are many steps, and until 
 the act of sin is done there will always remain one step 
 more of turpitude : except in those cases to which He so 
 often alludes, where nothing but circumstances, and not the
 
 278 LIFE OF CHAXNTN^G. 
 
 heart, prevented the commission. But that would convict 
 many a prude and many a sanctimonious thing who holds 
 up his immaculate hands in pious astonishment at that which 
 he would gladly do, if he dared. Nay, I do beheve that 
 a secret leaning towards the sin, and a secret feeling of 
 provocation and jealousy towards those who have enjoyed 
 what they dare not, lies at the bottom of half the censorious 
 zeal for morality which we hear. I am nearly sure it is so 
 with women in their virulence against their own sex ; they 
 feel mahce, because they envy them. There is a marvel- 
 lous touch of inspiration in " Timon of Athens," I think, — 
 a cutting down into the marrow of truth which is perfectly 
 startlino: in its knowledge of human nature. I fear I can 
 scarcely venture to quote it. I remember that, even as a 
 boy, it set me thinking. 
 
 Dr. Channing's life is full of interest, but of a calm, 
 thoughtful kind. He had no adventures; nor were his in- 
 ward struggles, as detailed, at least, very striking. He had 
 taken immense pains with himself, but the nobler element 
 of his nature was so strongly predominant, that his life was 
 steady, continuous victory, unmarked by any of those partial 
 victories of evil whioh give fearful interest to the lives of 
 the greater part of those who have fought their way to 
 uncommon excellence. The purest love for man, the most 
 unconquerable trust in human nature, seem to have been 
 the very basis of his being. He was a Unitarian, but that 
 is a very wide term, including a vast variety of persons 
 thinking very differently on essentials. I can only say that 
 I should be very glad if half of those who recognize the 
 hereditary claims of the Son of God to worship, bowed 
 down before his moral dignity with an adoration half as 
 profound, or a love half as enthusiastic, as Dr. Channing's. 
 I wish I, a Trinitarian, loved and adored Him, and the 
 Divine goodness in Him, anything near the way in which 
 that Unitarian felt. A religious lady found the book on
 
 CHANNING'S LOVE OF CHRIST. - 279 
 
 my table a few days ago, and was horror-struck. I told 
 her that if she and I ever got to heaven, we should find 
 Br. Channing revolving round the central Light in an orbit 
 immeasurably nearer than ours, almost invisible to us, and 
 lost in a blaze of light ; which she has, no doubt, duly reported 
 to the Brighton inquisition for heretics. But, by-the-by, I 
 began on that very day to write out the conversation. Here 
 it is, — all incomplete. 
 
 A lady called to-day, and when she came into the draw- 
 ing-room, she put her hand on " Channing's Memoirs." " I 
 am sorry to see you read this book, Mr. Robertson." I re- 
 plied, " Dr. Channing was one of the highest of his species. 
 For a minister to refuse to read such a book would be 
 miserable. I am not so sensitively afraid of error as that. 
 I throw myself on the Father of Lights, read all, and trust 
 that he will answer a desire for light. An immoral book 
 I refuse to read, but a book containing merely false doc- 
 trine, or what is supposed to be false, I dare not refuse to 
 read ; or else I could not, with any consistency, ask a Roman 
 Catholic to read my book of Protestant heresy." — But Dr. 
 Channing could not be a good man, because he did not 
 believe in Christ." — " Pardon me, he did, — he loved Christ. 
 I wish I adored him half as much as Dr. Channing did ! " — 
 " But he denied that he adored Him." — "I cannot help that. 
 If the lowliest reverence, and the most enthusiastic love, 
 constitute adoration, Dr. Channing worshipped Christ. I 
 care not what a man says. His homage was more adoring 
 than that of nine out of ten who call Him God. Besides, 
 do you remembw the story of the two sons, one of whom 
 said, ' I go, sir,' and went not ; the other refused to go, 
 and went? What care I, if Dr. Channing adores, sayinrj 
 that he does not adore." She replied, " I believe he adored 
 himself much more." I returned, " that some passages in 
 his Diary expressed the deepest self-abasement." — "Well, 
 probably he had a high ideal; he was mortified at not at-
 
 280 DEPKESSION AFTER EXCITEMENT. 
 
 taming that before the world." — " Do you recollect," I an- 
 swered, "how the Pharisees got over a similar difficulty 
 to yours ? There was a holy man before them, and because 
 they could not deny the beauty of his deeds, they found out 
 that they were done from diabolical motives, for Beelzebub's 
 cause. Take care ; do you recollect what sin they com- 
 mitted by that, seeing good, and refusing to recognize it as 
 good ? It is a perilous thing to set out with the assumption 
 that a doctrine is true, and that all who do not hold that 
 doctrine are bad. Christ reverses that order of procedure. 
 ' Believe me for the works' sake.' I would just as soon 
 disbelieve in God as contemplate a character like Dr. Chan- 
 ning's, and hesitate to say whether that was a divine image 
 or not; whether God had accepted him or not: whether 
 those deeds and that life were the product of evil or the 
 fruit of the heavenly Spirit." 
 
 LVI. 
 
 November 18. 
 I am very unfit to write ; much tired, dispirited, and lone- 
 ly. Several reasons may have contributed to this. The day 
 was dark with fog and gloom. I spoke very badly, indeed, 
 though fluently, and this has added a depressing sensation of 
 impotency to sadness. I know that it is partly physical ; that 
 I am not myself, nor master of my fancies, and, therefore, I 
 will not let my pen pour out feelings of which I might be 
 ashamed, and which certainly I should disown to-morrow. I 
 am persuaded there are few things morally so bad as excite- 
 ment of the nerves in any way ; nothing, — to borrow a mil- 
 itary word, and use it in a military sense, — nothing demoral- 
 izes so much as excitement. It destroys the tone of the heart, 
 leaves an exhaustion which craves stimulus, and utterly unfits 
 for duty. High-wrought feeling must end in wickedness ; a life 
 of excitement as inseparable from a life of vice. The opera, 
 the stage, the ball-room, French literature, and irregular life,
 
 JUDGMENT OF OTHERS. 281 
 
 what must they terminate in ? And I should almost add, the 
 pulpit, where the nervous system is more than ordinarily sus- 
 ceptible. I can only defend it on that which I believe to be 
 the great law of our being, sacrifice, — sacrifice for others. 
 You can have little idea of the gloomy thoughts with which 
 I have to struggle on many Sunday evenings. 
 
 It is Keble's beautiful hymn to-night, on the loneliness of 
 the soul.* I have read it, and tried to think of what ideas 
 would be suggested in association with the separate verses. 
 Is it quite true that no human eye could be permitted safely 
 to read all, and scan the inmost workings of the heart? 
 Would the recoil be, in every case, as he images it, like a 
 mother's arm from a serpent coiled round her loved inftmt ? 
 I suppose it is impossible to read with tenderness and mercy. 
 Personal feelings come in ; inability to take in all circum- 
 stances before and after : we judge severely that which is un- 
 congenial with our tendencies ; nay, even that also which is 
 congenial ; for I fancy we dislike our own feelings in another, 
 — they seem caricatures. And yet I do not quite agree. I 
 think there are some minds and hearts which might be safely 
 trusted to read all without losing their respect and affection 
 for us. Doubtless these must be of the very highest order. 
 I could only name one or two. I remember an anecdote of 
 Thomas Scott having said to his curate, who was rather agi- 
 tated on having to preach before him, " Well, sir, why should 
 you be afraid before me, when you are not afraid before 
 God ? " But how very easy it was to answer. He had only 
 to say, God is not jealous, nor envious, nor censorious ; be- 
 sides, God can make allowances 
 
 I will do all I can to answer fully your deeply important 
 questions. I can answer them, for I had to find the answer 
 for myself through much mental trial : whether it will satisfy 
 you I do not know. But the irrationality of the popular 
 Brahminical system shocked me, for it is Brahminical. I 
 
 * Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.
 
 282 THE TEMPTATION OF CHEIST. 
 
 believe in the Atonement now, in a nobler sense than I did 
 before, and also in His sufferings for the sins of men ; but not 
 chastisement, or hell, as they horribly call it, — nor BLis Fa- 
 ther's wrath. 
 
 First, respecting his " sympathy," which you seem to think 
 represented as little in my sermon: and you speak of the 
 trifling pain of fasting. Recollect, however, that the whole 
 majesty of the temptation is destroyed if you understand it 
 literally. 
 
 What was the temptation ? To use Divine power to pro- 
 cure comfort ; to choose abundance instead of stones ; a life 
 of ease instead of the hard rock on which the highest must 
 repose ever in this world. How many houses would have 
 been open to Him like that of Bethany, had He chosen ! In- 
 stead of executing His mission, might He not have turned 
 aside to hve in abundance ? You must remember His soul 
 was preparing for its work ; He was forecasting the trials of 
 His life ; His spirit was silently acquiescing in and recogniz- 
 ing His destiny, and, one by one, dismissing the alternatives 
 which suggested themselves, — a life of ease instead of hard- 
 ness ; rashness and distrustful impetuosity instead of the slow, 
 patient toU of years, and after that of centuries ; homage to 
 the " splendid majesty of Wrong " ; expediency, in some form 
 or other ; to make the kingdoms of the world His own, in- 
 stead of uncompromising worship of the good, — unless you 
 keep all this in mind, of course it is ridiculous to talk of any 
 thing very divine in fasting. I only gave fasting as a con- 
 venient illustration of the way in which there might be pain 
 in subduing the affections and appetites, and yet no sin ; how 
 He might really suffer being tempted, with no tendencies to 
 evil. But of course, I recognized, and even expressly men- 
 tioned, the suffering of the tempted human soul as the far 
 more important part of his trial. You say you cannot look 
 upon those trials and tests as anything ; but have you reflect- 
 ed that that temptation was but an image of temptations
 
 THE GKOUND OF THE SYMPATHY OF CHEIST. 283 
 
 which in a thousand forms beset Him through life ? Have 
 you thought what it was for a real man to excogitate a course 
 of action which was new in the world's history, and steadily 
 keep to it, in spite of treachery and desertion, the apparent 
 worthlessness of human nature, the ripe rottenness at the core 
 of the nation whose blessing He was bent on accomplishing ? 
 Have you reflected how He might have purchased life by si- 
 lence and a very little prudent time-serving ; what it is to be 
 alone, misunderstood, and in dreadful sense of forsakenness 
 at last to feel that all was failure ; to hope for human nature 
 in its lowest degradation ; to believe that man is kindred with 
 Deity, even in Jerusalem ; to see a spark in the worst outcast 
 which might become a bright and blessed flame ; to despair 
 of none ; to hope for human nature even with His last breath 
 on the cross, and with the laughter of His devil-like foes 
 rising to His dying ear ? 
 
 Is there no sympathy here ? Are those light tests ? Think 
 you He cannot sympathize with our worst sorrows, who 
 shielded from scorn the broken-hearted who could only smite 
 upon his breast : who stood like a God between their victim 
 and the hell-hounds who were baying for their prey, till they 
 cowered at His feet and slunk away ; who could forgive a 
 coward, and select the alien and heretic as a type of the 
 neighbor who is to be loved ; who was peculiarly sensitive to 
 the charm of woman's society and its soothing gentleness ; 
 who wept for temporary grief; who was considerate for the 
 tired disciples and the hungry multitude ; whose chosen home 
 was the house of the publican and sinner ; who bore contempt 
 with majestic dignity, — is that a trifle ? who felt keenly, as 
 His own touching words witness, the pain of homelessness. 
 0, can you say that He could not enter into our worst sor- 
 sows, or that His trials were in " show ! " Comprehend that 
 heart, containing all that was manliest and all that was most 
 womanly. Think what you will, but do not mistake Him, or 
 else you will lose the one great certainty to which, in the
 
 284 SWEDENBORG. 
 
 midst of the darkest doubt, I never ceased to cling, — the 
 entire symmetry and loveliness, and the unequalled nobleness 
 of the humanity of the Son of Man. Ask me any questions 
 you will on this, for if there have been a subject I have pon- 
 dered over and believed in, it is the mind and heart of Jesus. 
 Do not go to that absurd nonsense of mysterious suffering 
 that cannot be comprehended, — something neither of earth 
 nor heaven, neither the affection of the man nor the God, — 
 a mystery, and so forth, of which the Bible says nothing. 
 Mysterious enough they ^vere, as the sufferings of the deepest 
 hearts ever must be, but mysterious only in this sense. Alas ! 
 they are intelligible enough to any one who has ever conceived 
 a sublime mission wdth a warm heart, and felt courage and 
 tenderness fail in the idea of executing it ; intelligible enough 
 for any one who knows what it is to be wrung to the heart 
 by the sorrows and faults of others. All that is unintelligible 
 is the degree of agony. To understand that, we must first be 
 like Him, — as noble, and as loving, and as spotless. 
 
 As to the sacrifice, — penalty and its atonement for sin, — 
 I will try to take it for my next Sunday subject. 
 
 LYIL 
 
 Mr. Crabb Robinson has lent me a " Life of Swedenborg,'* 
 which seems to have impressed him greatly. I have been 
 running it over while at dinner, but can make out nothing, 
 except that Sw^edenborg was a man of great genius, under 
 hallucinations of the intellect. He was very abstemious, 
 singularly pure in life in every way ; his chief beverage was 
 coffee made very sweet, without milk ; he abstained during 
 his latter years from animal food, and passed Avhole nights 
 without sleep. He held a perpetual communion with de- 
 parted spirits, but I observe they were all those whose lives 
 had impressed his imagination, and, if not men of genius, 
 seem to have been generally kings, dukes, princesses, and 
 persons of such earthly greatness. In some of the quotations
 
 DIVINE HUMANITY. 285 
 
 there are evidently flashes of very intuitive genius, poured 
 on or into Scriptural passages. The intuitions are true, but 
 they have as little to do with the passages as they have with 
 the Koran ; and had he been a Mahometan, he might have 
 spiritualized the Koran in the same way. His biographer, 
 who is not an admirer, but a blind idolater of him, takes 
 them, of course, as authentic expositions. Perceiving that 
 in themselves they are marvellously true, he takes for 
 granted that they are the very truths presented and intended 
 by those texts. One grand truth he seems to have grasped, 
 — the fact of Divine Humanity as the only possible object 
 of man's worship. He, had besides identified Jesus Christ 
 with this object. I have long felt the former of these posi- 
 tions, and I am more and more satisfied of the truth of the 
 latter. Only a human God, and none other, must be adored 
 by man. The important thing in the worship is, that it be a 
 Divine, and not a sensual or even a rational humanity. I 
 extract a passage, which also agrees with my creed, though 
 I do not know that I ever borrowed mine except from my 
 own reflection. 
 
 " Sex is a permanent fact in human nature. Men are 
 men, and women, women, in the highest heaven as here on 
 earth. The diflference of sexes is therefore brighter and 
 more exquisite in proportion as the person is high and the 
 sphere is pure. The distinction not only reaches to the indi- 
 vidual, but it is atomically minute besides. Every thought, 
 affection, and sense of a male is male ; and of a female, fem- 
 inine. The smallest drop of intellect or will is inconvertible 
 between the sexes. If man's, it can never become woman's, 
 and vice versa. The sexual distinction is founded upon two 
 radical attributes of God, — his divine love and his divine 
 wisdom, whereof the former is feminine and the latter mas- 
 culine. The union of these in Him is the divine marriage, 
 and the creation proceeds distinctly from them, and images 
 or aspires to a marriage in every part. Therefore, there are 
 marriages in heaven, and heaven itself is a marriage."
 
 286 SELF-DEVOTION AS A ]^IEEE INSTINCT. 
 
 He then oddly reconciles this with the text, " In heaven 
 they neither marry," &c. 
 
 Then there are the most extraordinary accounts of expi- 
 ration and inspiration of the breath; the latter connecting 
 the thoughts with the earthy ; the former, or the retention 
 of the breath, which is the same thing, connecting with the 
 spiritual world. Swedenborg declares that he lived for hours 
 without inspiring, and a host of odd stories about divers, In- 
 dian yogies, people in a trance, and the whole phenomena of 
 hybernation, are alleged in corroboration, but I shall not take 
 up your time with those. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 As I walked home in my dragoon cloak, I thought that I 
 ought to be at this moment lying in it at rest at Moodkee, 
 where the Third fought so gallantly, and where spots of 
 brighter green than usual are the only record to mark where 
 the flesh of heroes is melting into its kindred dust again ; 
 but in this, as in all other things, a man must reap as he has 
 sown. I believe the spirit of exceeding self-devotion, as a 
 mere romantic instinct, is but folly. Your reward is the sat- 
 isfaction of finding that you have lost all and gained nothing 
 as well as done nothing. Your thanks are reproach and 
 blame, and you begin to find, when it is too late, that wisdom 
 and prudence alone can redeem even self-sacrifice from the 
 worthless class of mere blind instincts. One man's instinct 
 is to save his life, another's to lose it; one's to get rid of self, 
 another's to pamper it ; one's to give away, another's to save 
 up. These are only instincts in themselves neither good nor 
 evil, except as guided by thought and by being an instrument 
 of that^ ennobled 
 
 I agree with and admire all you say about capital punish- 
 ment. I doubt its eflScacy much. I am not quite sure that 
 the sole, or even chief end of punishment is the reformation
 
 THE MAJESTY OP LAW. 287 
 
 of tlie offender. I think a great deal of law. Law rules 
 Deity ; and its awful majesty is above individual happiness. 
 That is what Kant calls " the categorical imperative," that is, 
 a sense of duty which commands categorically or absolutely, — 
 not saying "it is better," but "thou shalt." Why? Because 
 " thou shalt," that is all. It is not best to do right, — thou 
 must do right ; and the conscience that feels that, and in that 
 way, is the nearest to divine humanity. Not that law was 
 made, like the Sabbath, for man ; but man was made for it. 
 He is beneath it, a grain of dust before it : it moves on, and 
 if he will not move before it, it crushes him : that is all, and 
 that is punishment. I fancy that grand notion of law is what 
 we have lost; what we require to get, before we are in a 
 jDOsition to discuss the question of punishment at all, or to 
 understand what it is. Your criticism on my expression, — 
 " vengeance," is just ; but what I meant was a truth, though 
 I expressed it badly: I have tried to restate it in what I 
 have now said of law. 
 
 To-day I read Keble.* It is singularly beautiful to-day. 
 Do you observe the parallel which pervades it ? The rain- 
 bow in the morning spoken of in stanza two, and that of the 
 evening in stanza six, are taken as the types of life. ■ The 
 proverb is : — 
 
 A rainbow in the morning is the shepherd's •warning, 
 But a rainbow at night is the shepherd's delight. 
 
 The reason of this is, that a rainbow in the morning, being 
 always opposite the sun, must be in the west : the rain is 
 falling there therefore, and that is the rainy quarter; at night 
 it must be raining in the east, from which quarter not much 
 rain is to be expected. 
 
 I fancy Keble's observation is quite correct in reference to 
 character. The kindling eye, &c., betray the child of im- 
 pulse and vivid emotion, which are so frequently found dis- 
 connected from principle, and most truly, I think, he describes 
 * Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity.
 
 288 THE RAINBOW CHILD. 
 
 Buch a man's life, " dawnings gay, bright noons of sun and 
 shower." 
 
 I think the pastor was quite right to sigh over such a child. 
 Philip Van Artevelde has the same idea : — 
 
 Her dawn 
 
 Was bright with sunbeams, whence is di-awn 
 A sure prognostic that the day 
 Will not unclouded pass away. 
 
 Bright sunrise, — sunset dark, mixed with clouds, sorrow, 
 and uncertainty. The other character is the safest, the sur- 
 est, and, in the end, the most blessed, — when the calm, 
 steady, humble inquiring heart feels the beam of everlasting 
 Truth and mild Love burst upon it in the serenity of life's 
 evening, the rainbow of hope throwing its tinted arch over the 
 feebleness of declining years. There is a good deal of true 
 insight into character and destiny. And yet, looking over the 
 children of a family, how nine parents out of ten would 
 reverse that prophecy, and anticipate success and happiness 
 from the radiant one, suffering the other to fall unnoticed into 
 the background. I believe that life always falsifies this esti- 
 mate. The rainbow child is soon quenched in tears and 
 darkness. The great men in nearly all departments of ex- 
 istence have been the dunces of the nursery and the school- 
 room. "The first shall be last, and the last first." How 
 the deeper inspiration reverses the prophecy of semblances ! 
 How precious in the sight of God those qualities are of which 
 we think of almost meanly, — plodding habits, meekness of 
 heart, sense of dependence ; and how almost of the nature 
 of curses of what we call " gifts " are, — beauty, brilliancy, 
 sensitiveness, feeling; things, by the way, which are almost 
 ahvays connected with selfishness in some way or another, 
 and, therefore, sown with the seeds of misery and failure. 
 Quite right, Keble, teach us realities, and not semblances, — 
 to see things as God sees them, and in the spirit of true poe- 
 try, prophetic of results. That is a very graceful little poem, 
 and deeply true.
 
 ROBESPIERRE AND CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 289 
 
 LIX. 
 
 My Advent lectures begin next week. I begin to briefly 
 reply to your letter. 
 
 Robespierre's theory of the abolition of the punishment of 
 death connected with his subsequent atrocities never startled 
 me. He never could have understood Portia's refusal to put 
 even Shylock to death illegally. The eternal sanctions of 
 Law were unintelligible to him. The transgression of Law 
 was a trifle in comparison with human life, and, as you might 
 have expected, human life was a trifle in comparison with a 
 theory of his own. I should always anticipate that the rig- 
 orous expounder of law would be the one to be able to say 
 most exquisitely in practice : " The quality of mercy is not 
 strained." Did that rigor and mercy in Portia's character 
 ever strike you as a union no less beautiful than true ? And 
 I should expect that a sentimental tenderness for life which 
 is blind to the majesty of law, would be exactly the temper- 
 ament that could be cruel when, not law, but itself, was inter- 
 fered with. It spares to gratify its own feelings : it will not 
 shrink from saying 200,000 aristocrats must die if its feeling 
 demands the sacrifice. A severe view of Right, even if 
 somewhat too severe, would have saved Robespierre from 
 that. Of course, I do not mean that the objection to san- 
 guinary punishment is necessarily sentimental, nor that it 
 betrays obtuseness to the perception of the Absolute Imper- 
 ative within the conscience. I only mean that very often it 
 is so, and that tenderness to evil may be expected to precede 
 a violent outburst of evil. As I said lately, — "tempted, 
 yet without sin," therefore we go boldly to find mercy. The 
 tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. For all this, how- 
 ever, Robespierre's view may have been right, though wrong 
 in him ; a little more sense of law and of wrong might have 
 made him a defender of capital punishment. Perhaps a 
 great deal more might have brought him in a vast circle back 
 
 VOL. I. 13 s
 
 290 CHKISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 
 
 to the same point of mercy again. Extremes meet ; and I 
 think Lamartine's statement a powerful one : " Le moyen le 
 plus efficace de deshouorer le meurtre est d'en monti-er par 
 la loi une sainte horreur." 
 
 The administration of the communion to the murderer has 
 always appeared to me, in every sense, a ghastly mockery. 
 A minister of the gospel of forgiveness goes to the criminal 
 with a message that, at least, appears singularly inconsistent. 
 The chaplain, in Mrs. Manning's case, I think, outraged all 
 decency ; nor do I see how, in any case, it is justifiable, when 
 the man, up to the very last fortnight, by pleading " not 
 guilty," has remained impenitent. Better leave the whole in 
 uncertainty for the next world ; but the practice, I fancy, re- 
 tains a lingering trace of the magical views of the sacrament. 
 All this, however, is a digression, for I was alluding to the 
 apparent inconsistency of putting a man to death after bring- 
 ing to him words of mercy. Queen Elizabeth's " God may 
 have mercy on you, I never can," and then a last deadly 
 shake. Would it not have been almost superhuman to for- 
 give, when a woman found that by diabolical malice she had 
 been induced to irrecoverably slay the man who loved her to 
 the last. Only ftincy the rush of such an agony ! " It cannot 
 be undone, and there lies the fiend who did it." I fear I 
 could scarcely have said, " God may forgive you." It is in 
 the demand for such superhuman efforts as these that Chris- 
 tianity appears sublime. Looking into my own heart, I think 
 I could forgive the deadUest wrong done to myself. I do not 
 think I could forgive one who had diabolically done a wrong 
 to one I loved, or wilfully made me commit a wrong towards 
 that one which was irreparable. As usual I ask how would 
 He have felt ? the latter case was impossible to Him ; as to 
 the former, I only know that His language towards those 
 who crushed the weak, and in cold blood slew the innocent, 
 was not mild. They ^'■kneiv what they did." Did the last 
 prayer include them? Whether the la^t confessioa of the
 
 THE MYSTERY OF EXISTENCE. 291 
 
 dying countess might have touched pity, I do not know ; but 
 one could have hardly helped feeling, it is too late, this death- 
 bed remorse. 
 
 " Le mystere de I'existence, c'est le rapport de nos erreurs 
 avec nos peines." 
 
 Do you not understand that ? It is the kind of connection 
 which is the mystery. Crime is less severely treated than 
 error. A weakness of the heart produces more misery, more 
 both to self and others, and is more severely chastised than a 
 deliberate wickedness. It has often made me ponder. Look 
 at weak Eli, only a little too indulgent. The result, — a coun- 
 try's dishonor and defeat, two profligates, a death-bed of a 
 widow and mother on which despair sits, and the death of a 
 wretched old man, for whom it would have been a mercy if 
 his neck had been broken before his heart. Then, again, 
 Pilate, only irresolution, — the result, the ruin of the Holiest. 
 My only solution of the mystery is this. The hardening 
 effects of sin, which save from pain, are worse judgments 
 than the sharpest suffering. Anguish is, I am more and more 
 sure, corrective ; hardness has in it no Hope. AYhich would 
 you choose if you were compelled to make a choice ? — the 
 torture of a dividing limb granulating again, and by the very 
 torture giving indications of life, or the painlessness of mor- 
 tification ; the worst throb from the surgeon's knife, or ossifi- 
 cation of the heart ? In the spiritual world the pangs of the 
 most exquisite sensitiveness cut to the quick by the sense of 
 fault and aching almost hopelessly, but leaving conscience 
 still alive, and aspiration still uncrushed, or the death of every 
 remnant of what is good, the ossification of the soul, the 
 painless extinction of the moral being, its very self? This 
 is my reply to myself. The whole mystery of pain has been 
 unravelling itself to my heart gradually, and now that I have 
 got a clew, the worse than Cretan labyrinth turns out to be 
 harmonious and beautiful arrangement, so that the paths 
 which are still unexplored, I can now believe a part of the
 
 292 ONLY THREE YEARS? 
 
 same plan. Pain has long ceased to be an unintelligible mys- 
 tery to me. Agony and anguish, — O, in these, far more 
 than in sunshine, I can read a meaning and believe in infinite 
 Love ! Goodness is better than happiness ; and if pain be 
 the minister of goodness, I can see that it is a proof of Love 
 to debar happiness ; nor am I moved from this conviction by 
 exceptional cases, by perceiving that sometimes the result 
 seems opposite, or by seeing that, as in the brute creation, it 
 falls in apparent wantonness, without any result beyond suf- 
 fering. I am so certain that all is right, that nothing of 
 this kind, mental or physical, disturbs me. I know that the 
 heart, like the wound, must bleed till the wound has cleansed 
 itself by its o.wn blood. Then, and not till then, the blood 
 will dry. The question of the final removal of moral evil 
 and its apparent inevitable necessity beyond even infinite 
 power to remove, is a far heavier weight and darker shadow 
 on my heart, but I have an answer to that too. 
 
 You say you do not think it was so difficult for Our Lord, 
 if he knew it was only to last three years. First of all, 
 time is not measured by years; the intense heart throws 
 centuries into an hour. Succession of thoughts, instead of 
 dull repetition of a monotone, might make three years of 
 incalculable length. Then, besides, remember it is a Man, 
 out of the resources of His human mind, pondering over, re- 
 cognizing, and resolving on a plan alone, which was new 
 in the world's history, an untried battle with the worldly 
 principle in its manifold manifestations. Only three years ! 
 Yes ! but try to resolve on a plan, — there are ten thousand 
 possible to you, — a plan for the country's good, which will 
 involve, I do not say death, but great hardships in the teeth 
 of all the conventions of society, and with the probability 
 of having it said by your own relation, as it was said of Him, 
 "He is beside Him.-elf." Keep to it unflinchingly, until 
 you can say in the very hour of failure, triumphantly, " It 
 is finished ! " Only try that in a small way, and then say,
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND fflS CRITICS. 293 
 
 three years are nothing. — No, nothing when they are done, 
 
 for the years go fast ; but recollect the minutes move slow. 
 
 A propos of the measurement of time, I remember two 
 
 pretty lines of Moultrie : — 
 
 I had a boy, a third sweet boy; his age I cannot tell, 
 
 For they reckon not by years or months where he is gone to dwell. 
 
 LX. 
 
 Much of the beauty that is laid to Shakespeare's charge 
 is too far-fetched to have been intended by him. Mrs. Jame- 
 son errs in this respect, and so do the Germans. In an 
 article in Blackwood, years ago, replete with humor, I recol- 
 lect these words, "And she," as the poet pathetically ex- 
 presses it, " did so." Such critics do with Shakespeare just 
 as Swedenborg with the Bible, — inform it with themselves 
 and their own sentiments and philosophy ; or, as the wolf did 
 with Baron Munchausen's horse, began at his tail and ate 
 into him until the baron drove the wolf home, harnessed 
 in the skin of the horse. Certainly Shakespeare was "a 
 million-minded man," if he was conscious of the innumerable 
 philosophies and psychological truths which his million critics 
 have found in every trifling word and sentence. I am heretic 
 enough to think that Shakespeare was mind and dust, and 
 that he can be very low and gross. Horace ventured to 
 opine that now and then Homer nodded a little ; he said it 
 in a very gentlemanly way, — for the friend of Maecenas 
 was a perfect gentleman, — but I have no doubt he was 
 reckoned a heretic for saying it. What I admire in Shake- 
 speare, however, is that his loves are all human, — no earth- 
 liness hiding itself from itself in sentimental transcendental- 
 ism,— no loves of the angels, which are the least angelic 
 things, I believe, that float in the clouds, though they do 
 look down upon mortal feelings with contempt, just as the 
 black volumes of smoke which issue from the long chimney
 
 294 SHAKESPEARE'S HEALTHY HUMANITY. 
 
 of a manufactory might brood very sublimely over the town 
 which they blacken, and fancy themselves far more ethereal 
 than those vapors which steam up from the earth by day 
 and night. Yet these are pure water, and those are destined 
 to condense in black soot. So are the transcendentalisms 
 of affection. Shakespeare is healthy, true to Humanity in 
 this; and for that reason I pardon him even his earthly 
 coarseness. You always know that you are on an earth 
 which has to be refined, instead of floating in the empyrean 
 with wings of wax. Therein he is immeasurably greater 
 than Shelley. Shelleyism is very sublime, subhmer a good 
 deal than God, for God's world is all wrong, and Shelley is 
 all right, — much purer than Christ, for Shelley can criti- 
 cise Christ's heart and life, — nevertheless, Shelleyism is only 
 atmospheric profligacy, to coin a Montgomeryism. I believe 
 this to be one of Shakespeare's most wondrous qualities, — 
 the humanity of his nature and heart. There is a spirit 
 of sunny endeavor about him, and an acquiescence in things 
 as they are, — not incompatible with a cheerful resolve to 
 make them better, which I tinist will be good for your mind. 
 INIine wants it much. I speak bitterly of transcendental- 
 ism, for it is the rock on which I split ; and I do not believe 
 either in its usefulness or its heavenliness. 
 
 For man is not as God, 
 
 But then most God-like, being most a man. 
 
 A sunny, cheerful view of life, — resting on truth and 
 fact, coexisting with practical aspiration ever to make things, 
 men, and self, better than they are, — that, I believe, is the 
 true healthful poetry of existence. All other poetry of 
 feeling, however delicate and beautiful, is only sickly; the 
 mawkish feeling, which sees more beauty in unnatural Con- 
 sumption than in the ruddy glow of exercise.
 
 "ROMEO AND JULIET." 295 
 
 LXI. 
 
 I have got Schlegel, and mean to master all that he has 
 said of Shakespeare. Spare moments of time I occu23y in 
 studying " Romeo and Juliet." Certainly it is the most 
 exquisite embodiment of the master-feeling that was ever 
 made. I shall have much to say about it soon. But one 
 thing strikes me in a view of the whole, — how very masterly 
 the representation is of the unrelenting way in which con- 
 sequences follow acts in this world. A clandestine marriage 
 and a revengeful duel, — the results are a double death. 
 And that is not all. Circumstances mingle with all human 
 acts ; they are partly, as it would seem, necessitated, or, at 
 least, excused by peculiarity of position. There is no act 
 which has not its excuse and its apparent inevitableness. 
 Ordinary writers tag a moral to their tale ; as Miss Edge- 
 worth does, — which peeps out in every page: "If he had 
 acted so, then," &c., but the moral of life is not forced upon 
 you in this way ; it is complicated, perplexing, and requires 
 study to find out. Nay, you may find fifty morals instead 
 of the moral of life's tragedy ; and in this way Shakespeare 
 paints. Partly circumstance, partly fault, partly what in 
 itself is beautiful, lead to the catastrophe. Not one simple 
 cause, but many causes intertwined, made up the shot web 
 of his tragedy, as of life. And yet, as unrelentingly as in 
 life, the sorrow comes to blight it all. Situated as they 
 were, a Montague, and a Capulet, could they be severely 
 blamed for marrying? Situated as Romeo was, his friend 
 killed for him, could he refuse Tybalt's challenge? And 
 yet these double errors, the results themselves of the faults 
 of others, not wholly blameless, yet not unniixedly culpable, 
 slowly and surely bring on the end. 
 
 There are three great prmciples in life which weave its 
 warp and woof^ apparently incompatible with each other, yet 
 they harmonize, and, in their blending, create this strange
 
 296 THE THREEFOLD WEB OF LIFE. 
 
 life of ours. The first is, our fate is iu our own hands, and 
 our blessedness and misery is the exact result of our own 
 acts. The second is, " There is a divinity that shapes our 
 ends, rough-hew them as we will." The third is, " The race 
 is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong " ; but time 
 and chance happen (eth) to them all. Accident, human 
 will, the shaping will of Deity : these things make up life. 
 Or rather, perhaps, we see a threefold causality from some 
 defect in our spiritual eyesight. Could we see as He sees, 
 all would be referable to one principle whicli would contain 
 them all ; as the simple, single law of gravitation embraces 
 the complex phenomena of the universe; and as, on the 
 other hand, by pressing the eyeballs so as to destroy their 
 united impression, you may see all things double. Shake- 
 speare paints man instead of writing moral tales. Of course, 
 there is a moral in what he writes, as there must be in all 
 that is true ; but it is absurd to ask what was the lesson he 
 meant to inculcate. He meant none, I fancy. He merely 
 meant to say, " There, there are men and women. Under 
 such circumstances, such beings would act so, and such would 
 be the consequences." How much more instructive than 
 history, which is merely, except in mere annals, events 
 grouped in the connection in which the historian sees them; 
 not in which they occurred, unless he be a man as gifted 
 as Shakespeare. Hence history is merely, in ninety-nine 
 cases out of a hundred, Mr. Hume's or Mr. Gibbon's theory 
 substantiated by a dry romance, until Mr. Somebody Else 
 comes and writes the romance in his way, the facts being 
 pliable, and equally available for both. Accordingly, Mit- 
 ford's " History of Greece " is aristocratical principles de- 
 monstrated from Grecian history, and Connop Thirlwall's 
 is democratical principles proved from the same facts, and 
 Alison's history is " Mr. Wordy's account of the French 
 revolution in twenty volumes, written to show that Piovi- 
 dence was always on the side of the Tories," as Coningsby's
 
 HIS PEEACHING. 297 
 
 friend assured him. I do believe there was great wisdom 
 in Marlborough's saying, that the only English history he 
 knew, or that was worth knowing, was that written by Shake- 
 speare, for Shakespeare does not give facts as they occurred, 
 — no, but he gives ideal facts, since the facts cannot be got at. 
 
 You like to hear of my work and its success. Dr. K 
 
 was expressing surprise at the thoughtfulness and freshness 
 of last Sunday's sermon, which you have seen, and telling 
 me of the slow and silent results of my teaching in revolu- 
 tionizing long habits of thought, life, &c. I remarked, that 
 what surprised me most was, that I had been left so long 
 unmolested, in spite of great grumbling, dissatisfaction, and 
 almost personal hatred. He said, " I can tell you the reason. 
 You preach positively instead of negatively ; you state truths 
 which they cannot deny ; they can only talk of tendencies, 
 consequences, &c. ; they can only say it is dangerous, they 
 dare not say it is false ; if you were once to preach defen- 
 sively or controversially, it would be all over with you, and 
 it would do your heart and mind harm besides ; but every 
 one sees that you have a message and a truth to establish ; 
 you set up your truth, and they are dismayed to find, if that 
 be true, their view is knocked down, but you did not knock 
 it down." These were not his words, but the substance of 
 what he said, and I think, on the whole, that it is not untrue. 
 He told me that more than one clergyman had said to him, 
 
 " I think exactly what Mr. R said, but I should not dare 
 
 to say it publicly." A Scotch gentleman remarked to another 
 person, "Why, Irving was turned out of the Church of Scot- 
 land for saying one tenth part of what Mr. R said on 
 
 Sunday of the human nature of Christ. What a happy thing 
 it is that the Church of England is too divided to unite in 
 exterminating him." * Meanwhile I go on, resolving to be 
 at least true. I feel no certain tenure of anything or any 
 
 * The Scotch gentleman made a mistake. Mr. Robertson's view of the 
 human nature of Christ differs essentially from the view of Irving. 
 13*
 
 298 THE DOCTEIXE OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 one. I am prepared, at a moment's notice, to find the whole 
 break up with a crash, as fine summer weather ends in a 
 storm, the forces for which had been slowly collecting in the 
 sunshine for weeks, — nay, were the sunshine itself. I think 
 I partly know what He felt in knowing that the crowds He 
 addressed contained the Pharisees lying in wait, and yet went 
 on. This is my feeling. I command crowds, — I have not 
 hearts. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 My dear , — My prediction was right; yesterday 
 
 morning rose with all the frost gone, and to-day it is raining 
 fast, and the sky is dense with clouds. 
 
 I have been writing lately on the subject of Keble's lines.* 
 I have little doubt that the Church of Rome has paid far 
 more attention than we have to that w^hich forms the subject 
 of this hymn, — the treatment of penitence. She has more 
 power to soothe, because she dwells chiefly on that which is 
 the most glorious element in the nature of God, — Love. 
 Whereas Protestantism fixes attention more on that which is 
 the strongest principle in the bosom of man, — Faith. Ac- 
 cordingly, the Church of Rome treats the penitent by moving 
 representations which touch the heart. Protestantism would 
 do so by an appeal to the intellect, assuring you that if you 
 will only believe, the whole pain has been suffered for you. 
 "When you state your misgivings, on perceiving that many of 
 the penal consequences of faults follow transgression, in spite 
 of faith, the reply is — " Yes, in this world ; but in the next 
 all the consequences are remitted." Now this appeal to the 
 intellect leaves the intellect to its own surmises. Why re- 
 mitted there if not here^ on what principle, and how proved? 
 If no faith will save a drunken man from delirium tremens, 
 where is the proof that it will shield him from other conse- 
 quences hereafter? You are then referred to the Atonement, 
 
 * Hymn for Sunday next before Advent.
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 299 
 
 and informed in evangelical metapliysics that infinite sin de- 
 manded an infinite sacrifice ; that the infinite sacrifice having 
 been paid, it will be mijust to punish you again. Once more 
 the intellect replies, — "But I am punished; and if eternal 
 punishment would be unjust, temporal punishment is also ; 
 the whole penalty is not paid, and, in spite of all my admira- 
 tion of the clever scheme, the heart will have its dire misgiv- 
 ings." It appears to me that Protestantism throws upon the 
 intellect the work of healing which can only be performed 
 by the heart. It comes with its parchment " signed, sealed, 
 and delivered," making' over heaven to you by a legal bond, 
 gives its receipt in full, makes a debtor and creditor account, 
 clears up the whole by a most business-like arrangement : — 
 
 And when this Shylock-like affair with the scales and 
 weights is concluded, it bids you be sure that the most rigor- 
 ous justice and savage cruelty can want no more. Where- 
 upon selfishness shrewdly casts up the account, and says, 
 " Audited ! " "I am safe." Nay, it even has a gratitude to 
 Hira who has borne the pain instead ; a very low kind of 
 affection ; the same, differing only in degree, which young 
 Peel felt for Byron when he volunteered to accept half the 
 blows which a young tyrant was administering. The love 
 which is only gratitude for escape from pain is a very poor 
 love. It does not open the heart wide, and, accordingly, 
 basing his hopes only on a quid pro quo, a sinner's penitence 
 is half selfish, and has rarely in it any of that glorious aban- 
 don which, whether wisely directed or not, has so marked 
 the Roman penitence, and which we explain away by saying 
 it is work done to win heaven by merit. The Protestant
 
 300 THE DOCTRIXE OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 penitent, if the system succeeds, repents in his arm-chair, 
 and does no noble deed such as boundless love could alone 
 inspire ; he reforms, and is very glad that broken-hearted re- 
 morse is distrust of God, becomes a prosaic Pharisee, and 
 patronizes missionary societies, and is all safe, which is the 
 one great point in his religion. 
 
 The sentiment in Keble's last stanza is a true one, — the 
 " scattered fragments love can glean," — and it seems to me 
 the idea I have been laboring for the last two or three Sun- 
 days to bring out is the real cause of the difficulty, — does 
 the sacrifice of Christ save me from the consequences of my 
 sin ? That question has two meanings ; it may imply, does 
 it break the connection between my sin and its natural result, 
 — pain, &c. ? For instance, will it allow the spendthrift to 
 remain rich after he has squandered all away, — wull it give 
 back time lost to the idle man ? The reply to that is. No. 
 Look to its operation here. Most assuredly it leaves all the 
 natural results in their unalterable order of sequence. 
 
 But the question may mean, — Does the sacrifice save me 
 from that which is worse than all pain, the feeling of God's 
 wrath, the sense of banishment from the presence of His 
 beauty and His love ? The reply to that is, It does. Real- 
 ize the spirit of the Cross, — the surrender of self-will in 
 love, — feel, that is, believe, that God is love; in all the 
 sharpest suffering feel that, and do you then ask if hell can 
 be your portion? Can love endure hell? pain? yes; agony? 
 yes ; He did, — hell, never. That is, you are redeemed, — 
 redeemed by love from remorse, from the disposition to re- 
 peat wrong, from the sense of God's displeasure; and the 
 pain you bear is not taken away, but is transmuted. The 
 spirit in which you bear it makes all the difference ; it 
 changes it from penal fire into wise, loving, corrective disci- 
 pline; nay, makes it even the means, by its very present 
 sharpness, of saving from future transgression, and conse- 
 quently from future pain; and even the pain itself has a
 
 ON BEGINNING THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 301 
 
 tendency, by the slow and healing results of time, to wear 
 out and to become, like the memory of the lost, a sweet and 
 blessed melancholy, passing into even deep joy. The whole 
 question is, from what are we redeemed, — from the penal 
 consequences or moral consequences of guilt ? I answer 
 from the moral, and through them eventually from the penal ; 
 but only the appropriation of the Spirit of the Cross re- 
 deems. Love transmutes all. This seems to me the answer 
 to your question of some days back, when you asked about 
 being saved, and yet suffering. I reply, salvation is good- 
 ness, humbleness, love. He who has them, not will be, but 
 is saved, and all pain only makes him nobler, and gives him 
 a higher heaven. If he says, " How unfair that I should 
 suffer pain," it either shows that he is not yet saved, for he 
 is living, not in love and tiust, but suspecting God, or else it 
 is equivalent to saying, " My soul can be made divine with- 
 out suffering," which is just about as wise as to "say we can 
 have serene summers and heat without lightning. 
 
 Lxin. 
 
 My dear , — I am very tired. I could scarcely in- 
 struct my class to-day ; I have been so languid, that you must 
 not be surprised if this letter exhibits in its replies the traces 
 of a jaded mind that cannot grasp its subject. 
 
 First of all, the twice-told tale of Keble's Sunday before 
 Advent, and its being " use." Things new and old out of the 
 treasure-house. Is the sunrise use ? Suppose a child casts 
 up a sum wrong ten times and the hands get hot and the 
 brain dizzy, what do you say ? " Calm yourself, my child ; 
 take a walk round the garden, then sit still, resolve, wipe it 
 all out, and try again, and I will sit beside you until you do 
 it." I say to you try again. As to the dream, let it be a 
 spur and incentive to rouse and invigorate, not to terrify. 
 You are not alone in this world ; neither are you to begin
 
 802 ON BEGINNING THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 
 
 again the scrupulously regular life which you have once 
 found fail. Wait ! Let all come by degrees. Prescribe no 
 ascetic rules nor self-invented ritual for yourself. That is 
 law, and law only irritates. 
 
 Begin from belief and love, and do not coerce belief. 
 Your mind is at sea. Be patient, you cannot drift on the 
 wide, wide sea forever ; drifting on in one direction, you 
 must come into a current of wund at last bearing towards 
 some land. Be sure you are in His hand, not hated but 
 loved. Do not sjDeak bitterly of Him, nor mistake Him. 
 Perhaps I was too severe on Shelley, but it was partly be- 
 cause I can make few allowances for deliberate enmity to 
 God, though I may for not seeing Him ; and partly because 
 I fancied in many things he had done you injury. Let me 
 say one word ; do not begin with distasteful religious duties, 
 long prayers, &c. Begin with the distinct moral duties. 
 " If any one will do His will he shall know of the doctrine." 
 Be simply a seeker of God and truth: and be sure you never 
 can seek Him in vain. Then make yourself at rest about 
 the end, death, and so on. You must not " make haste," to 
 borrow a phrase from a prophet. 
 
 Now about the sermon. " My God, my God, why hast 
 thou forsaken me ? " certainly was the cry of a human soul 
 in sharp anguish, oppressed with doubts and misgivings. 
 What else could it be ? Was He not tried on all points, like 
 as we are? What could it be that suffered but a human 
 soul ? Deity is impassible. God was not angry with Him ; 
 God could not be angry with self-sacrificing love. He could 
 not, without denying His own nature, annex Hell, — that 
 is, an evil conscience and remorse, — to perfect goodness. 
 Christ endured the penalty of imputed sin, the sins of others. 
 But imputed sin is not actual sin, though constantly we see 
 it bear the penalty of such, — that is, be punished as such. 
 " The chastisement of our iniquities was upon Him." It was 
 not merely the " penalty of his own daring " that He bore.
 
 CHKIST THE COXQUEEOR OF ALL EVIL. 303 
 
 He bore the penalty of our transgressions. He crushed the 
 head of the serpent, Evil, which would otherwise have 
 crushed us, and the fang pierced Him. There is a parallel 
 in the death of Socrates, so far as martyrdom goes ; but His 
 death was sacrifice, not merely martyrdom; Socrates was 
 simply true to his convictions, and suffered for them. He 
 distinctly came that we might have life, and have it more 
 abundantly. He alone, of all that are woman-born, con- 
 ceived the idea of a contest with evil for the world's sake. 
 
 Many have conflicted with single forms of evil, — that of 
 their own country, that in their own profession, — ^ and in the 
 conflict have been bruised ; but He did battle with evil, not 
 Jewish evil only, but the world's evil ; evil in its manifold 
 forms, grappling with it in its home; all evil. Socrates sanc- 
 tified some kinds of the most horrible licentiousness ; he was 
 only a philosophical reformer. He came not to reform the 
 Jewish church or Jewish state ; He had no system or plan 
 of that kind, nor did He fall a martyr to any such scheme. 
 It was the overthrow of sin for which He came, with a glance 
 reaching over the ages. The Son of Man, — man's Re- 
 deemer. It was not a sacrifice for a view or a truth, but for 
 the truth. This answers the question, whether there are not 
 some sins not at all of the nature of those which crucified 
 Christ. There are none such. Sin is the genus of which a 
 few particular manifestations are but the species. The will 
 which has shaken itself free from God's will, is the central 
 principle of sin. It matters not whether this shows itself as 
 hypocrisy, or cruelty, or falsehood, or licentiousness: it is 
 part of the mighty principle of that kingdom whose prince 
 had nothing in Christ. Perhaps in actual fact the first two 
 of these had the chief hand in His destruction, but that was, 
 so to speak, an accident and not essential. Had He come 
 into contact with Herod, He would have perished as the 
 Baptist did, though the Baptist was only a martyr. 
 
 And, again, " they who crucified Him hated Him, because
 
 304 THE PHARISAIC SPIEIT. 
 
 their deeds were evil." What particular sins can you with 
 certainty except from those evil deeds, and how could you be 
 sure that any one such sin was not the cause of all the rest 
 in their character? No, I believe that all sins are of the 
 same family. Impure love is only a form of hate and cruel- 
 ty, and easily passes into them; and I could not say that 
 those men were not cruel just because they were impure, nor 
 that they were not oppressors, just because they were ava- 
 ricious, and so on. By which logical connection I believe, 
 even in this way, we could bring in every form of sin guilty 
 of the death of Jesus Christ. He was on the one side, they 
 on the other. He sought his Father's will, and all men who 
 seek their own will are of the party of His crucifiers. 
 
 There was some cavilling at that sermon, much misrepre- 
 sentation, much bitterness ; but the chief objections I have 
 heard, were in the way of suggested consequences, — " if so," 
 " then," — with which I do not meddle. Let them draw the 
 consequences, I state truths. The only tangible point they 
 could fasten on, was the assertion that Christ bore imputed 
 sin, but not the wrath of God, on which point I defy an at- 
 tack. They have not a single syllable to support what they 
 say. It is as pure an addition to the Bible as ever was made 
 by Romanism. 
 
 Forgive my descending to gossip like this,* but it is not 
 merely gossip. To me these things are instructive ; I see 
 them in the light of history. I behold the incarnation of 
 the spirit of the ancient Pharisee. I find that evil is not 
 subject to the laws of space and time ; that it belongs to no 
 country, and is of no complexion nor climate. I realize the 
 past when I contemplate a thing like this. I feel that I am 
 living in the presence of the Ages, in eternity, and not time : 
 among truths and principles, of which it is only manifesta- 
 tions that are subject to apparent sequence. These are the 
 
 * He had been relating some stories about intolerant Sabbatarianism.
 
 CHAEACTEES JUDGED BY HANDWRITING. 305 
 
 things that vitalize the Bible, and I siippo-e it is because I 
 know the Bible and have lived in it, that I view them with 
 such severity of condemnation. Here again, however, there 
 is need of caution : I may be a Pharisee for strongly blaming 
 those faults, while I am tender to others more congenial to 
 my nature. I may — 
 
 Compound for sins I am inclined to, 
 By damning those I have no mind to, — 
 
 for Pharisaism is not confined to matters of Sabbath keep- 
 ing and self-complacency in hereditary descent from Abra- 
 ham, but belongs to every form of self-congratulation. 
 
 The translation of the Latin sentence is, " his talent was 
 so flexible in all directions, that one would have said, he was 
 destined especially by nature for everything that he took in 
 hand." There is a beautiful description of this versatihty of 
 power in " Henry V.," Act I. Scene 1 ; the lines, — 
 
 That, when he speaks, 
 The air, a chartered libertine, &c., — 
 
 always seemed to me perfect melody, and therefore w^ell 
 agreeing with the eloquence of which they are the descrip- 
 tion. 
 
 As to the character (judged from handwriting) it is of 
 course guess-work, — some things right, others wrong, — writ- 
 ten, too, in the style of an ancient oracle, or Hamlet's account 
 to his friends of his interview with the ghost, or Romeo's 
 first description to Benvolio of his attachment. That is, it 
 would equally do for a great many persons, and is so care- 
 fully guarded, that, if one side is wrong, the modified expla- 
 nation must be right. " The person is not so versatile as the 
 Latin quotation represents, but is versatile to a certain ex- 
 tent." That would be true of any one who could do three 
 things with tolerable expertness, — sing a song, ride a horse, 
 or carve a turkey. It would also be true of the* Duke of 
 "Wellington, and everybody except the Admirable Crichton,
 
 306 THE WITHERING OF THE AFFECTIONS 
 
 Michael Angelo, &c., on the one hand, and a man whose 
 physical and intellectual fingers were all thumbs on the other. 
 Your butler can clean plate, drive a car, exercise horses, wait 
 at table, and be late for the railway train. Between the 
 oracular and the guess-work, all these characters must, more 
 or less, fit. Send him the same hand as a lady's, and you 
 will get back feminine instead of masculine excellences. 
 Thinking it is a man's he has not introduced one quality that 
 is feminine ! These men are all humbugs. You might as 
 well cross a gypsy's palm, as seek astrologers who " peep and 
 mutter," consult the flight of birds, inspect the palpitating 
 interiors of slam animals, judge from handwriting, or tie 
 handkerchiefs before their eyes and say, Je ne vols pas clair. 
 " If God is Love, why do we need a mediator? " I think 
 the best answer is, I do not know. Nor do I know why, 
 God being Love, the intervention of maternal suffering is 
 the indispensable condition of existence, or why suffering is 
 the necessary medium for the procuring of anything that 
 really deserves the name of blessing. Why are knowledge, 
 civilization, health, purchased only by severe labor for us by 
 others, that is, through mediation ? I only know that it is 
 so, — an unalterable law, the beauty of which I can dimly 
 see, and always most brightly in those moments when I am 
 least earthly in feeling, and most disposed to reckon nobleness 
 immeasurably above physical or even mental comfort. And 
 seeing that as the law of the universe, I am prepared to be- 
 lieve and acquiesce in it when found in the Atonement, as 
 part of the divine government, — a philosophically as well as 
 theologically demanded necessity. It is no exception to the 
 great system, but in perfect harmony with it. 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 You have heard people say, " How impossible it is to ac- 
 quiesce in the stunting and mutilation of the affections, and
 
 AND THE LOVE OF GOD. 307 
 
 all the contradictions of a withering and chllhng destiny." 
 Hard, of course, to submit to the denial of anything on 
 which we have set our hearts ; but so might a child say who 
 has to go to school when the day is bright and fine ; and so 
 might we say when tempted to sin, for sin is the doing of that 
 which is, at the time at least, very delightful. But for the 
 stunting and mutilation of the affections I fancy we always 
 have to thank ourselves, — our own imprudence, if not guilt. 
 Besides, I do believe that there is a very profound reason for 
 what seems to us the mutilation of the affections. Our affec- 
 tions are deciduous, and have a prospective end, like tlie 
 scaffolding by which the house is built. They perish to give 
 way to the building. Love excites the profoundest life of 
 man ; and each lower degree of Love prepares the way for 
 one which is higher. The Love of God is the end of all, and 
 I suppose that all must drop off, leaf by leaf, till that fruit is 
 matured. The withering, no doubt, is often exquisitely pain- 
 ful ; still we find that the heart cannot grow here of itself, 
 and that it retains to the last its " strong necessity of loving." 
 In the ordinary appointment this goes on gradually through 
 the successive stages of filial tenderness, fraternal affection, 
 intense love, wedded purity and confidence, friendship, patriot- 
 ism. In other cases it is done by wrenches, as there are some 
 flowers that blossom with a loud crack, when the old cover- 
 ing, once green and tender, falls off; and the great thing, then, 
 seems to be to go on to the next stage humbly, if one has 
 been missed, instead of sinking to the same level again. 
 
 N , for instance, has had one of the seasons blighted. In 
 
 the midst of all temptations, how purely and calmly he has 
 waited ! Ten years of desolation, with a purity of light that 
 has commanded respect and surprise in his corps ; and now 
 the rainbow begins to arch again, — vividly it never will. 
 But there is a deep calmness, which, mingled though it will 
 be with a melancholy that I suppose will always last, lias in 
 it no bitterness. I do respect that way of bearing blight.
 
 308 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 
 
 It is very beautifully put, I remember, in Wordsworth, 
 " Founding of Bolton Priory " : — 
 
 '• What is good for a bootless bene? " 
 
 With these dark words begins my tale, 
 And their meaning is — whence can comfort spring 
 
 When prayer is of no avail ? 
 
 " What is good for a bootless bene? " 
 
 The falconer to the lady said. 
 And she made answer, " Endless sorrow! " 
 
 For she knew that her son was dead. 
 
 Then comes her endurance, and she founds the priory : — 
 
 And the lady prayed in heaviness, 
 
 That looked not for relief ; 
 But slowly did her succor come, 
 
 And a patience to her grief. 
 
 0, there is never sorrow of heart 
 
 That shall lack a timely end; 
 If but to God we turn and ask 
 
 Of Him to be our friend. 
 
 Does your friend really think that the certainty of death 
 in six months would not sound to her like a knell ? O no ; 
 be sure few really wish for death. Bad as life is, it is in the 
 power of a single dream to mak-e us feel that it is not death 
 we long for : — 
 
 'T is life, whereof our nerves are scant; 
 More life and fuller, that we want; 
 No heart in which was healthful breath, 
 Has ever truly longed for death. 
 
 Several of letters speak with wonder of the failure 
 
 of his attempt to attain peace and goodness by the devoted 
 life of regularity which he led for many years. 
 
 Let me suggest one hint on this which may become a liv- 
 ing thought in your mind. No one can " attain to righteous- 
 ness, if he seek it, as it were, by the works of the law." It 
 matters not whether it be a ritual or daily duties. Mere un- 
 loving, untrusting regularity fails in producing goodness.
 
 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 309 
 
 Goodness conies not from death, but life. How could sus- 
 picions of God, seared feelings, and, to quote from heathen- 
 ism, " the rancorous melancholy of one who possesses a noble 
 longing of heart for a better faith, but proudly suppressed 
 it," how could that soil nourish anything that would bear 
 sweet fruit, or branch into noble deeds ? 
 
 Yet I can see that this stage, too, is necessary. The 
 bitter, degrading law, deteriorating the heart, goes before the 
 Gospel. We cannot skip the seasons of our education. We 
 cannot hasten the ripeness and sweetness by a single day, 
 nor dispense with one night's nipping frost, nor one week's 
 blighting east wind. 
 
 My Advent subject is not yet fixed. I have been diving 
 into reminiscences of the classics, and have been quite star- 
 tled by things which I passed over formerly without reflec- 
 tion. One thing that has made me reflect much, has been 
 the effect produced by sculpture on the Greeks. Those sub- 
 lime works, of which fragments are to us like inspiration, 
 were, by the judgment of heathens themselves, productive 
 of a corruption of feeling and morals that is scarcely credi- 
 ble. I thanked God that we have not the treasures of Italy 
 or the Continent ; painting, too. And it is very singular to 
 find how all the nobler heathen condemned the stage and the 
 dance, and the poetry which answers to our romance. Such 
 men as Plutarch, Cato, Socrates, &c. One very impassioned 
 passage in Plato, I remember, struck me when a boy, — 
 where he banishes all such things from his ideal republic ; 
 and all the softening strains of music, the Ionian and Lydian 
 styles, retaining only the majestic and masculine Dorian, and 
 one or two others. 
 
 By the by, I have just read " Comus." What a noble poem 
 that is ! Shakespeare, of course, was the greater genius, but 
 Milton was a subliraer man. How seraphically pure and 
 elevated the atmosphere which he breathed ! You feel the 
 dignity of goodness in reading ten lines of what came from 
 his soul ! . . . .
 
 310 DIFFICULTIES OF POSITION. 
 
 I took my Keble in sorrowful and deep depression, which 
 I had not felt till that minute. I sat meditating on the red 
 embers in the fire, glowing with the history of years, as they 
 so strangely do sometimes, till I lost myself in the wilderness 
 of the past and future. Were I to prophesy, it would not be 
 in Romeo's strain ; 
 
 My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne. 
 
 I should say life is gathering all its fires for the last crisis, — 
 and there is nothing more. Nor do I think that exhaustion 
 is the cause of this 
 
 I find that suspicion has attached to the Training School, 
 in consequence of my connection with it. ' The instant I 
 heard this, I wrote to the Secretary to say that I under- 
 stood such was the case, and that he was either a partici- 
 pator in the distrust, or else aware of it ; that, as I belonged 
 to no party, I was quite ready for myself to share the dis- 
 trust of all, the usual fate of those who stand alone, with 
 not merely a negative but a positive line of thought and 
 views; but that I would not for one moment involve the 
 interests of a public institution in my fate. I, therefore, 
 asked him to tell me straightforwardly and manfully, whether 
 such a feeling was experienced to his knowledge, that I 
 might put an end to all difficulties at once, by resignation 
 of the office which the bishop had asked me to take, and 
 which I had not sought myself. 
 
 Such is my position. It cannot long last. I only care to 
 be true and open, without provoking unnecessary hostility. 
 
 A person of influence sent me a message, that if I would 
 only avoid giving such strong opinions as those upon the 
 Sabbath, I might count upon speedy preferment, — to which 
 1 returned an answer, that the Lord Chancellor might give 
 me the richest preferment in the land, but that he could 
 not give me peace of conscience with it ; that the world had 
 nothing to give me which I cared for ; that I held the true
 
 EACH MAN A KEW SOUL. 311 
 
 thing to be ever the safe thing in the long run ; and that I 
 could not turn one hair's-breadth out of ray own path for 
 Royalty itself. I wish I could say these things less sternly, 
 for I was conscious of saying on Sunday I threw myself on 
 the indulgence of the congregation, being tired, in too haughty 
 a tone. I know that this offends and shuts me out from 
 sympathy in solitariness ; yet I cannot alter. It is not in 
 me either to make or to desire to make a party ; and my 
 feeble, unsustained efforts are like buffets upon the wind. 
 They watch by hundreds for my halting, and the mass of 
 beings over whom I wield a temporary influence for a brief 
 half-hour, are only chained by fluency, — held together as 
 a column of sand is supported by the breath of desert wind. 
 When that wind ceases it resolves into its atoms again. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 A long, stupid visit is just over. I do believe that there 
 ought to be more interest in humanity and more power of 
 throwing one's self into the mind of every one, so that no 
 visit should appear dull. An Infinite Being comes before 
 us with a whole eternity wrapt up in his mind and soul, and 
 we proceed to classify him, put a label upon him, as we 
 should upon a jar, saying, " This is rice, that is jelly, and 
 this is pomatum," and then we think we have saved our- 
 selves the necessity of taking off the cover: whereas, in 
 truth, the tory, radical, evangelical, gossip, flirt, or feather- 
 brain are all new beings in the world : such a one never 
 having existed before, each having a soul as distinct in its 
 peculiarities from all other souls as his or her face is from all 
 other faces. This seems to have been one great feature in 
 the way in which Our Lord treated the people who came 
 in contact with him, — He brought out the peculiarities of 
 each, treated each one as a living man, and not as a speci- 
 men of a labelled class, like the stuffed giraffes, cassowaries,
 
 312 ANECDOTES OF THE KAFFIR WAR. 
 
 humming-birds, and alligators you see in museums. Con- 
 sequently, at his touch each one gave out his peculiar spark 
 of light, and each one of the characters we have in the Gos- 
 pels is distinctly himself, and no other : the representative, 
 of course, of a class, but as distinctly marked off from all 
 others of that class as the class itself is from all classes. 
 What deep interest there would be in the most common- 
 place society if we could associate with human beings in 
 this wondering, inquiring way, exactly as the chemist in- 
 terrogates every new subject by innumerable tests until he 
 has discovered its properties and affinities! 
 
 I dined with on Wednesday. Mr. A told me 
 
 some interesting things about the unaffected simplicity of the 
 Queen Dowager, and the deep religiousness of her charac- 
 ter. Certainly, it is a wonderful thing to remember how she 
 steered through one of the most tangled portions of onr 
 history, giving no offence, dismissing all pomp, refusing to 
 hold a court, and, by the simple power of spotless goodness, 
 commanding an enthusiasm which has been rarely given to 
 the most splendid achievements. I do not know that I 
 have ever heard anything so real as her funeral directions 
 since the account of the death of Arnold. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 I had a long conversation with Captain H about the 
 
 Cape, where he has been recently quartered and engaged 
 with the Kaffirs, w^hom he represents as nearer to animal 
 existence than anything he ever saw. They seem as lithe 
 as serpents, and as capable of concealing themselves from 
 observation on almost bare ground as a hare. On one oc- 
 casion they came suddenly on a party of them sitting round 
 a fire at breakfast. A Fingoe gave the alarm, and in a 
 moment the Kaffirs threw themselves on all fours on the 
 ground, and glided in all directions through the embers and
 
 ANECDOTES OF THE KAFFIR WAR. 313 
 
 bushes, so swiftly and tortuously that, though he put up his 
 rifle and is a first-rate shot, he could not cover one of them, 
 but was obliged to give it up and bring his rifle down. He 
 knew those officers of whose interception and murder you 
 may remember the account in tlie papers some time ago. 
 They were out foraging on ground so bare of grass, that 
 though he rode over it an hour or two afterwards, he could 
 see no place where a man could hide himself. On their re- 
 turn 400 or 500 Kafllrs, through the very midst of whom 
 they must have ridden, suddenly started up and cut them 
 oflf. They rode for their lives, and would have escaped, 
 but that the horse of one, named Chetwynd, fell, upon which 
 the others stopped, dismounted, and stood back to back, and 
 being all armed with double-barrelled guns, sold their lives 
 dearly. Seven KafRrs w^ere found dead, and others were 
 carried oflT. Of themselves there were only five. They 
 were soon overwlielmed with assagais ; one was found pinned 
 to the ground with an assagai through his clieek ; another, 
 who fought most desperately, was seized, and, as an honor, 
 carried some yards oflT to a large stone, on which his head 
 was cut off*; the skull is now^in the possession of a Kaffir 
 chief in the form of a drinking-bowl. They paid, however, 
 dearly for their success, for they were pursued, and 200 of 
 tliem hemmed in in the bush. The soldiers gave no quarter, 
 and every one was cut to pieces. 
 
 On another occasion, while li and some of his men 
 
 were at breakfiist, a soldier exclaimed, and looking up he 
 saw a Kaflir within twenty yards of him, on a knoll of 
 ground, in the act of hurling his assagai. He stooped under a 
 rock, and the assagai ghmced over the point of it, and remained 
 buried in the ground so close to a sergeant that the quiver- 
 ing end struck him. Looking up again he saw the Kaffir 
 stamping with rage at having missed. They rushed after 
 him, as he was just at the end of a very narrow bush or 
 belt of wood. H sent twelve men each side of it to 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 314 ANECDOTES OF THE KAFFIR WAR. 
 
 nm down as fast as they could, and when he judged that 
 they had outrun the Kafiir, who must be impeded by the 
 trees, ordered them to turn, enter the bush, meet, and draw- 
 ing a line across it, beat every foot regularly back to the 
 point at which the Kaffir disappeared, as you would draw 
 a cover for a fox. As he stood leaning on his rifle, ex- 
 pecting to hear the cry of discovery, and shots, he saw slowly 
 rising, within three yards of him, the Kaffir's black head 
 and glittering eyes. He remained transfixed and fascinated 
 for several minutes, the Kaffir glaring at him, and he not 
 daring to raise his rifle, knowing that he would be off in a 
 moment. However, his rifle went off by accident, and 
 
 H , in a fury, struck at the Kaffir with the butt-end with 
 
 all his might. The stock broke, and the Kaffir disappeared. 
 Up came the men at the sound of the shot, and searched 
 the place for an hour, in vain. He then went off, leaving 
 three perdu behind at the spot where the savage had been 
 seen. Scarcely had he got a quarter of a mile when three 
 shots were heard, — crack, crack ! He ran back, and found 
 that the Kaffir had put up his head again, exactly in the 
 same place, and again got off like the ghost of Hamlet's 
 papa, not one being able to tell what had become of him. 
 
 I am going to dine with him again on Thursday, and shall 
 hear more of these anecdotes. I do not know how it is, but 
 they rouse me more than anything of our civilized life. I do 
 not mean this last story, for the poor wretch deserved to get 
 off, and I should not like that kind of work. But the risk and 
 excitement are more real than the being badgered by old 
 maids of both sexes in a place like Brighton. 
 
 Lxvn. 
 
 I have this moment returned from dining with Captain 
 H and hearing a long account of Kaffirland and inci- 
 dents of Cape warfare. On the whole they are very horri-
 
 ANECDOTES OF THE KAFFIE WAR. 315 
 
 ble, and make war more a matter of shambles than it appears 
 in books. The Kaffirs torture all their prisoners. Our offi- 
 cers were tied up to the trees, and the young Kaffirs practised 
 at them with the assagai, the mothers looking on and clapping 
 their hands at a good shot. Some were flayed alive, others 
 burnt with hot sticks ; then there is a bullock -goad, a speci- 
 men of which he showed me, a favorite instrument of tor- 
 ture. Horrible as all this is, H said that they are not so 
 
 ferocious as our English soldiers. A Kaffir one day pointed 
 to one of the men in a state of intoxication, and then signifi- 
 cantly to himself, saying, " You would make us like that." 
 They treat our women, too, with delicate respect, which our 
 
 men never imitate. H has seen a soldier deliberately 
 
 place his musket to a woman's breast, that he might kill both 
 herself and the child at her back with the same shot ; the 
 English officer, a subaltern, took no notice of this barbarity, 
 
 and H was obliged to put him under arrest. Indeed, it 
 
 seems that officers and men become brutalized there. He 
 mentioned one colonel, at whom a Kaffir fired, and singed his 
 face. The Colonel knocked the Kaffir down, strode over 
 him, and coolly took out his knife and jagged it across his 
 throat, instead of stabbing or shooting him. From his ac- 
 count, I confess, I felt strongly on the side of the Kaffirs. 
 They feel that they will become as degraded as Hottentots 
 by being subject to the English. At present they do not 
 drink, and have a much finer sense of honor than the brutal 
 soldier. 
 
 For a long time it was a mystery where the Kaffirs got 
 their arms and ammunition. At last, when the war was 
 ended, the secret came out. Every captured musket had the 
 Tower of London stamp upon it, — that is, the condemned 
 muskets, which are bought up by merchants, had been 
 shipped off to the Cape and sold to the savages. Nor did they 
 ever want powder ; steamers were fitted out by dealers at the 
 Cape, and sent up the shore with ammunition. Can you con-
 
 316 PREPARATION FOR HIS 
 
 ceive selfishness and treason of a darker turpitude than this ? 
 And the Kaffirs afterwards said, in Shjlock's vein, " These 
 be your Christian merchants ! " 
 
 He showed me a number of colored drawings, vividly rep- 
 resenting Kaffir life, — one a very hideous but strangely fas- 
 cinating one, in which' an English officer, stripped to his 
 shirt, is kneeling in the hands of the torturer, whose exulta- 
 tion and refinements in cruelty are diabolical to look on. 
 
 This is man ! and these things are going on, while we sit 
 by our fireside and complain of ennui, or weariness, or relig- 
 ious persecution or scandal, or some other triiling gnat-bite. 
 
 There was a bundle of assagais, which H showed me, 
 
 of various kinds. It is about six feet long, taper, about as 
 thick as your finger at the thickest part where the iron blade 
 joins it, and feathering off like a reed at the other end. 
 This they use on all occasions to cut their food, shape their 
 pipes, gash their prisoners, and as a javelin, capable of being 
 thrown a hundred yards with wonderful precision. 
 
 They are a fine manly race of men, the women beautiful 
 in figure, but all plain or ugly. I should except a few, — an 
 officer told me that one was the most beautiful woman he 
 ever saw. 
 
 LXYIII. 
 
 Mists and darkness have shut out the sun to-day, but it 
 has been close and warm. I have to-day arranged my time 
 and occupations. From ten to eleven A. M., I mean to 
 teach little Charlie geography ; the hours before that I spend 
 in my own studies, which for some time will be chiefly in 
 works bearing upon Genesis, which I mean to study thorough- 
 ly, taking such books as Pritchard's " Physical History of 
 Man," Wilkinson's " Egyptians," &c. At present I am work- 
 ing at Palfrey, an American, and two of the best Germans, 
 who in all matters of research are immeasurably before the 
 English : exhausting a subject. From eleven to one, similar
 
 AFTERNOON LECTURES ON GENESIS. 317 
 
 occupation. Then I receive visitors or write letters. At 
 fifteen minutes to three I hurry to the post. Three or four 
 days in the week I have a class at the training-school in 
 ecclesiastical history, — Daniel and St. John. Then visits to 
 sick — engagements — walk, &c. Dinner at six — listen to 
 Charlie's prattle till eight, then study again till ten. Ar- 
 rangements like these, however, are only capable of being 
 kept in an approximating way, for accounts, interruptions, 
 &c., sadly break in upon the best arranged plan ; but only in 
 hard work, with the neck ever close to the collar, can I find 
 any oblivion of thoughts that would be otherwise distracting. 
 
 Now let me give you something of the Book of Genesis. 
 
 The earlier part consists of extracts from two distinct docu- 
 ments, distinguished by the use of " God " (Elohim) and 
 "Lord" (Jehovah). 
 
 Now the question is, whence were the materials for this 
 history procured ? The answer is a very interesting one ; 
 but I believe I shall have to give it in the lecture which you 
 will get. At present it is enough to say, that it is almost 
 certain that it was not from Egypt, but Chaldea, from whence 
 Abraham came. For the Egyptian and Phoenician cosmo- 
 gonies do not at all resemble that of Moses ; whereas that of 
 the Etruscans, derived from Chaldea, and that of Berosus, a 
 Babylonian priest, singularly resemble it in important points. 
 "We might have almost expected this, from the story of the 
 confusion of tongues, the scene of which is Babylon. It ap- 
 pears, therefore, that at the time when the Israelites left 
 Egypt, and long after, the very accounts which were given 
 to them by Moses were the accounts taught and received by 
 another portion of the human tace, from whom they had been 
 brought by Abraham and preserved for centuries. It seems 
 that Moses committed to writing those parts which were 
 chiefly calculated to be prefatory to his Law, and to corrobo- 
 rate by an appeal to antiquity the great doctrines he was com- 
 missioned to teach, — the Unity of God and His moral gov-
 
 318 PREPAEATION FOR LECTURES ON GENESIS. 
 
 ernment of the world, nations and individuals, — the religious 
 parts of the tradition chiefly, and others which historically 
 bore upon the foundation of the Israelitish commonwealth : 
 as, for instance, those records which declared that the Canaan 
 which he required them to conquer, had been the property of 
 their ancestors, that they had a hereditary right there, and 
 that the present possessors were only usurpers. 
 
 This explanation of two documents will account for what 
 must have often struck you, — the repetitions which you find 
 in many accounts, as of the Creation and Deluge, the going 
 back every now and then to a point which had been passed, 
 and tracing the same ground over again in different words, 
 until the thread is taken up where it was broken off. You 
 find two distinct accounts of the Creation : one in chap. i. 
 to chap. ii. v. 4; the other from chap. ii. v. 4 to the end, 
 beginning, "These are the generations," &c., which is the 
 common and well-known way of commencing a history. In 
 these two histories there are even discrepancies of a trifling 
 nature. For instance, in the first, man is created male and 
 female at once. In the first, animals are created on separate 
 days before man; in the second, chap. ii. v. 19, they are 
 created after man, and brought to him to name. The great 
 points, however, are in both the same, — the Unity of God, 
 the non-eternity of things as they are ; and indeed the one 
 supplements the other very materially. 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 I walked to-day alone, along the beach and then round 
 by the well-known corner under the bridge, and so home 
 by the Dyke Road. The day was very bright, but a brisk 
 wind ruflSed the sea, and swept the sea-gulls, as if against 
 their will, with twice their usual rapidity, across the waves. 
 Hundreds of these birds were regularly hunting up and 
 down one single large field, without going off from it for
 
 SUBMISSIVE FEELIKG. 319 
 
 at least an hour that I watched them. Not having a gun, 
 I could not ascertain what was the cau?e of their attraction, 
 and therefore I did not go up to them ; but I suppose there 
 must have been some sea-substance spread over it as manure. 
 A large flock of Norwegian or hooded crows were mingled 
 with them, and the distant hills were exceedingly distinct 
 and clear, in that way which is often a prelude to rain ; but 
 I have observed that wind has sometimes the same effect. 
 The shadows of the clouds were very pretty, and the blue 
 of both sky and sea fine ; the air bracing and exhilarating. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 I did not forget my resolve, which I trust I shall not break 
 through as a habit. I try to blend my will with His, to 
 submit mine and merge it in His. Milton's lines, — to Cy- 
 riack Skinner, — on his own blindness floated across my 
 mind, in which he speaks of not abating one jot of hope, nor 
 arguing against Heaven's will, but steering right onwards. 
 I asked that I, and those dearest to me, might in all things 
 unsophistically see the right, and do it. 
 
 I do not know that I have felt so softened and humbled 
 for a long time as at the hour of prayer this morning ; more 
 gentleness seemed to distil upon my soul than I have felt 
 for a long time. I could have wept, not happy nor sanguine, 
 but subdued and humanized tears. I do not know exactly 
 why; at least, it would take long to explain the train of 
 thought. But it ran very little upon myself, or upon my own 
 concerns. Wordsworth, in his account of the revulsion by 
 which young disappointment passes into something resigned, 
 and almost cheerful at last, speaks of a kind of sweet melan- 
 choly and repose found, — 
 
 " In the soothing thoughts which spring 
 Out of human sufTering."
 
 320 RELATIVE PRIORITY OF WILL AND LAW. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 I have just returned from spending tlie evening with the 
 
 M s. I took a long walk with to-day. She was 
 
 brought up under Chalmers, but has a large and catholic 
 mind, fresh, vigorous, overflowing with cheerful desires and 
 efforts to do good, which she carries out on her own estate 
 and everywhere, — the secret of all happiness. I spent the 
 evening alone with tliem, and felt refreshed ; a long conver- 
 sation about confession, absolution, baptismal regeneration, 
 and the modes of restoring peace and holiness after sin. 
 
 She spoke of the excessive beauty of M 's last volume 
 
 of Sermons ; I have not read them. 
 
 Your criticism about " There must be a will before there 
 can be a law" is quite just. Our minds, by their very 
 constitution, must conceive of a law as prior, not in point 
 of time but in point of order of conception, to the Eternal 
 "Will, in all moral questions. What I was alluding to, I 
 suppose, was the laws of the physical universe, and I meant 
 prior in point of time. Will decided that those and no 
 others should be the laws which regulate matter. The Di- 
 vine idea realized is the constitution of this universe, but that 
 of course implies that the idea existed before the realiza- 
 tion of it. All you say, however, is perfectly true, and most 
 accurately thought. 
 
 The reply to the feeling about the Temple of God in the 
 universe, as contrasted with a London building, is a veiy 
 long one. It would lead into all the questions about the 
 place which belongs to the artificially symbolic in contradis- 
 tinction to the naturally symbolic. I have no doubt that 
 God has so constructed nature as to be an appropriate symbol 
 of the Highest. I believe it has a sacramental power even. 
 But then the harmony of mind with the All is a different 
 thing, and less definite than the sense of harmony with living, 
 imperfect human beings, struggling together towards God,
 
 THE BEST PLACE OF WORSHIP. 321 
 
 sinful and weak, which is the idea of a church. The uni- 
 verse exalts ; but I do not know that it distinctly elicits 
 the consciousness of guilt, — of dependence on human beings, 
 or of our great need of sympathy with humanity. Perhaps 
 it rather repels us from mankind than attracts ; and I believe 
 one end of united worship is to bring feelings of this class 
 into distinct consciousness. Of course that does not reply 
 to the objection about flaunting congregations, &c. Only 
 observe, that is an objection against display and vanity, and 
 their unfitness for public worship, — not an objection against 
 public worship itself. " Better is a dinner of herbs where 
 love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." But this 
 does not imply that the stalled ox itself is bad, or even that 
 the herbs are better, only that they are preferable to the 
 other with a certain addition, which neutralizes all its value. 
 I do sincerely believe in the Temple of the Universe, — 
 its noble architecture, the music of its full choir of everlasting 
 psalmody ; and I am persuaded, especially to minds in certain 
 states, nothing is more healing, or so healing. I hold it to 
 be imperative on us to vindicate this great truth, that true 
 worship may be given, — ay, and most fitly suggested, — 
 there. Still I believe that lowlier — but perhaps more really 
 spiritual, because more fitted to fallen man — worship is to be 
 found in a congregation of united adorers, which the other 
 cannot supersede. 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 February 22. 
 I will tell you of a want I am beginning to experience 
 very distinctly. I perceive more than ever the necessity of 
 devotional reading. I mean the works of eminently holy 
 persons, whose tone was not merely uprightness of charac- 
 ter and high-mindedness, but communion — a strong sense 
 of personal and ever-living communion — with God besides. 
 I recollect how far more peaceful my mind used to be when 
 I was in the regular habit of reading daily, with scrupulous 
 14* u
 
 322 KEED OF DEVOTIONAL READING. 
 
 adherence to a plan, works of this description. A strong 
 shock threw me off the habit, — partly the external circum- 
 stances of my life, partly the perception of a most important 
 fact, that devotional feelings are very distinct from upriglit- 
 ness and purity of life, — that they are often singularly 
 allied to the animal nature, the result of a warm tempera- 
 ment, — guides to hell under the form of angels of light, 
 conducting the unconscious victim of feelings that appear 
 divine and seraphic, into a state of heart and life at wliich 
 the very world stands aghast. Cases of this kind came 
 under my immediate cognizance, disgusted me, made me 
 suspect feelings which I had hitherto cherished as the holiest, 
 and produced a reaction. Nevertheless, the only true use 
 of such a discovery is this, that our basest feelings lie very 
 near to our highest, and that they pass into one another by 
 insensible transitions. It is not true to take the tone so 
 fearfully sounded in Tennyson's " Vision of Sin," nor that 
 of Mephistopheles when he sneeringly predicts to Faust the 
 mode of termination for his " sublime intuition," after the 
 soliloquy in the forest, when Gretchen's image has elevated 
 his soul. The true lesson is to watch, suspect, and guard 
 aspirations after good, not to drown them as spurious. 
 Wordsworth says, — 
 
 True dignity abides with him alone 
 
 Who, in the patient hour of silent thought, 
 
 Can still suspect, and still revere himself. 
 
 I feel the need of works of this kind, and I shall begin 
 them again. The Tractarian school have felt and tried to 
 administer to this craving by the publication of Romish de- 
 votional books, but of the most corrupted and erotic charac- 
 ter. Our affections must be nurtured in the Highest, or else 
 our whole life flags and droops. At present you are reading 
 " Channing's Life," and will persevere, however discouraging 
 his saintly elevation may be ; for high thoughts and aims and 
 feelings are caught by contact with the loftiest minds, far
 
 ADVICE TO A FKIEXD. 323 
 
 more than by any didactic discourses. Pray do not give up 
 " Channing's Life," nor read it by starts, but consecutively, 
 and, if possible, regularly every day at a fixed hour. You 
 must bear in mind, however, that his biographer's mind and 
 tone of piety are immeasurably below his. The book is 
 worth comparatively little, but the extracts are exceedingly 
 valuable. I should not, however, say that devotionality was 
 the characteristic of Channing's mind, so much as aspira- 
 tion and adoration. Largeness of heart is more evident than 
 warmth, and I have heard his writings characterized as cold ; 
 but it is a love which is too pure and translucent for the bub- 
 bling and turbid effervescence of an affection with which much 
 that is earthly mingles. However, I am not sure that intel- 
 lectual brightness does not make it too clear for love, which 
 requires a kind of dim haze to live in, where the horizon, 
 and the finite, sharp outlines of things are not discovered, 
 and where imagination by its own swell conceives the infinite 
 of love far better than the eye can exhibit it. 
 
 LXXIIL 
 
 My Dear A , — I am quite certain that all our expec- 
 tations of peace in this world are delusive, except so far as 
 we resolutely address ourselves to duty as it unceasingly pre- 
 sents itself in form after form. Otherwise, all soon gets dis- 
 ordered, and our hearts run rapidly down to discord. " Take 
 my yoke upon you .... you shall find rest for your souls." 
 At present manifold perplexities are crowding upon you, and 
 you would fain get away into a place of solitude, to escape 
 the harassing and distressing calls. But you remember that 
 when He went into the desert apart to rest a while, the people 
 followed Hira, and He had all the perplexity of calculating 
 numbers and provisions, how to provide loaves and fishes for 
 the crowd who were dependent on him ? I do not read that 
 he threw off the responsibility, or called it and considered it
 
 324 TOUCHING ixcidext. 
 
 beneath and unworthy of His divine energy. How very 
 meekly and patiently He listened to the rule-of-three sum 
 of five loaves and a few fishes, — provision enough for one 
 lad, but, — for so many ! And then the arrangement and 
 marshalling of them all, — ranks of fifties, and hundred^, and 
 thour^ands, — Divine expedients to meet temporary deficien- 
 cies and past improvidence. Surely something of that spirit 
 is available in somewhat similar emergencies, if the miracu- 
 lous part of it cannot be repeated. Who can tell how your 
 destiny may be bewildered or briglitened according as you 
 meet this emergency truly to yourself and God, or shrink 
 from it in a way that is not courageous ? He was tempted 
 to escape duty and long toil by some sudden act of rashness, 
 and to choose plenty and enjoyment instead of a rock-pillow 
 and fidelity to commonplace, unromantic needs and occu- 
 pations ; but he felt the reality of a higher life within, nur- 
 tured not by solaces but God's presence, and he chose to 
 wait rather than faithlessly distrust. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 This afternoon I received a packet which touched me a 
 good deal : it was a book, sent from by a gentle- 
 man, who once came to me in great anguish after a sermon 
 in Trinity Chapel, which had struck home and revealed 
 to him the inevitable results of the line of conduct he was 
 pursuing. I did not know he had left the country. It ap- 
 pears that the warning was in vain ; all his earthly happiness 
 is and must be wrecked forever, and he has quitted Eng- 
 land, I should conceive, never to return. The inscription 
 on the title-page, in Latin, is as follows : — 
 
 In memory of a warning, 
 Given, how benignly, 
 Forgotten, how evilly, 
 Mourned, now vainly, 
 Ended by ruin, how entirely! 
 Given by lufelix.
 
 WARBURTOX'S VIEWS. 325 
 
 And that i> all I know of the concluding history of one of 
 the saddest tales of an unregulated heart I ever heard or 
 perhaps ever shall know. I shall write, but to what pur- 
 pose ? — words, idle words, — the whole realm of Chatterdoni 
 is worth nothinor, — noise and smoke, nothing else. The 
 babble of liitle birds round the unaltered flight of a hawk, 
 which moves majestically on, do they stop the death or ruin 
 which is before him ? I trow not. Eloquence, rhetoric, 
 impressive discourses, &c., &c., &c., — soft-gliding swallows, 
 and noisy impudent tomtits, — is the true worth of the lirst 
 orator in the w^orld. I believe I could have become an 
 orator, had I chosen to take the pains. I see what rhetoric 
 does, and what it seems to do, and I thoroughly despise it. 
 I think it makes people worse instead of better ; exposes 
 the feelings to tension, like the pulling constantly of a spring 
 back, until the spring loses its elasticity, becomes weak, or 
 breaks ; and yet, perhaps, I do it injustice : with an unworldly 
 noble love to give it reality, what might it not do ? 
 
 ****** 
 I have translated a few more of Lessing's paragraphs for 
 you. In order to understand them, I must explain to you, 
 very briefly, Warburton's system, which he partly admits 
 and partly refutes. Warburton published a book entitled 
 "The Divine Legation of Moses." The argument of the 
 whole, well sustained by immense learning but much erro- 
 neous reasoning, was this: Warburton saw no doctrine of 
 future life in the Old Testament, — this is only true, how- 
 ever, of parts, of which the Pentateuch is certainly one, — 
 he concluded from this that Moses must have had miracu- 
 lous power to substantiate his claims as a Divine messenger. 
 Mahomet, for example, may have passed for one, and yet 
 be an impostor, because his promises were to be fulfdled 
 hereafter, and could not be tested here. He appealer! to 
 superstitious hopes, &c., and had thus a hold upon the present 
 life ; but a lawgiver, who appealed to no future sanctions
 
 326 HATRED OF EVIL. 
 
 and only to present ones, must have been true in his predic- 
 tions of those present ones, — Divine interference, &c., &c., 
 — because they could be tested every day. If he told the 
 Israelites that they passed through the sea dry, and that 
 their shoes had not worn out ; if he threatened disobedience 
 with wondrous penalties, the Jews could try his credentials 
 on the spot ; but as they recognized these credentials, War- 
 burton held that miraculous power must have been there. 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 There is no excellence in me to kindle excellence, — there 
 is nothing, absolutely and literally nothing, true and good. 
 Something, perhaps, which a superior being might mourn- 
 fully and gently look upon and recognize as the germs of 
 a once possible — perhaps still in the eternities possible — 
 excellence ; but after years remaming rudimentary still, more 
 or less dry and withered. A common gardener would re- 
 quire a very powerful microscope indeed to detect the small- 
 est symptom of remaining life, and that, perhaps, the Chief 
 Gardener could only see in a certain capacity of intense 
 hatred for certain forms of wrong, somewhat, however, of 
 the acescent kind, hot and bitter. Hatred for wrong is a 
 kind of life, but there is Httle of the sanguine love and 
 hope for good left. 
 
 I am truly rejoiced to find that you are beginning to feel 
 the beauty and power of such writers as Newman and Chan- 
 ning. I think you will by degrees acknowledge the genius 
 of the latter. It is simple, as all genius is, and not so strik- 
 ing as the splendor of Macaulay's diction, but far deeper if 
 it be true. " Que les grandes pensees viennent du cceur." 
 
 I read a melancholy story to-day. A young English lady, 
 who had been sent from Australia to finish her education in 
 England, was returning to her parents, when the vessel was 
 wrecked, and all the party with whom she was, except her-
 
 SPECULATIONS ON PEE-EXISTENCE. 327 
 
 self, was slain. She was taken prisoner by the natives, and 
 has been forced to live with them ever since. She has been 
 Been more than once, vigilantly attended by a black. She is 
 hurried away instantly when the whites are seen. All eflforts 
 hitherto to penetrate the forest, and discover her, have been 
 unavailing. The Australian savage is almost lower than the 
 Bosjesman in the scale of humanity. Conceive such a lot 
 for a refined and educated girl. Poor, poor thing ! I should 
 like to be in Australia. In my present mood, I would lead 
 the forlorn hope in search of her; I would not recommend 
 any black to come within reach of my rifle. How much 
 better a virgin grave in the Atlantic would have been for her ! 
 ****** 
 
 I have finished Lessing for you, in order that you might 
 have it all complete on Sunday morning. The latter part is 
 merely an old speculation about our pre-existence, as old as 
 Pythagoras, dimly suspected by Plato, hinted at by Tennyson 
 in the " Two Voices," and a fancy, I suppose, which has oc- 
 cupied some minutes of all our lives. You will take it as a 
 fancy, nothing more. It can neither be proved nor disproved. 
 Still, even in the apparent absurdities of some minds there is 
 more that is instructive than in the wisdom of others. The 
 whole piece is valuable, chiefly as suggestive ; it is crude and 
 imperfect ; but it gives large glances into God's world and 
 the Life of man as a whole, and after all does not err in put- 
 ting in too much details, or in shading too much the grand 
 sketch. ***** 
 
 " Extroitive " is a coinage of Coleridge.* " Introit " is a 
 musical word, meaning an entrance. Extroitive means that 
 which goes from within abroad. Introitive, applied to a char- 
 acter, would mean one which is exactly the reverse. Thus 
 extroitive, in his mode of application, describes a character 
 which considers the outward consequences of moral evil 
 chiefly, shrinking from them, and penetrates less to the heart 
 
 * See Coleridge, " Lectures on Shakespeare, «&.c.," p. 114.
 
 328 THE GOEHAM JUDGilENT. 
 
 and kernel of the matter, — shuddering at the deformity of 
 evil in and for itself. From this he draws the conclusion 
 that women are less hypocrites to their own minds than men, 
 because they do not often pretend to themselves to be guided 
 by principle, nor use sophistry to make their acts square with 
 right. It is quite sufficient for such a mind to say, " It was 
 
 necessary to do wrong ; or else " . Consequently, women 
 
 are less veracious than men ; dereliction from truth being a 
 slight thing to them in comparison of having to endure the 
 consequences of speaking it. In other words, they feel a 
 Necessity above Right , — a fearful thing to feel. I believe 
 this is a correct exposition of what Coleridge means. I am 
 afraid, however, it explains Shakespeare where Coleridge 
 himself puzzles over him in the conclusion of his " Notes on 
 All 's Well that Ends Well," respecting Helena's conduct. 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 :March 9. 
 
 Lord Langdale has pronounced, at last, the judgment of 
 the Privy Council in Gorham v. Bishop of Exeter. The 
 decision, in which the Council, with the exception of Knight 
 Bruce, were unanimous, with the approval of the two Arch- 
 bishops, and the disapproval of the Bishop of London, is to 
 the effect that Mr. Gorham's views are not contrary to the 
 doctrine of the Church of England. The arguments are 
 very temperate and wise, and, I think, unanswerable. If you 
 have the paper, pray look at the quotations from our great 
 divines at the close of the judgment ; they are decisive, I 
 think, that Mr. Gorham's opinions are at least honestly tena 
 ble in the Church of England. I do not agree with Mr. 
 Gorham any more than I do with the Bishop, and I think, 
 on the whole, the Bishop's views are less likely to undermine 
 Christianity than Mr. Gorham's ; for the former at least ac- 
 knowledges all Christians as God's children, whereas the lat- 
 ter only uses it in the judgment of charity, " consider a man
 
 SEPtMOXS ON BAPTISM. 329 
 
 tonest until he is proved a rogue," which in common life 
 does not make us feel particularly at ease, when we are going 
 through a crowd with money or jewels on us. Nor does it, 
 practically, much satisfy the good people that those around 
 them are Christians, whatever they may say in the judgment 
 of charity, which is especially restricted to the baptismal font. 
 The common expression among them is. Is he a Christian ? 
 Now, with all my heart I love our service for pronouncing, as 
 St. Paul does, " that all who have been baptized into Christ, 
 have put on Christ," that is, are Christians. Baptism is the 
 grand special revelation to an individual by name. A, B, or C, 
 of the great truth Christ revealed for the race, that all, Greeks 
 and barbarians, are tlie children of God. It is the fact which 
 they are to believe, a fact before they believe it, else how could 
 they be asked to believe it ? Faith does not create the fact, 
 it only receives it. Baptism is the visible declaration of this, 
 saying, " Now remember you are a child of God, from hence- 
 forth live as such." I accept gladly the expression of the 
 Catechism, " My baptism, wherein I was made a child of 
 God," &c. — made, as the Queen is made Queen at her coro- 
 nation. She was Queen before ; nay, if she had not been 
 Queen, coronation could not make her Queen ; it could not 
 make Lady Jane Grey, Queen. Baptism could not make me 
 a child of God, unless I were one by reason of my Humanity 
 already. To live as such, — to believe it and realize it, — is 
 to become regenerate. The Bishop says that baptism makes 
 a child of God in the wrong sense that it creates him such, 
 transforms him, which is magic. Still, without disputing how 
 a child became a Christian, the Bishop would agree with nie 
 in this, that the child is thenceforth to be treated as a tem- 
 ple of the Holy Ghost, in which way St. Paul treated all 
 Christians baptized, even though guilty of flagrant crimes. 
 " Whether you believe it or no, you are temples of God, as 
 such holy ; if any man pollute the temple of God, him shall 
 God destroy." Does not the sin consist in this, — in denying
 
 330 THE PHRASE "TOO LATE." 
 
 that they were God's cliildren, and living as if they were not 
 such ? Whereas Mr. Gorham, who holds that this magical 
 efficacy takes place, but only in some ca-es, leaves the whole 
 truth of Christianity maimed and disfigured, and brings us 
 back to the spirit of the Jews and the Pharisees. " I am a 
 child of God in virtue of something not general, like bap- 
 tism, but special and personal, as feelings, opinions," &c. 
 You are a publican, a Gentile, one of the world in short, — 
 and then what has become of Christianity ? 
 
 I have been asked in many directions to publish my sermon 
 on Baptism, which seemed to strike nearly everybody in a 
 new light, being not a via media or cautious attempt at steer- 
 ing between two extremes, but a larger truth which absorbs 
 them ]x)th, and annihilates their respective errors. I have 
 not yet quite decided. Next Sunday I shall preach again on 
 the same subject with further elucidations. 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 I have been interiiii)ted by two long visits, — one a press- 
 ing request from the Athenaeum to lecture. I refused. The 
 other, a visit from the sister of a Quaker who has applied to 
 me for baptism in consequence of the sermon of last Sunday, 
 and a series of impressions produced in Trinity during some 
 months past. 
 
 I find the two sermons on Baptism have made an impres- 
 sion, in some cases producing great dislike, but in others pro- 
 ducing thought, and appearing to shed light on what had 
 before been dark. So far, I have reason to be grateful. I 
 am nearly determined, however, not to publish, at all events 
 for some time. If I should, it will be in another form, with 
 the whole recast and remoulded. 
 
 You must not ever permit yourself the use of that word 
 " Too late ! " Alfieri, when did he Ijegin to study ? Shake- 
 speare, when did he leave off deer-stalking and dissipation ?
 
 THE SO-CALLED MEANS OF GRACE. 331 
 
 He was thirty before he wrote his first poem. Thomas Scott 
 began Hebrew at fifty-six. I do not see what is the use of 
 striking experience if it cannot be applied, and if time can 
 ever be " too late." Too late, of course, for any of us to undo 
 the past, but not too late from the past to make the future 
 and present wiser and better than they would have been with- 
 out our often-bitter past experience. 
 
 A propos of prison-house vegetation, &c., Silvio Pellico 
 composed his " Memoirs " in prisons, the only materials of- 
 fered for which were created by a fresh living habit of obser- 
 vation. Do you remember how he contrived to make for 
 himself a life of thought out of the transient visits of the 
 plain uninteresting daughter of his gaoler, by sim})ly cultivat- 
 ing a healthy interest in all that is human and has life ? Do 
 you forget the story of Picciola ? Do you know where the 
 best book which Spain has given to the world, " Don Quix- 
 ote," was written ? By a one-armed man, whose other arm 
 was lopped off, in a dungeon. 0, be assured that what they 
 call the means of grace are like the means of travelling, very 
 good for getting fast over the ground without exertion, with 
 the assistance of others, but not so good for developing in- 
 ward muscular energy. A languid lady behind her four grays 
 may look contemptuously on the pedestrian who is struggling 
 along the dusty high-road, and making small progress in com- 
 parison, — that is of her horses, — but in comparison with 
 
 her ! gets on very fast with the assistance of in 
 
 knowing all about God and the spiritual life ; but in respect 
 of thinking for himself, getting power to stand alone and lead 
 a John-Baptist life in the wilderness, with no means of grace, 
 sermons, gifted ministers to commune with, why I think 
 
 had much better go to Juan Fernandez at once, and try 
 
 to find out how much he has in him of his own ; of what 
 Btuff he is made, and how, alone, he can front tlie everlasting 
 Fact, and feel at home in it. A student of medicine, listen- 
 ing to a clinical lecture by the bedside of a patient, learns a
 
 332 ON BAPTISM. 
 
 great deal about muscles, nerves, and names ; but I fancy a 
 feeble attempt in great pain to stagger across the floor of 
 a hospital, teaches more of the practice of health and use 
 of the muscles than all the clinical lectures in the world. 
 Crutches are capital for locomotion, but for strengthening 
 the limb which they save from the ground, until its bulk be- 
 comes flaccid, not very capital, I guess ? No ; rely upon it, 
 the sjjiritual life is not knowing, nor hearing, but doing. We 
 only know so far as we can do ; we learn to do, by doing, 
 and we learn to know by doing : what we do, truly, rightly, 
 in the way of duty, that, and only that, we are. Sermons 
 are crutches, — I believe often the worst things for spiritual 
 health that ever were invented. 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 Thursday, ^March 21. 
 
 Now, to reply to your remark on the view of baptism 
 which I gave. You ask why the Church of England calls a 
 child, previous to baptism, a child of wrath, if baptism merely 
 recognizes the fact of it being a child of God. Baptism does 
 not merely recognize the fact ; it reveals it, as a fact unknown, 
 and previous to the knowledge of which the child or man can- 
 not be called regenerate. One who is by right a child of 
 God lives, in fact, a child of wrath, pursuing the path to cer- 
 tain misery by sin. Was not the younger eon, in the parable, 
 his father's child really and truly, whether he lived as such 
 or not ? but was he not also a child of wrath, and what good 
 did his relationship do him until he recognized it, and claimed 
 its rights ? In truth, and in fact, he may be said to have then 
 really, in a figurative sense, for the first time, had power to 
 become a son. Yet that power rested upon a fact which was 
 quite independent of his moods and feelings. I would use, 
 with all my heart, both expressions of our formularies : — a 
 child of wrath before baptism made a child of God by bap- 
 tism ; and yet I would earnestly maintain that baptism could
 
 ON BAPTISM. 333 
 
 only make the child such, in virtue of its being by right, not 
 by recognition, such before. 
 
 To all practical purposes the fact is valueless, until re- 
 vealed, just as a child of a sovereign might be living as the 
 son of a pirate, if he had been kidnapped, and did not know 
 his parentage ; but all the value of the revelation depends 
 upon the circumstance that it is the revelation of a fact, and 
 not the demand of a sentiment, nor the performance of a 
 miracle, nor the fabrication of a new relation. For instance, 
 the kidnapped pirate, — what would be the power of a mes- 
 sage declaring him a royal child ? None, except the power 
 of a fact. Adoption by a stranger would be nothing, nor 
 could it make him heir to a throne. Still you will observe 
 that without that message the fact would be profitless, and he 
 never could have inherited the kingdom. Would you not 
 say, rightly, that he was the son of piracy before, but that 
 the message had made him heir of a kingdom : and this not 
 as a fagon de parler, — you would be speaking of a reality. 
 Baptism is such a reality ; God's missive to an individual, 
 bearing a name, personally, specially directed as a superscrip- 
 tion, — I baptize thee, A. B. C. 
 
 I believe this will remove all difficulty about the Thir- 
 teenth Article. What can be the value of an outlaw's deeds, 
 voluntarily outlawed, refusing his father's laws, spurning his 
 father's home, and living in the original sin, — the fountain 
 guilt of denying by every act his likeness and relationship 
 to God, refu.-ing by his life to be His child, and leading, 
 therefore, not a life of truth and fact, but, as St. John says, 
 the life of one who is a liar, and does not the truth, to 
 whom Christ came as one of His own, and he received him 
 not? 
 
 Cornelius's alms, &c., were not looked upon as sins you say. 
 No; and the Article does not say that acts done with the in- 
 spiration of God's Spirit are sins, but tho^e that are done 
 without. Now, St. Peter expressly declares that Cornelius
 
 334 ON BAPTISM. 
 
 had the Spirit, and therefore he baptized him. He had, in 
 fact, been livino: Ions; under its influence, which Peter was as- 
 tonished to find. What is the Spirit of Christ ? — that where- 
 by we cry Abba, Father ; and surely v/e could not say the 
 deeds are good which are done in an opposite spirit. 
 
 The more I study the Prayer Book the more I am con- 
 vinced that no other view will explain its words, and the 
 more do I feel their preciousness, of which the miserable dis- 
 senters would rob us. I would not give up one sentence 
 which it contains upon the subject. I would far rather hold 
 the Romanist than the dissentinoj Evangelical valsjarisms 
 upon the subject. And indeed, practically, I fancy there 
 would be little difference between my teaching on this point 
 and that of a Tractarian, except in the dark view they neces- 
 sarily take of the quenching of a baptismal spark by sin, to 
 be rekindled only by tears, &c., &c., &c. I should touch on 
 the ground they do. You are a child of God, claim your 
 privileges, — you may lo.-e them else forever, — "a child of 
 God," and baptism is your assurance of it, not your feelings, 
 which are sanguine to-day and depressed to-morrow, but the 
 one baptism. Only he would say, in baptism you were mi- 
 raculously manufactured into God's child. I would say, by 
 baptism was revealed to you a truth which by nature you 
 could not have. 
 
 I do not agree with you about the Jesuitical character of 
 our Church and its services. I believe the Articles are open 
 Articles. I do not think it impossible for men holding very 
 different views to be able to sign them, except a rabid dis- 
 senter ; even a Calvinist might, — of course not a Quaker. 
 
 Do study the services in this spirit, and see whether they 
 do not proclaim most blessed truths, that all are God's chil- 
 dren, de jure but not de facto, — that there must be a sepa- 
 rate body, a church differing from the evil world, — though 
 the world itself ought to be, and one day will be, " the king- 
 dom of Our Lord and of his Christ."
 
 UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE. 335 
 
 You are quite right in saying that the argument against 
 God waiting to send down His Spirit would hold with equal 
 force against prayer. Of course, if prayer could dictate to 
 God time and place, or if it left no alternative to God to 
 grant or not, which the Romish doctrine presumes, or if God 
 never answered prayer except in the way which it prescribes, 
 or if He never gave, except in answer to prayer, as Rome 
 says in reference to baptism, or if the fact were not that 
 prayer is the voice of the Spirit of God himself within us, 
 and the reply, therefore, an answer to himself. (Romans 
 viii. 26, 27.) God does not wait on a man for his claim of 
 the promise, to the last, because He gives the Spirit before 
 he prays. Is not prayer spiritual life, whether it be in words 
 or in aspirations ? 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 The weather for the last ten days has been bright and 
 clear, but a piercing northeast wind has made all outdoor 
 work wretched, and appears to pepper the mouth and throat 
 with invisible cayenne and sands of the desert. To-day it 
 has come down in hail and snow. Probably, when it does 
 change, we shall have genial summer all at once with start- 
 ling contrast. 
 
 1 have been very hard at work lately, with almost no time 
 for reading or writing. Next week service every day, and 
 two sermons on Good Friday, will abridge my time sadly, 
 besides constant occupation in preparing pupils at the train- 
 ing-school for Government examination in the ensuing week. 
 To-day I scarcely know where to turn, so much must be 
 done before night. To-morrow morning I mean to take 
 Luke xi. 1, and preach on Unconscious Influence. The Dis- 
 ciples saw their Lord praying, and asked to be taught. So 
 St. Peter went straight to the sepulchre, and St. John, who 
 had hesitated before at the door, went in after, indirectly and
 
 336 UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE. 
 
 unconsciously influenced by tliat act. All life is a history of 
 the power of involuntary unconscious influences like these. 
 Our conscious influence is the result of intention, and on the 
 whole does little ; but our unconscious influence is the aggre- 
 gate result of our whole character, manifesting itself in 
 words, looks, acts, that are not meant to effect anything, but 
 which inevitably mould others. Our conscious and inten- 
 tional influence may fail or may be false, but our involuntary 
 is inevitable, and every moment operative, and must be true. 
 This is the leading thought which I mean to work out ; but 
 having a violent cold, my mind is somewhat dull and unfit 
 for work. 
 
 It is not an enviable feeling, nor do I think there is much 
 that is enviable in the feeling of any great duty. The luxury 
 of doing good is sentimental trash and self-contradiction. 
 How can any duty be done with ease ? Is not all our life — 
 our lower life, at least — a miserable and fruitless attempt to 
 reconcile the indulgence of our low desires for a summer 
 holiday with the infinite and ever-increasing calls of con- 
 science and law? Is not all our higher life a perpetual 
 struggle to reach a horizon of duty, which is unbounded and 
 ever-widening before us, as we fulfil its claims ? Two things 
 have brought this powerfully before me, — one is the instruc- 
 tion of little Charlie, whicli has made me rouse myself to 
 feel how much is to be done, and how fearful failure is ; the 
 other the meditation upon John x. 17, 18, on which I preach 
 to-morrow, — that sublime law of our humanity, as of His 
 sacrifice, converted into blessedness by the truth that it is ren- 
 dered to love, not hard necessity : "Therefore doth my Fathei- 
 love me, because," &c. O, shall w-e not try, cheerfully and 
 sweetly, to take up this law, not as our severe obligation, but 
 as our glorious gain? Let youthful freshness pass, worn 
 looks come; and in me they are coming fast, and will come 
 faster. What matter if, as the outward perish, the inward is 
 renewed day by day? What matter if we see it in those
 
 INTELLECT V. MORAL GOOD. 337 
 
 that are dearest to us, — if we know that in them, too, the 
 same glorious reproduction is taking place ? 
 
 What Channing says about intellectual cultivation not in- 
 juring moral character among the poor is true and not true, 
 
 — true, inasmuch as eventually, of course, things must iind 
 their level, but not true if he meant to say that the cultiva- 
 tion of the understanding alone improves character. I say it 
 makes a bad character worse by multiplying power.* It is, 
 of course, right to strengthen physical fibre, and he who 
 refused it for fear of giving bad men the upper hand would 
 talk absurdly; but he would be quite right in saying that 
 mere cultivation of strength — albeit a gift of God's, to scorn 
 which would be a reflection upon the wisdom of the Creator 
 
 — only increases a bad man's power of evil. I say that 
 though in the long run, perhaps after centuries of anarchy 
 and blood, mental cultivation given alone will result in moral 
 good, yet in the mean while, and for the present, the harvest 
 will be bitter fruit and ranker villany. " Knowledge puffeth 
 up, but charity buildeth up." Cultivated understanding has 
 no necessary connection with strengthened, much less puri- 
 fied Will, in which moral excellence lies, and in which alone. 
 Bacon was 
 
 The wisest, greatest, meanest of mankind. 
 
 I do not want a greater proof of the truth of this than in 
 what is going on, perhaps this moment, or, at all events, a 
 couple of hours ago, in the Institution. Practised disputants 
 and sharpened intellects, these workingmen have learned to 
 deride God and trample upon the simplest and first prin- 
 ciples of right and wrong. No, no, clear ideas do not ad- 
 vance the soul one step towards the power of doing what is 
 right. It is a great thing when we learn that to understand, 
 and appreciate, and even feel truth is not one atom of power 
 given to the will to be true. The discipline of habits and 
 
 * Channing expressly guards against this objectio-n in his essay " Oil 
 the Elevation of the Working Chisses." 
 
 VOL. I. 15 V
 
 338 . LORD BYRON. 
 
 acting does this, as old wise Aristotle long ago saw : we " be- 
 come good by doing good," not by moral treatises, for good- 
 ness is the habit of the will, not perceptions or aspirations. 
 
 It seems to me no reflection on the wisdom of the Creator, 
 that intellect cultivated alone will make the poor bad mem- 
 bers of society. Any quality cultivated alone must destroy 
 the harmony which the Creator intended, and produce a 
 monster, in which part has the proportions of a giant, part 
 the stunted withered limbs of a dwarf, — a hideous unnatural 
 whole. Look at a Nisi Prius lawyer, with clearest notions 
 of evidence, principles of law, &c. &c., and withal how much 
 of personal meanness and hatred, of pettifogging and profes- 
 sional lying ! 
 
 I am not quite sure what Byron means by the tenth 
 stanza. Probably he did not quite himself, for I should 
 scarcely suppose he would say, in genuine and contrite hum- 
 bleness, " that the thorns which he had reaped were of the 
 tree he planted." Perhaps it was truer than he meant, for 
 all that vapid, sated, weary feeling, which he describes, was 
 but the inevitable consequence linked to a life of excitement 
 and indulged passion. I fancy that awful description of 
 Tennyson's in " The Vision of Sin " would truly describe 
 his latter state, or, at all events, that state to which he was 
 on the highroad, had he lived long enough. The hideous 
 pleasantry of " Don Juan " is a tolerably near approach to 
 it, with a scepticism, more than incipient, of the goodness of 
 others, and of those feelings which had once seemed half- 
 divine, and strangely ended, like the fabulous mermaid beau- 
 tiful above, in debasement and animalism. Yet I sometimes 
 have thought " Don Juan" was a symptom of amelioration, 
 inasmuch as it was a symptom of reaction. All these feel- 
 ings, which he once reckoned romantic and sublime, had con- 
 ducted him, — where ? Consequently, those hideous sneers 
 at fine feeling bespeak the arrival of a moment in which he 
 could be no longer deceived by feelings, the end of which he
 
 GOD CANNOT BE FOUND BY THE UNDERSTANDING. 339 
 
 distinctly saw. Unhappy enougli to come to a state in which 
 one can sneer at feelings, purest, holiest, early feelino-s, but 
 better than that eternal delusion ! 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 September, 1850. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Not knowing your designation and ad- 
 dress, I must apologize if I have erred in the superscription 
 of any letter to you. 
 
 It gives me great pleasure to find that the little address 
 which has fallen into your hands has awakened any interest 
 or sympathy. 
 
 The passage you refer to (page 17), " To believe in God is 
 simply the most difficult thing in the world," is, I think, true. 
 By God, I mean God as He is ; not a first cause, nor a ma- 
 chinist. Creator Mundi, but One whose name is love imma- 
 nent in us, meaning good and not evil, and having a right to 
 our supreme adoration and reverence. I do not believe that 
 the understanding can discover Him. Paley's argument from 
 design is valuable for those who vaguely feel Him, in order to 
 give a stable solid ground for mere feeling to rest on, — valu- 
 able also in defence of religion, as showing that it has some- 
 thing to say for itself, and forcing the intellectualist to treat 
 it with courtesy ; but for proving God's existence, or demon- 
 strating to one well-informed infidel the falsity of his opinion, 
 I beheve it ever has been, and ever must be, powerless. For 
 instance, it does not even touch the arguments of a pantheist. 
 
 There may be a First Cause, intelligent, designing, &c., 
 and his name, if you like, may be God ; but so far I onl}'- 
 believe in him as I believe in electricity, gravitation, or any 
 other cause, which assuredly has a great deal to do with my 
 destiny. Believe, in the sense of trust, I do not. In morals 
 we only believe so far as we are. Eochefoucauld believed in 
 no principle of action beyond selfishness and vanity. How 
 could goodness, generosity, &c., be proved to him ? By what
 
 840 GOD CANNOT BE FOUND BY THE UNDER ST ANT)ING. 
 
 evidence ? There were the acts before him in history and 
 human life proving design. Rochefoucauld, being vain and 
 selfish, could not believe beyond, or make anything of such 
 proofs. In opposition to the hypothesis of an intelligent Cre- 
 ator, I confess that the hypothesis of the Epicurean, or the 
 Stoic, or the Pantheist, is at least able to make a long fight, 
 
 — far too long to infallibly secure victory in the limits of a 
 life of thought. I do not think that where such men as Lap- 
 lace, D'Alembert, Hume, Voltaire, have never seen any dem- 
 onstration, the understanding can be the real court of appeal. 
 Kay, I am ready to acknowledge that of the intellectual con- 
 ception of God as Creator, Cause, Immanent Life, Lord of 
 the World, &c., I am not prepared to assert or deny anything, 
 
 — I know nothing. jNIy understanding feels itself utterly 
 bewildered. I can affirm the contradictory, as well as the 
 assertion, of any of these theories : and if I were compelled 
 in intellectual gladiatorship to surrender them all, I should 
 not feel in the smallest degree dismayed. My God is not the 
 philosopher's god ; and in the most vigorous graspings of the 
 intellect, I am often conscious of most losing hold of the Lord 
 of Right and Love. 
 
 The evidence of goodness and wisdom in the external 
 world is very questionable, in some moods at least. I found 
 a caterpillar the other day w^rithing in anguish, and perfo- 
 rated by a dozen maggots, which had come from the eggs of 
 an ichneumon-fly. It penetrates the skin of the living ani- 
 mal, leaves its eggs, and the grubs eat the creature alive by 
 degrees. Is that goodness ? Wonderful contrivance, cer- 
 tainly ; but I should not accuse- the understanding of any one 
 who preferred to believe in the fate of the Stoics, necessitat- 
 ing this rather than an Omnipotent Will. I know that with 
 the doctrine of the Cross, and the glimpse which it gives us 
 into the grand law of the universe, — Sacrifice, conscious and 
 unconscious, for the life of others, — this does not startle ; 
 but I profess that I have never yet found the argument from
 
 MORXING, MDDAY, AXD EVEMXG. 341 
 
 the understanding, or a hint of it, which can make it pleasant 
 to believe in a God who has made such a provision as this. 
 
 Nor do I think that we get at the feeling through the un- 
 derstanding.* A slave is dependent on his tyrant master. 
 A child depends upon his parent from day to day. But you 
 may exhaust all your logic in proving to either that he must 
 depend, or ought to depend ; and at the end of all, you may 
 be very far indeed from making one step towards the produc- 
 tion of that " consciousness of dependence," which is implied 
 in the words, " I believe." You can demonstrate power, but 
 the master's right to enforce, the parent's love in requiring 
 obedience, — what arguments prove those when the will re- 
 bels ? I am not sure that in this brief addition to the sen- 
 tence of the address I have elucidated my meaning much ; if 
 not I should be very happy to reply to any difficulties you 
 may find in admitting my assertions. 
 
 ft 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 Till this visit to Mr. V , I never estimated the advan- 
 tages which the residence of streets opposite the sea have. 
 The exceeding beauty, freshness, and appearance of the sea 
 and the sky in the early mornings, so different from the com- 
 monplace look of midday, have struck me very much. Mid- 
 day is like mid-life, full of commonplace, of toil, and with 
 less of romance ; with most people at least. Morning and 
 evening correspond with youth and age, in both of which 
 there is a peculiar poetry. Yet to the eye that is open to see 
 it, the midday and middle life have a wonder and mystery 
 of their own ; that U, to those who will look at either hori- 
 zon, east or west, — for the sun is above, unseen then, and 
 only visible at the other periods, — which, I take it, is the rea- 
 son why the heavenly -wonder seems to have passed from that 
 period. " Heaven lies around^us in our infancy," and I sup- 
 
 * He adopts Coleridge's sense of the word " understanding."
 
 342 THE STOEMY SEA. 
 
 pose the mystery of the grave brings heaven again round her 
 decadence, just as the sun approaches the horizon again at 
 evening. There is something more than fancy in this, for 
 we are so constituted, that the analogy is felt by all of us. 
 Morning, spring, youth, — the feelings in them resemble each 
 other, and re-suggest each other ; so in autumn, evening, and 
 age. And I fancy, that to get the uncommonplace feeling in 
 the middle period, we must look up and remember that the 
 light which lights us, with such a glare on the world and 
 earth, is just as mysterious and sublime as when we saw all 
 its tender pulses quivering in the morning. 
 
 I never, I think, felt the freshness of the world, and the 
 truth that every morning is a new day, — an universe un- 
 broken and fresh for effort and discovery, — so much as two 
 mornings ago by the seaside. I do not mean that, even for a 
 moment, it gave a conception of a fresh career or burst in life 
 for me, but only that it gave me a conviction of a .fact. To- 
 day all is changed, but again I feel the advantage people here 
 have from seeing the innumerable moods in which the sea 
 presents itself. The wind is driving and moaning wildly, — 
 the sea all white on the beach, — dark and cleft into grand 
 chasms beyond, — and almost lost in not a dense but a semi- 
 transparent mist towards the horizon ; the carts and flys which 
 go past the dining-room window are seen, as I sit, low down, 
 as if they were on the brink of a precipice ; large gulls, with 
 their wild strange scream, heard every now and then, as they 
 go down perpendicularly to the surface of the wave that has 
 brought up their food, or floating about on the mist, colorless 
 like shadows, — 
 
 And I would that my tongue could utter 
 The thoughts that arise in me. 
 
 For at this moment my heart is in perfect unison with all 
 this scene. I look, and look, until I wis'h I had no wdll. Yet 
 the loss of will, with all the other faculties — memory, con- 
 science, fancy — remaining, is surely the very condition of
 
 THE SPECULATRTE AND THE PRACTICAL. 343 
 
 insanity ; for the will alone keeps them from discord. I am 
 not miserable, however. This soothes me. Am I justified, 
 however, in all this utterance of egotistic sentiment ? Feel- 
 ing w^hich ends in itself, and leads to nothing, ought to be 
 stifled. It is not romance. Romance is, — 
 
 Imagination : honorable aims, 
 Free commune with the choir that cannot die. 
 
 Romance may make a person make shipwreck in his voyage, 
 but it never makes him anchor, more especially in stagnant 
 water ; whereas sensitiveness, and feeling merely intense, do. 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 It is curious, when two minds come together, to find how 
 large a department of that which is the very sphere of the 
 activity and life of one, is a region unentered by, and abso- 
 lutely forbidding to, the other. I cannot conceive how or 
 
 why 's life is so lonely, for he enters into and likes all 
 
 subjects which other men like, understands business and the 
 world, and is perfectly secure from those dreadful rushings 
 of the spirit into unfathomable questions in which I have 
 found no bottom, and shuddered to find none. He is safe, 
 too, from that worst trial which comes from a disposition 
 that has in it — I use the word in a good sense — romance; 
 for how can such a mind be tortured, or how such a heart 
 disappointed? I perceive, 
 
 To each his sufferings : all are men. 
 
 That predominance of the meditative over the contriving 
 faculties inevitably exposes one to dislike, as it did Hamlet, 
 for now and then a certan tinge of seeming scorn is sure to 
 mingle with its reveries on men and women. It is not, how- 
 ever, any feeling of superiority, but rather pity, — not, I 
 beheve, insulting, though bitter. " Quintessence of dust," ap- 
 plied to humanity, is a mixture of regard and regret for 
 frailness. It is dust, but quintessence of it. So, too, " Frailty,
 
 344 THE SPECULATIVE AND THE PRACTICAL. 
 
 thy name is woman," — who does not feel that there is at 
 least as much tenderness and mourning in that, as bitterness ? 
 Is it not disappointed worship that still hangs fondly linger- 
 ing before the desecrated shrine ? However, as it is some- 
 what subtle to extract this, it is unwise to utter these amal- 
 gams of feeling aloud, for very few will pause to anal}^e 
 and perceive that two metals, one at least a precious one, 
 are fused together. 
 
 " Blessed are they that mourn." 
 
 asked what that means. Is it not a revelation of the 
 
 uses of adversity ? — and does not the whole teaching of 
 the Cross, in accordance with this, say that sorrow and pain 
 alone wake us up to reality, and that trial is a truer refiner 
 of character than pleasure ? Of course, this is not our first 
 impression; it needs a revelation to tell it, or at all events 
 to interpret our own experience. You have a proof of that 
 in a child's wonder at the expression, for how should a happy 
 careless child divine such a mystery ? 
 
 I will grieve not, rather find 
 
 Strength in what remains behind 
 
 In the soothing thoughts which spring 
 Out of human suffering. 
 
 I cannot tell her the meaning of those words of Christ. Life 
 alone can apply the meaning, or explain how true they are ; 
 for, indeed, they are only subjectively true, deriving their 
 truth, not from sorrow and pain in themselves, but from 
 the tempers on which they fall ; so that they are not true 
 always, — to some never true. Yet how deep they are, and 
 how such convictions alone can make this life intelligible or 
 tolerable ! 
 
 That is a blessed faith which feels that there cannot be 
 clouds and gloom forever, — which, evier resting in convic- 
 tion of what God is, hopes and knows that "joy cometh in 
 the morning." That cheerful undespairing temper marks 
 Shakespeare's thought throughout ; in conjunction wdth that 
 text, " Blessed are they that mourn," let it mark yours.
 
 ROMANCE OF EAELY LOVE. 345 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 I am persuaded there is more in reserved people than we 
 give them credit for ; they often conceal a deep and real feel- 
 ing under an imperturbable exterior 
 
 " The course of true love never did run smooth " ; but then 
 that means, I fancy, that it never shows itself to be true, — 
 never exhibits its strength, — until rough obstacles destroy 
 its smoothness. Many an attachment would have shown all 
 the impetuosity of a dammed-up stream had it been checked, 
 which, under existing circumstances, seems to flow monoto- 
 nously and uninterestingly enough. The St. Lawrence is 
 tame some miles above Niagara. No doubt the romance of 
 the affair you mention has suffered, but I doubt whether the 
 journey of life will be a bit less happy for that. There is 
 a great difference between travelling one hundred miles in 
 England and the same distance in South Africa, where 
 Gumming spanned and inspanned with considerable difficulty 
 every night and morning ; and the romance of the pathless 
 travel was immeasurably the greater, yet the douce gentle- 
 men who travel to London and back every day do not less 
 truly attain the end and object of travelling. Moreover, 
 marriages which had romance in their preparatory circum- 
 stances, do they really turn out better than others ? I recol- 
 lect being pained with this feeling when quite a young child, 
 on reading the sequel to the romantic adventures and final 
 union of Prince Camaralzaman and Princess Badoura, in 
 the " Arabian Nights." They were all-in-all to each other, 
 — their constancy tried for years ; and in after-life all went 
 wrong. It struck me, little as I then knew of life, as true 
 to life, and so did some of Crabbe's painful but nature-like 
 tales. It is well to feel how much of happiness is gained, 
 or how much of wretchedness is spared, by the absence of 
 those violent feelings which exhaust life, and leave the char- 
 15*
 
 346 ENGLISH COUNTRY SCENERY. 
 
 acter dishevelled, the features worn with a graver as deep 
 as that which sharp anguish cuts into the cheeks, — 
 Scathed by fiery passion's brant. 
 
 How many such countenances we see with the marks of 
 strong undisciplined feeling in them ! I saw a lady of fifty 
 to-day with cheeks as calm as if she were twenty; yet not 
 apathetic, but wise, full of self-control, affectionate, and be- 
 nign in manner. You felt that there was in store for her, — 
 
 An old age, serene and bright, 
 And calm as is a Lapland night. 
 
 I felt that self-rule and delivery from intense emotion and 
 violent acces are the necessary qualifications for growth of 
 character and the power of completing anything on this 
 earth. Everything must pay its price, and romance in the 
 feelings or circumstances of courtship often pays a very, 
 very heavy one. 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 They all came in from Lindfield yesterday. I went out 
 to fetch them, and spent some hours in the village of Lind- 
 field itself, where I strongly felt the beauty and power of 
 English country scenery and life to calm, if not to purify, 
 the hearts of those whose lives are habitually subjected to such 
 influences. Not that human nature is better there, but life 
 is more natural, and real nature I hold to be the great law 
 of our life, both physical and religious. Physical does, in 
 fact, by derivation, mean natural, — physics being the study 
 of nature. I am sure that religion is the recall to real in- 
 stead of perverted nature, just as the medicinal art is the 
 recall to natural health of body. There are false systems 
 in both, as well as true, being marked in each case by the 
 artificial and unnatural mode of dealing with the diseased 
 part. You would give Allopathy as an instance of this, and 
 I should give what St. Paul calls " bodily exercise," — lit-
 
 WORDSWORTH'S "PRELUDE." 347 
 
 erally, asceticism. "Whereas Christ invariably appeals to 
 unsophisticated nature, says " Sin no more," just as if we 
 should say, " You have eaten too much and drunk too much, 
 poor man ; well, eat less and drink less," there is no magic 
 besides that which will cure you, no doses of humbug, copious 
 or infinitesimal. 
 
 I have begun to read "Wordsworth's " Retrospect " * again, 
 and have persevered, in spite of the dulness, which at first 
 deterred me ; I rejoice extremely that I did. I find it deeply 
 interesting, now that I have got a clew to his object, which is 
 to show how influences are provided for us, if we will once 
 surrender ourselves to them, partly passively, partly actively, 
 instead of inventing artificial discipline ; and that those in- 
 fluences, being God's, are the best, — slow, sure, and purify- 
 ing. It is a history of his own life, and, being a reflection of 
 it, is apparently monotonous, having no shocks or striking in- 
 cidents ; but his intention is to show how, just from this very 
 monotony, a character of purity and strength was built up. 
 Some passages are excessively beautiful, the diction always 
 pure and clear, like an atmosphere of crystal pellucidness, 
 through which you see all objects without being diverted 
 aside to consider the medium through which they are seen. 
 "When you do pause to think of this, you remark, " "What a 
 clear atmosphere ! what pure water ! or, what transparent 
 crystal ! " but at first you remark only the object. This, too, 
 I observed of Stanley's " Life of Arnold." Every one spoke 
 of Arnold, no one stopped to observe how well Stanley had 
 done it ; Stanley had merged himself and become transpar- 
 ent. Lord Lansdowne was the first whom I ever heard re- 
 mark upon the biographer, though I had been on the watch 
 long to see if any one would. 
 
 For myself, never have I felt a more fixed and settled de- 
 pression. The thought of fixture here, except under the al- 
 ternative of great pecuniary sacrifice, has been overwhelming 
 
 * " The Prelude,"
 
 348 WORDSWORTH'S "PRELUDE." 
 
 at some moments, and at others, a dead, heavy weight : to be 
 forever, en evidence, especially for one so unfitted as I am for 
 it by tastes and predilections ; yet now that the die is cast, I 
 will not shrink nor cast a look behind, but endeavor to be 
 equal to the hour, and do my duty. 
 
 The day is gloomy, oppressive in the house, — what it is 
 outside, I do not know. Thought has flowed sluggishly, like 
 a thin green stream, in a dead level, without health, and with- 
 out clearness ; zest and interest are wanting, but I put down 
 a part of this to the weather, though it is only a continuation 
 of what has been unaltered indifference to almost all things. 
 I am struggling against it as yet with poor success, but I hold 
 it a duty, — a real and paramount duty, — and I will not 
 tamely yield. I know how powerless a motive "our own 
 sake " is to make us work with interest. It is like taking a 
 constitutional with the painful consciousness in every move- 
 ment that it is for the sake of health, instead of health com- 
 ing while we are seeking, not health, but an object. Such I 
 find the use of shooting, riding, &c., and such must be the 
 way of getting good from interest in others. You cannot 
 wake up in them an interest by feeling it will do good to your- 
 self ; the interest must have no reflex motive, or else it will 
 do no good. Hence the uselessness of preaching to do right, 
 to be charitable, &c., &c., because it will make you happy now 
 and hereafter. No doubt it will, but you cannot be charita- 
 ble because it will. Hence, too, the folly of the system which 
 resolves all our actions into a refined selfishness. So far as 
 you try to be good, in order to be personally happy, you miss 
 happiness, — a great and beautiful law of our being. Heav- 
 enly happiness is the result of our own energy, and cannot be 
 poured upon the soul, and is almost entirely independent of 
 circumstances, — made by us, not for us. 
 
 I am ashamed of the hasty way in which I dismissed 
 Wordsworth's " Prelude." It is a noble work, one that has 
 made my eyes fill again and again, not by its pathos, but by
 
 WHAT IS LIFE? 349 
 
 its lofty tone and translucent purity : a severe work, worthy 
 of patriarchal times, when men went out into the fields to 
 meditate at eventide, and disciplined their spirits by the pure 
 influences of rock, hill, stream, forest, twilight, and darkness, 
 and that too, as in Isaac's case, on the eve of marriage. 
 
 Do not fear with regard to ; all will be well. Affec- 
 
 tionateness, maidenly self-possession, and a quiet spirit are 
 more likely to bud into a beautiful character hereafter than 
 that impetuosity of sentiment which too often makes life the 
 prey of wild and self-destructive passions. Principle is a 
 higher thing than feeling, and will stand life's terrible test far 
 better. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 November 12. 
 I confess the awful mystery of life, and the perplexity 
 which hangs around the question, — what it is, and what it 
 all means. Nevertheless, I am persuaded, — as persuaded 
 as of anything I can be in this world, — that the meaning is 
 good and not evil, — good, I trust, to the individual as well 
 as to the whole. There is a wondrous alchemy in time and 
 the power of God to transmute our faults, errors, sorrows, — 
 nay, our sins themselves, — into golden blessings ; a truth 
 which always appears to me prominent in the history of the 
 Fall. The curses on man and woman, toil, &c., are all, in 
 the process of time, changed into benedictions ; the woman's 
 lot itself, of subjugation and pain, becoming the very channel 
 of her best powers of character, the condition of her devo- 
 tion and her meekness. It is only the tempting devil-snake, 
 in whose curse there is no element of alteration : only appar- 
 ently a degradation, a slighter doom, no pain, — better for 
 him had it been so, for anguish might have slowly worked 
 out change, — but to crawl, and creep, and eat the dust of 
 lower Being forever. A truth for which my whole spirit 
 blesses and adores the Ever Just. " Blessed are they that 
 mourn, for they shall be comforted." asked the mean-
 
 850 ON SUFFEEING. 
 
 ing of this ; surely it is plain ? The tears which destroy the 
 beauty of the outward man, channel his cheeks, cut his fea- 
 tures with the sharp graver of anguish, are doing a glorious 
 work on the spirit within, which is becoming fresh with all 
 young and living feelings. 
 
 I have just returned from the committee relating to the 
 " Protestant and Anti-Popery," &c., &c., meeting on Thurs- 
 day, into which I was hooked. They asked me to speak on 
 that day. I refused ; on which the vicar begged for a show of 
 hands, and they were raised, and the thing carried by clerical 
 acclamation. Only conceive that! Of course I have still 
 my option. 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 To-day I had a long and strange interview with a lady who 
 
 has recently become a member of the congregation She 
 
 asked me if I had ever known a case of trial so severe as 
 hers. " Yes," 1 replied, " numbers ; it is the case of all. 
 Suffering is very common, so is disappointment." — " Are our 
 affections to be all withered ? " — " Very often, I believe." — 
 " Then why were they given me ? " — "I am sure I cannot 
 tell you that, but I suppose it would not have been very good 
 for you to have had it all your own way." — " Then do you 
 think I am better for this blighting succession of griefs?" 
 — " I do not know, but I know you ought to be." • Words- 
 worth was lying open on the table, and I pointed to her these 
 lines : — 
 
 Then was the truth received into my heart, 
 That under heaviest sorrow earth can bring, 
 If from the affliction somewhere do not grow 
 Honor, which could not else have been a faith, 
 An elevation and a sanctity ; 
 If new strength be not given nor old restored, 
 The blame is ours, not nature's. 
 
 The deep undertone of this world is sadness, — a solemn
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S "MACBETH." 351 
 
 bass occurring at measured intervals, and heard through all 
 other tones. Ultimately, all the strains of this world's music 
 resolve themselves into that tone ; and I believe that, rightly 
 felt, the Cross, and the Cross alone, interprets the mournful 
 mystery of life, — the sorrow of the Highest, the Lord of 
 Life; the result of error and sin, but ultimately remedial, 
 purifying, and exalting. 
 
 LXXXVIL 
 
 I read, or rather studied, " Macbeth " through last night, 
 sitting up very late, and never felt half its beauty — beauty 
 as distinct from power — before. 
 
 Macready is now giving his farewell appearances, and 
 " Macbeth " is for to-night. I was strangely tempted to go. 
 Macready nobly tried to purge the stage from all its evils, 
 and Shakespeare is free from the strong objections I have to 
 any acting which merely exhibits dangerous feeling in its 
 might. A friend had taken places and I had resolved not, — 
 nevertheless, I felt the temptation strong last night. The 
 murder-scene became so vivid that I actually felt a sensation 
 of creeping awe as I went up the stairs of the silent house, 
 and in very shame was obliged to walk down again through 
 the dark passages, to convince myself that I was not a child 
 haunted with unreal terrors. I felt the tears actually start 
 in reading that noble scene in which Macduff's fidelity to 
 honor and goodness is tested by Malcolm. Macduff's burst 
 of disappointment, on discovering that the prince, to whom, 
 all his heart's homage had been given, is, as he supposes, 
 unworthy of it, touched me until my heart seemed too large. 
 Those fine lines (Act IV. Scene 3) : 
 
 Fit to govern ! No, not to live ; 
 
 and then, when Macduff has the man he hates with noble 
 hatred at last " within sword's reach," I could have almost 
 shouted. I felt as if to have a firm grip of a sword in a vil-
 
 352 SHAKESPEARE'S "MACBETH." 
 
 Iain's heart were the intensest rapture this earth has to give, 
 — the only thing which such as Macduff had worth living 
 for. Places were taken for two nights, — " Othello " and 
 " Macbeth," — but I could not trust myself to either. 
 
 I have been trying lately to regulate my outward life 
 somewhat more satisfactorily than usual, — my papers, my 
 study, my hours, in order that the inward life may have a 
 faint chance of growing into form. The outward is at least 
 within our power, — whetlier the inward is I do not know ; 
 but the one acts upon the other, and it is a duty, at least, to 
 do all that can be done. That all but omniscient Shake- 
 speare says, in reply to Macbeth's 
 
 " Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 
 Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
 Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 
 And with some sweet oblivious antidote 
 Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff 
 
 Which weighs upon the heart ? 
 
 Therein the patient 
 IMust minister to himself." 
 
 Then Macbeth says : — 
 
 " Come, put mine armor on, give me my staff," &c. 
 
 wisely resolving upon present acting. 
 
 END OF VOLU^IE L 
 
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