{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_2575/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_2575","id":"gutenberg_2575","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2575","summary":null,"tags":["Bible -- Inspiration","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1892 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n                       CASSELL\u2019S NATIONAL LIBRARY.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n\n                               CONFESSIONS\n                                  OF AN\n                            INQUIRING SPIRIT.\n\n\n                            TO WHICH ARE ADDED\n                           MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS\n                          _FROM_ \u201c_THE FRIEND_.\u201d\n\n                                    BY\n                         SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.\n\n                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]\n\n                       CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:\n                      _LONDON_, _PARIS & MELBOURNE_.\n                                  1892.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\nSAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE was born on the 21st of October, 1772, youngest\nof many children of the Rev. John Coleridge, Vicar of the Parish and Head\nMaster of the Grammar School of Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire.  One of\nthe poet\u2019s elder brothers was the grandfather of Lord Chief Justice\nColeridge.  Coleridge\u2019s mother was a notable housewife, as was needful in\nthe mother of ten children, who had three more transmitted to her from\nher husband\u2019s former wife.  Coleridge\u2019s father was a kindly and learned\nman, little sophisticated, and distinguishing himself now and then by\ncomical acts of what is called absence of mind.  Charles Buller,\nafterwards a judge, was one of his boys, and, when her husband\u2019s life\nseemed to be failing, had promised what help he could give to the anxious\nwife.  When his father died, Samuel Taylor Coleridge was but eight years\nold, and Charles Buller obtained for him his presentation to Christ\u2019s\nHospital.  Coleridge\u2019s mind delighted in far wandering over the fields of\nthought; from a boy he took intense delight in dreamy speculation on the\nmysteries that lie around the life of man.  From a boy also he proved his\nsubtleties of thought through what Charles Lamb called the \u201cdeep and\nsweet intonations\u201d of such speech as could come only from a poet.\n\nFrom the Charterhouse, Coleridge went to Jesus College, Cambridge, where\nhe soon won a gold medal for a Greek ode on the Slave Trade, but through\nindolence he slipped into a hundred pounds of debt.  The stir of the\nFrench Revolution was then quickening young minds into bold freedom of\nspeculation, resentment against tyranny of custom, and yearning for a\nhigher life in this world.  Old opinions that familiarity had made to the\nmultitude conventional were for that reason distrusted and discarded.\nColeridge no longer held his religious faith in the form taught by his\nfather.  He could not sign the Thirty-nine Articles, and felt his career\nclosed at the University.  His debt also pressed upon him heavily.  After\na long vacation with a burdened mind, in which one pleasant day of picnic\ngave occasion to his \u201cSongs of the Pixies,\u201d Coleridge went back to\nCambridge.  But soon afterwards he threw all up in despair.  He resolved\nto become lost to his friends, and find some place where he could earn in\nobscurity bare daily bread.  He came to London, and then enlisted as a\nprivate in the 15th Light Dragoons.  After four months he was discovered,\nhis discharge was obtained, and he went back to Cambridge.\n\nBut he had no career before him there, for his religious opinions then\nexcluded belief in the doctrine of the Trinity, and the Universities were\nnot then open to Dissenters.  A visit to Oxford brought him into relation\nwith Robert Southey and fellow-students of Southey\u2019s who were also\ntouched with revolutionary ardour.  Coleridge joined with them in the\nresolve to leave the Old World and create a better in the New, as\nfounders of a Pantisocracy\u2014an all-equal government\u2014on the banks of the\nSusquehannah.  They would need wives, and Southey knew of three good\nliberal-minded sisters at Bristol, one of them designed for himself; her\ntwo sisters he recommended for as far as they would go.  The chief\npromoters of the Pantisocracy removed to Bristol, and one of the three\nsisters, Sarah Fricker, was married by Coleridge; Southey marrying\nanother, Edith; while another young Oxford enthusiast married the\nremaining Miss Fricker; and so they made three pairs of future patriarchs\nand matriarchs.\n\nNothing came of the Pantisocracy, for want of money to pay fares to the\nNew World.  Coleridge supported himself by giving lectures, and in 1797\npublished Poems.  They included his \u201cReligious Musings,\u201d which contain\nexpression of his fervent revolutionary hopes.  Then he planned a weekly\npaper, the _Watchman_, that was to carry the lantern of philosophic\ntruth, and call the hour for those who cared about the duties of the day.\nWhen only three or four hundred subscribers had been got together in\nBristol, Coleridge resolved to travel from town to town in search of\nsubscriptions.  Wherever he went his eloquence prevailed; and he came\nback with a very large subscription list.  But the power of close daily\nwork, by which alone Coleridge could carry out such a design, was not in\nhim, and the _Watchman_ only reached to its tenth number.\n\nThen Coleridge settled at Nether Stowey, by the Bristol Channel, partly\nfor convenience of neighbourhood to Thomas Poole, from whom he could\nborrow at need.  He had there also a yearly allowance from the Wedgwoods\nof Etruria, who had a strong faith in his future.  From Nether Stowey,\nColeridge walked over to make friends with Wordsworth at Racedown, and\nthe friendship there established caused Wordsworth and his sister to\nremove to the neighbourhood of Nether Stowey.  Out of the relations with\nWordsworth thus established came Coleridge\u2019s best achievements as a poet,\nthe \u201cAncient Mariner\u201d and \u201cChristabel.\u201d  The \u201cAncient Mariner\u201d was\nfinished, and was the chief part of Coleridge\u2019s contribution to the\n\u201cLyrical Ballads,\u201d which the two friends published in 1798.\n\u201cChristabel,\u201d being unfinished, was left unpublished until 1816.\n\nWith help from the Wedgwoods, Coleridge went abroad with Wordsworth and\nhis sister, left them at Hamburg, and during fourteen months increased\nhis familiarity with German.  He came back in the late summer of 1799,\nfull of enthusiasm for Schiller\u2019s last great work, his _Wallenstein_,\nwhich Coleridge had seen acted.  The _Camp_ had been first acted at\nWeimar on the 18th of October, 1798; the _Piccolomini_ on the 30th of\nJanuary, 1799; and _Wallenstein\u2019s Death_ on the 10th of the next\nfollowing April.  Coleridge, under the influence of fresh enthusiasm,\nrapidly completed for Messrs. Longman his translation of _Wallenstein\u2019s\nDeath_ into an English poem of the highest mark.\n\nThen followed a weakening of health.  Coleridge earned fitfully as\njournalist; settled at Keswick; found his tendency to rheumatism\nincreased by the damp of the Lake Country; took a remedy containing\nopium, and began to acquire that taste for the excitement of opium which\nruined the next years of his life.  He was invited to Malta, for the\nbenefit of the climate, by his friend, John Stoddart, who was there.  At\nMalta he made the acquaintance of the governor, Sir Alexander Ball, whose\nworth he celebrates in essays of the _Friend_, which are included under\nthe title of \u201cA Sailor\u2019s Fortune\u201d in this little volume.  For a short\ntime he acted as secretary to Sir Alexander, then returned to the Lakes\nand planned his journal, the _Friend_, published at Penrith, of which the\nfirst number appeared on the 1st of August, 1809, the twenty-eighth and\nlast towards the end of March, 1810.\n\nNext followed six years of struggle to live as journalist and lecturer in\nLondon and elsewhere, while the habit of taking opium grew year by year,\nand at last advanced from two quarts of laudanum a week to a pint a day.\nColeridge put himself under voluntary restraint for a time with a Mr.\nMorgan at Calne.  Finally he placed himself, in April, 1816\u2014the year of\nthe publication of \u201cChristabel\u201d\u2014with a surgeon at Highgate, Mr. Gillman,\nunder whose friendly care he was restored to himself, and in whose house\nhe died on the 25th of July, 1834.  It was during this calm autumn of his\nlife that Coleridge, turning wholly to the higher speculations on\nphilosophy and religion upon which his mind was chiefly fixed, a revert\nto the Church, and often actively antagonist to the opinions he had held\nfor a few years, wrote, his \u201cLay Sermons,\u201d and his \u201cBiographia\nLiteraria,\u201d and arranged also a volume of Essays of the _Friend_.  He\nlectured on Shakespeare, wrote \u201cAids to Reflection,\u201d and showed how his\ndoubts were set at rest in these \u201cConfessions of an Inquiring Spirit,\u201d\nwhich were first published in 1840, after their writer\u2019s death.\n\n                                                                     H. M.\n\n\n\n\nCONFESSIONS OF AN INQUIRING SPIRIT.\n\n\n             _LETTERS ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES_.\n\n\n\nLETTER I.\n\n\nMY DEAR FRIEND,\n\nI EMPLOYED the compelled and most unwelcome leisure of severe\nindisposition in reading _The Confessions of a Fair Saint_ in Mr.\nCarlyle\u2019s recent translation of the _Wilhelm Meister_, which might, I\nthink, have been better rendered literally _The Confessions of a\nBeautiful Soul_.  This, acting in conjunction with the concluding\nsentences of your letter, threw my thoughts inward on my own religious\nexperience, and gave immediate occasion to the following Confessions of\none who is neither fair nor saintly, but who, groaning under a deep sense\nof infirmity and manifold imperfection, feels the want, the necessity, of\nreligious support; who cannot afford to lose any the smallest buttress,\nbut who not only loves Truth even for itself, and when it reveals itself\naloof from all interest, but who loves it with an indescribable awe,\nwhich too often withdraws the genial sap of his activity from the\ncolumnar trunk, the sheltering leaves, the bright and fragrant flower,\nand the foodful or medicinal fruitage, to the deep root, ramifying in\nobscurity and labyrinthine way-winning\u2014\n\n    In darkness there to house unknown,\n    Far underground,\n    Pierced by no sound\n    Save such as live in Fancy\u2019s ear alone,\n    That listens for the uptorn mandrake\u2019s parting groan!\n\nI should, perhaps, be a happier\u2014at all events a more useful\u2014man if my\nmind were otherwise constituted.  But so it is, and even with regard to\nChristianity itself, like certain plants, I creep towards the light, even\nthough it draw me away from the more nourishing warmth.  Yea, I should do\nso, even if the light had made its way through a rent in the wall of the\nTemple.  Glad, indeed, and grateful am I, that not in the Temple itself,\nbut only in one or two of the side chapels, not essential to the edifice,\nand probably not co\u00ebval with it, have I found the light absent, and that\nthe rent in the wall has but admitted the free light of the Temple\nitself.\n\nI shall best communicate the state of my faith by taking the creed, or\nsystem of _credenda_, common to all the Fathers of the\nReformation\u2014overlooking, as non-essential, the differences between the\nseveral Reformed Churches, according to the five main classes or sections\ninto which the aggregate distributes itself to my apprehension.  I have\nthen only to state the effect produced on my mind by each of these, or\nthe _quantum_ of recipiency and coincidence in myself relatively thereto,\nin order to complete my Confession of Faith.\n\nI.  The Absolute; the innominable \u0391\u1f51\u03c4\u03bf\u03c0\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03c1 et _Causa Sui_, in whose\ntranscendent I AM, as the Ground, _is_ whatever _verily_ is:\u2014the Triune\nGod, by whose Word and Spirit, as the transcendent Cause, _exists_\nwhatever _substantially_ exists:\u2014God Almighty\u2014Father, Son, and Holy\nGhost, undivided, unconfounded, co-eternal.  This class I designate by\nthe word \u03a3\u03c4\u03ac\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2.\n\nII.  The Eternal Possibilities; the actuality of which hath not its\norigin in God: _Chaos spirituale_:\u2014\u2019\u0391\u03c0\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2.\n\nIII.  The Creation and Formation of the heaven and earth by the\nRedemptive Word:\u2014the Apostasy of Man:\u2014the Redemption of Man:\u2014the\nIncarnation of the Word in the Son of Man:\u2014the Crucifixion and\nResurrection of the Son of Man:\u2014the Descent of the Comforter:\u2014Repentance\n(\u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03ac\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1):\u2014Regeneration:\u2014Faith:\u2014Prayer:\u2014Grace\u2014Communion with the\nSpirit:\u2014Conflict:\u2014Self-abasement:\u2014Assurance through the righteousness of\nChrist:\u2014Spiritual Growth:\u2014Love:\u2014Discipline:\u2014Perseverance:\u2014Hope in\ndeath:\u2014\u039c\u03b5\u03c4\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2\u2014\u2019\u0391\u03bd\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2.\n\nIV.  But these offers, gifts, and graces are not for one, or for a few.\nThey are offered to all.  Even when the Gospel is preached to a single\nindividual it is offered to him as to one of a great household.  Not only\nman, but, says St. Paul, the whole creation is included in the\nconsequences of the Fall\u2014\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2\u2014so also in those of the change at\nthe Redemption\u2014\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2.  We too shall be\nraised _in the Body_.  Christianity is fact no less than truth.  It is\nspiritual, yet so as to be historical; and between these two poles there\nmust likewise be a midpoint, in which the historical and spiritual meet.\nChristianity must have its history\u2014a history of itself and likewise the\nhistory of its introduction, its spread, and its outward-becoming; and,\nas the midpoint abovementioned, a portion of these facts must be\nmiraculous, that is, phenomena in nature that are beyond nature.\nFurthermore, the history of all historical nations must in some sense be\nits history\u2014in other words, all history must be providential, and this a\nprovidence, a preparation, and a looking forward to Christ.\n\nHere, then, we have four out of the five classes.  And in all these the\nsky of my belief is serene, unclouded by a doubt.  Would to God that my\nfaith, that faith which works on the whole man, confirming and\nconforming, were but in just proportion to my belief, to the full\nacquiescence of my intellect, and the deep consent of my conscience!  The\nvery difficulties argue the truth of the whole scheme and system for my\nunderstanding, since I see plainly that so must the truth appear, if it\nbe the truth.\n\nV.  But there is a Book of two parts, each part consisting of several\nbooks.  The first part (I speak in the character of an uninterested\ncritic or philologist) contains the relics of the literature of the\nHebrew people, while the Hebrew was still the living language.  The\nsecond part comprises the writings, and, with one or two inconsiderable\nand doubtful exceptions, all the writings of the followers of Christ\nwithin the space of ninety years from the date of the Resurrection.  I do\nnot myself think that any of these writings were composed as late as A.D.\n120; but I wish to preclude all dispute.  This Book I resume as read, and\nyet unread\u2014read and familiar to my mind in all parts, but which is yet to\nbe perused as a whole, or rather a work, _cujus particulas et\nsententiolas omnes et singulas recogniturus sum_, but the component\nintegers of which, and their conspiration, I have yet to study.  I take\nup this work with the purpose to read it for the first time as I should\nread any other work, as far at least as I can or dare.  For I neither\ncan, nor dare, throw off a strong and awful prepossession in its\nfavour\u2014certain as I am that a large part of the light and life, in and by\nwhich I see, love, and embrace the truths and the strengths co-organised\ninto a living body of faith and knowledge in the four preceding classes,\nhas been directly or indirectly derived to me from this sacred volume\u2014and\nunable to determine what I do not owe to its influences.  But even on\nthis account, and because it has these inalienable claims on my reverence\nand gratitude, I will not leave it in the power of unbelievers to say\nthat the Bible is for me only what the Koran is for the deaf Turk, and\nthe Vedas for the feeble and acquiescent Hindoo.  No; I will retire _up\ninto the mountain_, and hold secret commune with my Bible above the\ncontagious blastments of prejudice, and the fog-blight of selfish\nsuperstition.  _For fear hath torment_.  And what though _my_ reason be\nto the power and splendour of the Scriptures but as the reflected and\nsecondary shine of the moon compared with the solar radiance; yet the sun\nendures the occasional co-presence of the unsteady orb, and leaving it\nvisible seems to sanction the comparison.  There is a Light higher than\nall, even _the Word that was in the beginning_; the Light, of which light\nitself is but the _shechinah_ and cloudy tabernacle; the Word that is\nLight for every man, and life for as many as give heed to it.  If between\nthis Word and the written letter I shall anywhere seem to myself to find\na discrepance, I will not conclude that such there actually is, nor on\nthe other hand will I fall under the condemnation of them that would _lie\nfor God_, but seek as I may, be thankful for what I have\u2014and wait.\n\nWith such purposes, with such feelings, have I perused the books of the\nOld and New Testaments, each book as a whole, and also as an integral\npart.  And need I say that I have met everywhere more or less copious\nsources of truth, and power, and purifying impulses, that I have found\nwords for my inmost thoughts, songs for my joy, utterances for my hidden\ngriefs, and pleadings for my shame and my feebleness?  In short, whatever\n_finds_ me, bears witness for itself that it has proceeded from a Holy\nSpirit, even from the same Spirit, _which remaining in itself_, _yet\nregenerateth all other powers_, _and in all ages entering into holy\nsouls_, _maketh them friends of God_, _and prophets_.  (Wisd. vii.)  And\nhere, perhaps, I might have been content to rest, if I had not learned\nthat, as a Christian, I cannot, must not, stand alone; or if I had not\nknown that more than this was holden and required by the Fathers of the\nReformation, and by the Churches collectively, since the Council of Nice\nat latest, the only exceptions being that doubtful one of the corrupt\nRomish Church implied, though not avowed, in its equalisation of the\nApocryphal Books with those of the Hebrew Canon, and the irrelevant one\nof the few and obscure sects who acknowledge no historical Christianity.\nThis somewhat more, in which Jerome, Augustine, Luther, and Hooker were\nof one and the same judgment, and less than which not one of them would\nhave tolerated\u2014would it fall within the scope of my present doubts and\nobjections?  I hope it would not.  Let only their general expressions be\ninterpreted by their treatment of the Scriptures in detail, and I dare\nconfidently trust that it would not.  For I can no more reconcile the\ndoctrine which startles my belief with the practice and particular\ndeclarations of these great men, than with the convictions of my own\nunderstanding and conscience.  At all events\u2014and I cannot too early or\ntoo earnestly guard against any misapprehension of my meaning and\npurpose\u2014let it be distinctly understood that my arguments and objections\napply exclusively to the following doctrine or dogma.  To the opinions\nwhich individual divines have advanced in lieu of this doctrine, my only\nobjection, as far as I object, is\u2014that I do not understand them.  The\nprecise enunciation of this doctrine I defer to the commencement of the\nnext Letter.\n\n                                                                 Farewell.\n\n\n\nLETTER II.\n\n\nMY DEAR FRIEND,\n\nIN my last Letter I said that in the Bible there is more that _finds_ me\nthan I have experienced in all other books put together; that the words\nof the Bible find me at greater depths of my being; and that whatever\nfinds me brings with it an irresistible evidence of its having proceeded\nfrom the Holy Spirit.  But the doctrine in question requires me to\nbelieve that not only what finds me, but that all that exists in the\nsacred volume, and which I am bound to find therein, was\u2014not alone\ninspired by, that is composed by, men under the actuating influence of\nthe Holy Spirit, but likewise\u2014dictated by an Infallible Intelligence;\nthat the writers, each and all, were divinely informed as well as\ninspired.  Now here all evasion, all excuse, is cut off.  An infallible\nintelligence extends to all things, physical no less than spiritual.  It\nmay convey the truth in any one of the three possible languages\u2014that of\nsense, as objects appear to the beholder on this earth; or that of\nscience, which supposes the beholder placed in the centre; or that of\nphilosophy, which resolves both into a supersensual reality.  But\nwhichever be chosen\u2014and it is obvious that the incompatibility exists\nonly between the first and second, both of them being indifferent and of\nequal value to the third\u2014it must be employed consistently; for an\ninfallible intelligence must intend to be intelligible, and not to\ndeceive.  And, moreover, whichever of these three languages be chosen, it\nmust be translatable into truth.  For this is the very essence of the\ndoctrine, that one and the same intelligence is speaking in the unity of\na person; which unity is no more broken by the diversity of the pipes\nthrough which it makes itself audible, than is a tune by the different\ninstruments on which it is played by a consummate musician, equally\nperfect in all.  One instrument may be more capacious than another, but\nas far as its compass extends, and in what it sounds forth, it will be\ntrue to the conception of the master.  I can conceive no softening here\nwhich would not nullify the doctrine, and convert it to a cloud for each\nman\u2019s fancy to shift and shape at will.  And this doctrine, I confess,\nplants the vineyard of the Word with thorns for me, and places snares in\nits pathways.  These may be delusions of an evil spirit; but ere I so\nharshly question the seeming angel of light\u2014my reason, I mean, and moral\nsense in conjunction with my clearest knowledge\u2014I must inquire on what\nauthority this doctrine rests.  And what other authority dares a truly\ncatholic Christian admit as coercive in the final decision, but the\ndeclarations of the Book itself\u2014though I should not, without struggles,\nand a trembling reluctance, gainsay even a universal tradition?\n\nI return to the Book.  With a full persuasion of soul respecting all the\narticles of the Christian Faith, as contained in the first four classes,\nI receive willingly also the truth of the history, namely, that the Word\nof the Lord did come to Samuel, to Isaiah, to others; and that the words\nwhich gave utterance to the same are faithfully recorded.  But though the\norigin of the words, even as of the miraculous acts, be supernatural, yet\nthe former once uttered, the latter once having taken their place among\nthe phenomena of the senses, the faithful recording of the same does not\nof itself imply, or seem to require, any supernatural working, other than\nas all truth and goodness are such.  In the books of Moses, and once or\ntwice in the prophecy of Jeremiah, I find it indeed asserted that not\nonly the words were given, but the recording of the same enjoined by the\nspecial command of God, and doubtless executed under the special guidance\nof the Divine Spirit.  As to all such passages, therefore, there can be\nno dispute; and all others in which the words are by the sacred historian\ndeclared to have been the Word of the Lord supernaturally communicated, I\nreceive as such with a degree of confidence proportioned to the\nconfidence required of me by the writer himself, and to the claims he\nhimself makes on my belief.\n\nLet us, therefore, remove all such passages, and take each book by\nitself; and I repeat that I believe the writer in whatever he himself\nrelates of his own authority, and of its origin.  But I cannot find any\nsuch claim, as the doctrine in question supposes, made by these writers,\nexplicitly or by implication.  On the contrary, they refer to other\ndocuments, and in all points express themselves as sober-minded and\nveracious writers under ordinary circumstances are known to do.  But\nperhaps they bear testimony, the successor to his predecessor?  Or some\none of the number has left it on record, that by special inspiration _he_\nwas commanded to declare the plenary inspiration of all the rest?  The\npassages which can without violence be appealed to as substantiating the\nlatter position are so few, and these so incidental\u2014the conclusion drawn\nfrom them involving likewise so obviously a _petitio principii_, namely,\nthe supernatural dictation, word by word, of the book in which the\nquestion is found (for, until this is established, the utmost that such a\ntext can prove is the current belief of the writer\u2019s age and country\nconcerning the character of the books then called the Scriptures)\u2014that it\ncannot but seem strange, and assuredly is against all analogy of Gospel\nrevelation, that such a doctrine\u2014which, if true, must be an article of\nfaith, and a most important, yea, essential article of faith\u2014should be\nleft thus faintly, thus obscurely, and, if I may so say, _obitaneously_,\ndeclared and enjoined.  The time of the formation and closing of the\nCanon unknown;\u2014the selectors and compilers unknown, or recorded by known\nfabulists;\u2014and (more perplexing still) the belief of the Jewish\nChurch\u2014the belief, I mean, common to the Jews of Palestine and their more\ncultivated brethren in Alexandria (no reprehension of which is to be\nfound in the New Testament)\u2014concerning the nature and import of the\n\u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03af\u03b1 attributed to the precious remains of their Temple\nLibrary;\u2014these circumstances are such, especially the last, as in effect\nto evacuate the tenet, of which I am speaking, of the only meaning in\nwhich it practically means anything at all tangible, steadfast, or\nobligatory.  In infallibility there are no degrees.  The power of the\nHigh and Holy One is one and the same, whether the sphere which it fills\nbe larger or smaller;\u2014the area traversed by a comet, or the oracle of the\nhouse, the holy place beneath the wings of the cherubim;\u2014the Pentateuch\nof the Legislator, who drew near to the thick darkness where God was, and\nwho spake in the cloud whence the thunderings and lightnings came, and\nwhom God answered by a voice; or but a letter of thirteen verses from the\naffectionate _Elder to the elect lady and her children_, _whom he loved\nin the truth_.  But at no period was this the judgment of the Jewish\nChurch respecting all the canonical books.  To Moses alone\u2014to Moses in\nthe recording no less than in the receiving of the Law\u2014and to all and\nevery part of the five books called the Books of Moses, the Jewish\ndoctors of the generation before, and co\u00ebval with, the apostles, assigned\nthat unmodified and absolute _theopneusty_ which our divines, in words at\nleast, attribute to the Canon collectively.  In fact it was from the\nJewish Rabbis\u2014who, in opposition to the Christian scheme, contended for a\nperfection in the revelation by Moses, which neither required nor endured\nany addition, and who strained their fancies in expressing the\ntranscendency of the books of Moses, in aid of their opinion\u2014that the\nfounders of the doctrine borrowed their notions and phrases respecting\nthe Bible throughout.  Remove the metaphorical drapery from the doctrine\nof the Cabbalists, and it will be found to contain the only intelligible\nand consistent idea of that plenary inspiration, which later divines\nextend to all the canonical books; as thus:\u2014\u201cThe Pentateuch is but _one\nWord_, even the Word of God; and the letters and articulate sounds, by\nwhich this Word is communicated to our human apprehensions, are likewise\ndivinely communicated.\u201d\n\nNow, for \u2018Pentateuch\u2019 substitute \u2018Old and New Testament,\u2019 and then I say\nthat this is the doctrine which I reject as superstitious and\nunscriptural.  And yet as long as the conceptions of the revealing Word\nand the inspiring Spirit are identified and confounded, I assert that\nwhatever says less than this, says little more than nothing.  For how can\nabsolute infallibility be blended with fallibility?  Where is the\ninfallible criterion?  How can infallible truth be infallibly conveyed in\ndefective and fallible expressions?  The Jewish teachers confined this\nmiraculous character to the Pentateuch.  Between the Mosaic and the\nProphetic inspiration they asserted such a difference as amounts to a\ndiversity; and between both the one and the other, and the remaining\nbooks comprised under the tithe of _Hagiographa_, the interval was still\nwider, and the inferiority in kind, and not only in degree, was\nunequivocally expressed.  If we take into account the habit, universal\nwith the Hebrew doctors, of referring all excellent or extraordinary\nthings to the great First Cause, without mention of the proximate and\ninstrumental causes\u2014a striking illustration of which may be obtained by\ncomparing the narratives of the same event in the Psalms and in the\nhistorical books; and if we further reflect that the distinction of the\nprovidential and the miraculous did not enter into their forms of\nthinking\u2014at all events not into their mode of conveying their\nthoughts\u2014the language of the Jews respecting the _Hagiographa_ will be\nfound to differ little, if at all, from that of religious persons among\nourselves, when speaking of an author abounding in gifts, stirred up by\nthe Holy Spirit, writing under the influence of special grace, and the\nlike.\n\nBut it forms no part of my present purpose to discuss the point\nhistorically, or to speculate on the formation of either Canon.  Rather,\nsuch inquiries are altogether alien from the great object of my pursuits\nand studies, which is to convince myself and others that the Bible and\nChristianity are their own sufficient evidence.  But it concerns both my\ncharacter and my peace of mind to satisfy unprejudiced judges that if my\npresent convictions should in all other respects be found consistent with\nthe faith and feelings of a Christian\u2014and if in many and those important\npoints they tend to secure that faith and to deepen those feelings\u2014the\nwords of the Apostle, rightly interpreted, do not require their\ncondemnation.  Enough, if what has been stated above respecting the\ngeneral doctrine of the Hebrew masters, under whom the Apostle was bred,\nshall remove any misconceptions that might prevent the right\ninterpretation of his words.\n\n                                                                 Farewell.\n\n\n\nLETTER III.\n\n\nMY DEAR FRIEND,\n\nHAVING in the former two Letters defined the doctrine which I reject, I\nam now to communicate the views that I would propose to substitute in its\nplace.\n\nBefore, however, I attempt to lay down on the theological chart the\nroad-place to which my bark has drifted, and to mark the spot and\ncircumscribe the space within which I swing at anchor, let me first thank\nyou for, and then attempt to answer, the objections\u2014or at least the\nquestions\u2014which you have urged upon me.\n\n\u201cThe present Bible is the Canon to which Christ and the Apostles\nreferred?\u201d\n\nDoubtless.\n\n\u201cAnd in terms which a Christian must tremble to tamper with?\u201d\n\nYea.  The expressions are as direct as strong; and a true believer will\nneither attempt to divert nor dilute their strength.\n\n\u201cThe doctrine which is considered as the orthodox view seems the obvious\nand most natural interpretation of the text in question?\u201d\n\nYea, and nay.  To those whose minds are prepossessed by the doctrine\nitself\u2014who from earliest childhood have always meant this doctrine by the\nvery word Bible\u2014the doctrine being but its exposition and paraphrase\u2014Yea.\nIn such minds the words of our Lord and the declarations of St. Paul can\nawaken no other sense.  To those on the other hand who find the doctrine\nsenseless and self-confuting, and who take up the Bible as they do other\nbooks, and apply to it the same rules of interpretation\u2014Nay.\n\nAnd, lastly, he who, like myself, recognises in neither of the two the\nstate of his own mind\u2014who cannot rest in the former, and feels, or fears,\na presumptuous spirit in the negative dogmatism of the latter\u2014he has his\nanswer to seek.  But so far I dare hazard a reply to the question\u2014In what\nother sense can the words be interpreted?\u2014beseeching you, however, to\ntake what I am about to offer but as an attempt to delineate an arc of\noscillation\u2014that the eulogy of St. Paul is in nowise contravened by the\nopinion to which I incline, who fully believe the Old Testament\ncollectively, both in the composition and in its preservation, a great\nand precious gift of Providence;\u2014who find in it all that the Apostle\ndescribes, and who more than believe that all which the Apostle spoke of\nwas of Divine inspiration, and a blessing intended for as many as are in\ncommunion with the Spirit through all ages.  And I freely confess that my\nwhole heart would turn away with an angry impatience from the cold and\ncaptious mortal who, the moment I had been pouring out the love and\ngladness of my soul\u2014while book after book, law, and truth, and example,\noracle, and lovely hymn, and choral song of ten thousand thousands, and\naccepted prayers of saints and prophets, sent back, as it were, from\nheaven, like doves, to be let loose again with a new freight of spiritual\njoys and griefs and necessities, were passing across my memory\u2014at the\nfirst pause of my voice, and whilst my countenance was still\nspeaking\u2014should ask me whether I was thinking of the Book of Esther, or\nmeant particularly to include the first six chapters of Daniel, or verses\n6\u201320 of the 109th Psalm, or the last verse of the 137th Psalm?  Would any\nconclusion of this sort be drawn in any other analogous case?  In the\ncourse of my lectures on Dramatic Poetry, I, in half a score instances,\nreferred my auditors to the precious volume before me\u2014Shakespeare\u2014and\nspoke enthusiastically, both in general and with detail of particular\nbeauties, of the plays of Shakespeare, as in all their kinds, and in\nrelation to the purposes of the writer, excellent.  Would it have been\nfair, or according to the common usage and understanding of men, to have\ninferred an intention on my part to decide the question respecting _Titus\nAndronicus_, or the larger portion of the three parts of _Henry VI._?\nWould not every genial mind understand by Shakespeare that unity or total\nimpression comprising and resulting from the thousandfold several and\nparticular emotions of delight, admiration, gratitude excited by his\nworks?  But if it be answered, \u201cAye! but we must not interpret St. Paul\nas we may and should interpret any other honest and intelligent writer or\nspeaker,\u201d\u2014then, I say, this is the very _petitio principii_ of which I\ncomplain.\n\nStill less do the words of our Lord apply against my view.  Have I not\ndeclared\u2014do I not begin by declaring\u2014that whatever is referred by the\nsacred penman to a direct communication from God, and wherever it is\nrecorded that the subject of the history had asserted himself to have\nreceived this or that command, this or that information or assurance,\nfrom a superhuman Intelligence, or where the writer in his own person,\nand in the character of an historian, relates that the _word of the Lord\ncame_ unto priest, prophet, chieftain, or other individual\u2014have I not\ndeclared that I receive the same with full belief, and admit its\ninappellable authority?  Who more convinced than I am\u2014who more anxious to\nimpress that conviction on the minds of others\u2014that the Law and the\nProphets speak throughout of Christ?  That all the intermediate\napplications and realisations of the words are but types and\nrepetitions\u2014translations, as it were, from the language of letters and\narticulate sounds into the language of events and symbolical persons?\n\nAnd here again let me recur to the aid of analogy.  Suppose a life of Sir\nThomas More by his son-in-law, or a life of Lord Bacon by his chaplain;\nthat a part of the records of the Court of Chancery belonging to these\nperiods were lost; that in Roper\u2019s or in Rawley\u2019s biographical work there\nwere preserved a series of _dicta_ and judgments attributed to these\nillustrious Chancellors, many and important specimens of their table\ndiscourses, with large extracts from works written by them, and from some\nthat are no longer extant.  Let it be supposed, too, that there are no\ngrounds, internal or external, to doubt either the moral, intellectual,\nor circumstantial competence of the biographers.  Suppose, moreover, that\nwherever the opportunity existed of collating their documents and\nquotations with the records and works still preserved, the former were\nfound substantially correct and faithful, the few differences in nowise\naltering or disturbing the spirit and purpose of the paragraphs in which\nthey were found; and that of what was not collatable, and to which no\ntest _ab extra_ could be applied, the far larger part bore witness in\nitself of the same spirit and origin; and that not only by its\ncharacteristic features, but by its surpassing excellence, it rendered\nthe chances of its having had any other author than the giant-mind, to\nwhom the biographer ascribes it, small indeed!  Now, from the nature and\nobjects of my pursuits, I have, we will suppose, frequent occasion to\nrefer to one or other of these works; for example, to Rawley\u2019s _Dicta et\nFacta Francisci de Verulam_.  At one time I might refer to the work in\nsome such words as\u2014\u201cRemember what Francis of Verulam said or judged;\u201d or,\n\u201cIf you believe not me, yet believe Lord Bacon.\u201d  At another time I might\ntake the running title of the volume, and at another the name of the\nbiographer;\u2014\u201cTurn to your Rawley!  _He_ will set you right;\u201d or, \u201c_There_\nyou will find a depth which no research will ever exhaust;\u201d or whatever\nother strong expression my sense of Bacon\u2019s greatness and of the\nintrinsic worth and the value of the proofs and specimens of that\ngreatness, contained and preserved in that volume, would excite and\njustify.  But let my expressions be as vivid and unqualified as the most\nsanguine temperament ever inspired, would any man of sense conclude from\nthem that I meant\u2014and meant to make others believe\u2014that not only each and\nall of these anecdotes, adages, decisions, extracts, incidents, had been\ndictated, word by word, by Lord Bacon; and that all Rawley\u2019s own\nobservations and inferences, all the connectives and disjunctives, all\nthe recollections of time, place, and circumstance, together with the\norder and succession of the narrative, were in like manner dictated and\nrevised by the spirit of the deceased Chancellor?  The answer will\nbe\u2014must be\u2014No man in his senses!  \u201cNo man in his senses\u2014in _this_\ninstance; but in that of the Bible it is quite otherwise; for (I take it\nas an admitted point that) it _is_ quite otherwise!\u201d\n\nAnd here I renounce any advantage I might obtain for my argument by\nrestricting the application of our Lord\u2019s and the Apostle\u2019s words to the\nHebrew Canon.  I admit the justice\u2014I have long felt the full force\u2014of the\nremark\u2014\u201cWe have all that the occasion allowed.\u201d  And if the same awful\nauthority does not apply so directly to the Evangelical and Apostolical\nwritings as to the Hebrew Canon, yet the analogy of faith justifies the\ntransfer.  If the doctrine be less decisively Scriptural in its\napplication to the New Testament or the Christian Canon, the temptation\nto doubt it is likewise less.  So at least we are led to infer; since in\npoint of fact it is the apparent or imagined contrast, the diversity of\nspirit which sundry individuals have believed themselves to find in the\nOld Testament and in the Gospel, that has given occasion to the\ndoubt;\u2014and, in the heart of thousands who yield a faith of acquiescence\nto the contrary, and find rest in their humility\u2014supplies fuel to a\nfearful wish that it were permitted to make a distinction.\n\nBut, lastly, you object that\u2014even granting that no coercive, positive\nreasons for the belief\u2014no direct and not inferred assertions\u2014of the\nplenary inspiration of the Old and New Testament, in the generally\nreceived import of the term, could be adduced, yet\u2014in behalf of a\ndoctrine so catholic, and during so long a succession of ages affirmed\nand acted on by Jew and Christian, Greek, Romish, and Protestant, you\nneed no other answer than:\u2014\u201cTell me, first, why it should not be\nreceived!  Why should I not believe the Scriptures throughout dictated,\nin word and thought, by an infallible Intelligence?\u201d  I admit the\nfairness of the retort; and eagerly and earnestly do I answer: For every\nreason that makes me prize and revere these Scriptures;\u2014prize them, love\nthem, revere them, beyond all other books!  _Why_ should I not?  Because\nthe doctrine in question petrifies at once the whole body of Holy Writ\nwith all its harmonies and symmetrical gradations\u2014the flexile and the\nrigid\u2014the supporting hard and the clothing soft\u2014the blood _which is the\nlife_\u2014the intelligencing nerves, and the rudely woven, but soft and\nspringy, cellular substance, in which all are imbedded and lightly bound\ntogether.  This breathing organism, this glorious _panharmonicon_ which I\nhad seen stand on its feet as a man, and with a man\u2019s voice given to it,\nthe doctrine in question turns at once into a colossal Memnon\u2019s head, a\nhollow passage for a voice, a voice that mocks the voices of many men,\nand speaks in their names, and yet is but one voice, and the same; and no\nman uttered it, and never in a human heart was it conceived.  _Why_\nshould I not?\u2014Because the doctrine evacuates of all sense and efficacy\nthe sure and constant tradition, that all the several books bound up\ntogether in our precious family Bible were composed in different and\nwidely-distant ages, under the greatest diversity of circumstances, and\ndegrees of light and information, and yet that the composers, whether as\nuttering or as recording what was uttered and what was done, were all\nactuated by a pure and holy Spirit, one and the same\u2014(for is there any\nspirit pure and holy, and yet not proceeding from God\u2014and yet not\nproceeding in and with the Holy Spirit?)\u2014one Spirit, working diversely,\nnow awakening strength, and now glorifying itself in weakness, now giving\npower and direction to knowledge, and now taking away the sting from\nerror!  Ere the summer and the months of ripening had arrived for the\nheart of the race; while the whole sap of the tree was crude, and each\nand every fruit lived in the harsh and bitter principle; even then this\nSpirit withdrew its chosen ministers from the false and guilt-making\ncentre of Self.  It converted the wrath into a form and an organ of love,\nand on the passing storm-cloud impressed the fair rainbow of promise to\nall generations.  Put the lust of Self in the forked lightning, and would\nit not be a Spirit of Moloch?  But God maketh the lightnings His\nministers, fire and hail, vapours and stormy winds fulfilling His word.\n\n_Curse ye Meroz_, _said the angel of the Lord_; _curse ye bitterly the\ninhabitants thereof_\u2014sang Deborah.  Was it that she called to mind any\npersonal wrongs\u2014rapine or insult\u2014that she or the house of Lapidoth had\nreceived from Jabin or Sisera?  No; she had dwelt under her palm tree in\nthe depth of the mountain.  But she was a _mother in Israel_; and with a\nmother\u2019s heart, and with the vehemency of a mother\u2019s and a patriot\u2019s\nlove, she had shot the light of love from her eyes, and poured the\nblessings of love from her lips, on the people that had _jeoparded their\nlives unto the death_ against the oppressors; and the bitterness,\nawakened and borne aloft by the same love, she precipitated in curses on\nthe selfish and coward recreants who _came not to the help of the Lord_,\n_to the help of the Lord_, _against the mighty_.  As long as I have the\nimage of Deborah before my eyes, and while I throw myself back into the\nage, country, circumstances, of this Hebrew Bonduca in the not yet tamed\nchaos of the spiritual creation;\u2014as long as I contemplate the\nimpassioned, high-souled, heroic woman in all the prominence and\nindividuality of will and character,\u2014I feel as if I were among the first\nferments of the great affections\u2014the proplastic waves of the microcosmic\nchaos, swelling up against\u2014and yet towards\u2014the outspread wings of the\ndove that lies brooding on the troubled waters.  So long all is well,\u2014all\nreplete with instruction and example.  In the fierce and inordinate I am\nmade to know and be grateful for the clearer and purer radiance which\nshines on a Christian\u2019s paths, neither blunted by the preparatory veil,\nnor crimsoned in its struggle through the all-enwrapping mist of the\nworld\u2019s ignorance: whilst in the self-oblivion of these heroes of the Old\nTestament, their elevation above all low and individual interests,\u2014above\nall, in the entire and vehement devotion of their total being to the\nservice of their divine Master, I find a lesson of humility, a ground of\nhumiliation, and a shaming, yet rousing, example of faith and fealty.\nBut let me once be persuaded that all these heart-awakening utterances of\nhuman hearts\u2014of men of like faculties and passions with myself, mourning,\nrejoicing, suffering, triumphing\u2014are but as a _Divina Commedia_ of a\nsuperhuman\u2014O bear with me, if I say\u2014Ventriloquist;\u2014that the royal harper,\nto whom I have so often submitted myself as a _many-stringed instrument_\nfor his fire-tipt fingers to traverse, while every several nerve of\nemotion, passion, thought, that thrids the flesh-and-blood of our common\nhumanity, responded to the touch,\u2014that this _sweet Psalmist of Israel_\nwas himself as mere an instrument as his harp, an _automaton_ poet,\nmourner, and supplicant;\u2014all is gone,\u2014all sympathy, at least, and all\nexample.  I listen in awe and fear, but likewise in perplexity and\nconfusion of spirit.\n\nYet one other instance, and let this be the crucial test of the doctrine.\nSay that the Book of Job throughout was dictated by an infallible\nintelligence.  Then re-peruse the book, and still, as you proceed, try to\napply the tenet; try if you can even attach any sense or semblance of\nmeaning to the speeches which you are reading.  What! were the hollow\ntruisms, the unsufficing half-truths, the false assumptions and malignant\ninsinuations of the supercilious bigots, who corruptly defended the\ntruth:\u2014were the impressive facts, the piercing outcries, the pathetic\nappeals, and the close and powerful reasoning with which the poor\nsufferer\u2014smarting at once from his wounds, and from the oil of vitriol\nwhich the orthodox _liars for God_ were dropping into them\u2014impatiently,\nbut uprightly and holily, controverted this truth, while in will and in\nspirit he clung to it;\u2014were both dictated by an infallible\nintelligence?\u2014Alas! if I may judge from the manner in which both\nindiscriminately are recited, quoted, appealed to, preached upon by the\n_routiniers_ of desk and pulpit, I cannot doubt that they think so\u2014or\nrather, without thinking, take for granted that so they are to think;\u2014the\nmore readily, perhaps, because the so thinking supersedes the necessity\nof all afterthought.\n\n                                                                 Farewell.\n\n\n\nLETTER IV.\n\n\nMY DEAR FRIEND,\n\nYOU reply to the conclusion of my Letter: \u201cWhat have we to do with\n_routiniers_?  _Quid mihi cum homunculis putata putide reputantibus_?\nLet nothings count for nothing, and the dead bury the dead!  Who but such\never understood the tenet in this sense?\u201d\n\nIn what sense then, I rejoin, do others understand it?  If, with\nexception of the passages already excepted, namely, the recorded words of\nGod\u2014concerning which no Christian can have doubt or scruple,\u2014the tenet in\nthis sense be inapplicable to the Scripture, destructive of its noblest\npurposes, and contradictory to its own express declarations,\u2014again and\nagain I ask:\u2014What am I to substitute?  What other sense is conceivable\nthat does not destroy the doctrine which it professes to interpret\u2014that\ndoes not convert it into its own negative?  As if a geometrician should\nname a sugar-loaf an ellipse, adding\u2014\u201cBy which term I here mean a\ncone;\u201d\u2014and then justify the misnomer on the pretext that the ellipse is\namong the conic sections!  And yet\u2014notwithstanding the repugnancy of the\ndoctrine, in its unqualified sense, to Scripture, Reason, and Common\nSense theoretically, while to all practical uses it is intractable,\nunmalleable, and altogether unprofitable\u2014notwithstanding its\nirrationality, and in the face of your expostulation, grounded on the\npalpableness of its irrationality,\u2014I must still avow my belief that,\nhowever fittingly and unsteadily, as through a mist, it _is_ the doctrine\nwhich the generality of our popular divines receive as orthodox, and this\nthe sense which they attach to the words.\n\nFor on what other ground can I account for the whimsical\n_subintelligiturs_ of our numerous harmonists\u2014for the curiously inferred\nfacts, the inventive circumstantial detail, the complemental and\nsupplemental history which, in the utter silence of all historians and\nabsence of all historical documents, they bring to light by mere force of\nlogic?  And all to do away some half score apparent discrepancies in the\nchronicles and memoirs of the Old and New Testaments\u2014discrepancies so\nanalogous to what is found in all other narratives of the same story by\nseveral narrators\u2014so analogous to what is found in all other known and\ntrusted histories by contemporary historians, when they are collated with\neach other (nay, not seldom when either historian is compared with\nhimself), as to form in the eyes of all competent judges a characteristic\nmark of the genuineness, independency, and (if I may apply the word to a\nbook), the veraciousness of each several document; a mark, the absence of\nwhich would warrant a suspicion of collusion, invention, or at best of\nservile transcription; discrepancies so trifling in circumstance and\nimport, that, although in some instances it is highly probable, and in\nall instances, perhaps, possible that they are only apparent and\nreconcilable, no wise man would care a staw whether they were real or\napparent, reconciled or left in harmless and friendly variance.  What, I\nask, could have induced learned and intelligent divines to adopt or\nsanction subterfuges, which neutralising the ordinary _criteria_ of full\nor defective evidence in historical documents, would, taken as a general\nrule, render all collation and cross-examination of written records\nineffective, and obliterate the main character by which authentic\nhistories are distinguished from those traditional tales, which each\nsuccessive reporter enlarges and fashions to his own fancy and purpose,\nand every different edition of which more or less contradicts the other?\nAllow me to create chasms _ad libitum_, and _ad libitum_ to fill them up\nwith imagined facts and incidents, and I would almost undertake to\nharmonise Falstaff\u2019s account of the rogues in buckram into a coherent and\nconsistent narrative.  What, I say, could have tempted grave and pious\nmen thus to disturb the foundation of the Temple, in order to repair a\npetty breach or rat-hole in the wall, or fasten a loose stone or two in\nthe outer court, if not an assumed necessity arising out of the peculiar\ncharacter of Bible history?\n\nThe substance of the syllogism, by which their procedure was justified to\ntheir own minds, can be no other than this.  That, without which two\nassertions\u2014both of which _must_ be alike true and correct\u2014would\ncontradict each other, and consequently be, one or both, false or\nincorrect, must itself be true.  But every word and syllable existing in\nthe original text of the Canonical Books, from the _Cherethi_ and\n_Phelethi_ of David to the name in the copy of a family register, the\nsite of a town, or the course of a river, were dictated to the sacred\n_amanuensis_ by an infallible intelligence.  Here there can be neither\nmore nor less.  Important or unimportant gives no ground of difference;\nand the number of the writers as little.  The secretaries may have been\nmany\u2014the historian was one and the same, and he infallible.  This is the\n_minor_ of the syllogism, and if it could be proved, the conclusion would\nbe at least plausible; and there would be but one objection to the\nprocedure, namely, its uselessness.  For if it had been proved already,\nwhat need of proving it over again, and by means\u2014the removal, namely, of\napparent contradictions\u2014which the infallible Author did not think good to\nemploy?  But if it have not been proved, what becomes of the argument\nwhich derives its whole force and legitimacy from the assumption?\n\nIn fact, it is clear that the harmonists and their admirers held and\nunderstood the doctrine literally.  And must not that divine likewise\nhave so understood it, who, in answer to a question concerning the\ntranscendant blessedness of Jael, and the righteousness of the act, in\nwhich she inhospitably, treacherously, perfidiously murdered sleep, the\nconfiding sleep, closed the controversy by observing that he wanted no\nbetter morality than that of the Bible, and no other proof of an action\u2019s\nbeing praiseworthy than that the Bible had declared it worthy to be\npraised?\u2014an observation, as applied in this instance, so slanderous to\nthe morality and moral spirit of the Bible as to be inexplicable, except\nas a consequence of the doctrine in dispute.  But let a man be once fully\npersuaded that there is no difference between the two positions: \u201cThe\nBible contains the religion revealed by God,\u201d and \u201cWhatever is contained\nin the Bible is religion, and was revealed by God,\u201d and that whatever can\nbe said of the Bible, collectively taken, may and must be said of each\nand every sentence of the Bible, taken for and by itself, and I no longer\nwonder at these paradoxes.  I only object to the inconsistency of those\nwho profess the same belief, and yet affect to look down with a\ncontemptuous or compassionate smile on John Wesley for rejecting the\nCopernican system as incompatible therewith; or who exclaim \u201cWonderful!\u201d\nwhen they hear that Sir Matthew Hale sent a crazy old woman to the\ngallows in honour of the Witch of Endor.  In the latter instance it\nmight, I admit, have been an erroneous (though even at this day the all\nbut universally received) interpretation of the word, which we have\nrendered by _witch_; but I challenge these divines and their adherents to\nestablish the compatibility of a belief in the modern astronomy and\nnatural philosophy with their and Wesley\u2019s doctrine respecting the\ninspired Scriptures, without reducing the doctrine itself to a plaything\nof wax; or rather to a half-inflated bladder, which, when the contents\nare rarefied in the heat of rhetorical generalities, swells out round,\nand without a crease or wrinkle; but bring it into the cool temperature\nof particulars, and you may press, and as it were except, what part you\nlike\u2014so it be but one part at a time\u2014between your thumb and finger.\n\nNow, I pray you, which is the more honest, nay, which the more\nreverential proceeding\u2014to play at fast and loose in this way, or to say\nat once, \u201cSee here, in these several writings one and the same Holy\nSpirit, now sanctifying a chosen vessel, and fitting it for the reception\nof heavenly truths proceeding immediately from the mouth of God, and\nelsewhere working in frail and fallible men like ourselves, and like\nourselves instructed by God\u2019s word and laws?\u201d  The first Christian martyr\nhad the form and features of an ordinary man, nor are we taught to\nbelieve that these features were miraculously transfigured into\nsuperhuman symmetry; but _he being filled with the Holy Ghost_, _they\nthat looked steadfastly_ on _him_, _saw his face as it had been the face\nof an angel_.  Even so has it ever been, and so it ever will be with all\nwho with humble hearts and a rightly disposed spirit scan the sacred\nvolume.  And they who read it with _an evil heart of unbelief_ and an\nalien spirit, what boots for them the assertion that every sentence was\nmiraculously communicated to the nominal author by God himself?  Will it\nnot rather present additional temptations to the unhappy scoffers, and\nfurnish them with a pretext of self-justification?\n\nWhen, in my third letter, I first echoed the question \u201cWhy should I not?\u201d\nthe answers came crowding on my mind.  I am well content, however, to\nhave merely suggested the main points, in proof of the positive harm\nwhich, both historically and spiritually, our religion sustains from this\ndoctrine.  Of minor importance, yet not to be overlooked, are the forced\nand fantastic interpretations, the arbitrary allegories and mystic\nexpansions of proper names, to which this indiscriminate Bibliolatry\nfurnished fuel, spark, and wind.  A still greater evil, and less\nattributable to the visionary humour and weak judgment of the individual\nexpositors, is the literal rendering of Scripture in passages, which the\nnumber and variety of images employed in different places to express one\nand the same verity, plainly mark out for figurative.  And lastly, add to\nall these the strange\u2014in all other writings unexampled\u2014practice of\nbringing together into logical dependency detached sentences from books\ncomposed at the distance of centuries, nay, sometimes a _millennium_ from\neach other, under different dispensations, and for different objects.\nAccommodations of elder Scriptural phrases\u2014that favourite ornament and\ngarnish of Jewish eloquence; incidental allusions to popular notions,\ntraditions, apologues (for example, the dispute between the Devil and the\narchangel Michael about the body of Moses, Jude 9); fancies and\nanachronisms imported from the synagogue of Alexandria into Palestine, by\nor together with the Septuagint version, and applied as mere _argumenta\nad homines_ (for example, the delivery of the Law by the disposition of\nangels, Acts vii. 53, Gal. iii. 19, Heb. ii. 2),\u2014these, detached from\ntheir context, and, contrary to the intention of the sacred writer, first\nraised into independent _theses_, and then brought together to produce or\nsanction some new _credendum_ for which neither separately could have\nfurnished a pretence!  By this strange mosaic, Scripture texts have been\nworked up into passable likenesses of purgatory, Popery, the Inquisition,\nand other monstrous abuses.  But would you have a Protestant instance of\nthe superstitious use of Scripture arising out of this dogma?  Passing by\nthe Cabbala of the Hutchinsonian School as the dotage of a few\nweak-minded individuals, I refer you to Bishop Hacket\u2019s sermons on the\nIncarnation.  And if you have read the same author\u2019s life of Archbishop\nWilliams, and have seen and felt (as every reader of this latter work\nmust see and feel) his talent, learning, acuteness, and robust good\nsense, you will have no difficulty in determining the quality and\ncharacter of a dogma which could engraft such fruits on such a tree.\n\nIt will perhaps appear a paradox if, after all these reasons, I should\navow that they weigh less in my mind against the doctrine, than the\nmotives usually assigned for maintaining and enjoining it.  Such, for\ninstance, are the arguments drawn from the anticipated loss and damage\nthat would result from its abandonment; as that it would deprive the\nChristian world of its only infallible arbiter in questions of faith and\nduty, suppress the only common and inappellable tribunal; that the Bible\nis the only religious bond of union and ground of unity among Protestants\nand the like.  For the confutation of this whole reasoning, it might be\nsufficient to ask: Has it produced these effects?  Would not the contrary\nstatement be nearer to the fact?  What did the Churches of the first four\ncenturies hold on this point?  To what did they attribute the rise and\nmultiplication of heresies?  Can any learned and candid Protestant affirm\nthat there existed and exists no ground for the charges of Bossuet and\nother eminent Romish divines?  It is no easy matter to know how to handle\na party maxim, so framed, that with the exception of a single word, it\nexpresses an important truth, but which by means of that word is made to\nconvey a most dangerous error.\n\nThe Bible is the appointed conservatory, an indispensable criterion, and\na continual source and support of true belief.  But that the Bible is the\nsole source; that it not only contains, but constitutes, the Christian\nReligion; that it is, in short, a Creed, consisting wholly of articles of\nFaith; that consequently we need no rule, help, or guide, spiritual or\nhistorical, to teach us what parts are and what are not articles of\nFaith\u2014all being such\u2014and the difference between the Bible and the Creed\nbeing this, that the clauses of the latter are all unconditionally\nnecessary to salvation, but those of the former conditionally so, that\nis, as soon as the words are known to exist in any one of the canonical\nbooks; and that, under this limitation, the belief is of the same\nnecessity in both, and not at all affected by the greater or lesser\nimportance of the matter to be believed;\u2014this scheme differs widely from\nthe preceding, though its adherents often make use of the same words in\nexpressing their belief.  And this latter scheme, I assert, was brought\ninto currency by and in favour of those by whom the operation of grace,\nthe aids of the Spirit, the necessity of regeneration, the corruption of\nour nature, in short, all the peculiar and spiritual mysteries of the\nGospel were explained and diluted away.\n\nAnd how have these men treated this very Bible?  I, who indeed prize and\nreverence this sacred library, as of all outward means and conservatives\nof Christian faith and practice the surest and the most reflective of the\ninward Word; I, who hold that the Bible contains the religion of\nChristians, but who dare not say that whatever is contained in the Bible\nis the Christian religion, and who shrink from all question respecting\nthe comparative worth and efficacy of the written Word as weighed against\nthe preaching of the Gospel, the discipline of the Churches, the\ncontinued succession of the Ministry, and the communion of Saints, lest\nby comparing them I should seem to detach them; I tremble at the\nprocesses which the Grotian divines without scruple carry on in their\ntreatment of the sacred writers, as soon as any texts declaring the\npeculiar tenets of our Faith are cited against them\u2014even tenets and\nmysteries which the believer at his baptism receives as the title-writ\nand bosom-roll of his adoption; and which, according to my scheme, every\nChristian born in Church-membership ought to bring with him to the study\nof the sacred Scriptures as the master-key of interpretation.  Whatever\nthe doctrine of infallible dictation may be in itself, in _their_ hands\nit is to the last degree nugatory, and to be paralleled only by the\nRomish tenet of Infallibility\u2014in the existence of which all agree, but\nwhere, and in whom, it exists _stat adhuc sub lite_.  Every sentence\nfound in a canonical Book, rightly interpreted, contains the _dictum_ of\nan infallible Mind; but what the right interpretation is\u2014or whether the\nvery words now extant are corrupt or genuine\u2014must be determined by the\nindustry and understanding of fallible, and alas! more or less prejudiced\ntheologians.\n\nAnd yet I am told that this doctrine must not be resisted or called in\nquestion, because of its fitness to preserve unity of faith, and for the\nprevention of schism and sectarian byways!  Let the man who holds this\nlanguage trace the history of Protestantism, and the growth of sectarian\ndivisions, ending with Dr. Hawker\u2019s _ultra_-Calvinistic Tracts, and Mr.\nBelsham\u2019s New Version of the Testament.  And then let him tell me that\nfor the prevention of an evil which already exists, and which the boasted\npreventive itself might rather seem to have occasioned, I must submit to\nbe silenced by the first learned infidel, who throws in my face the\nblessing of Deborah, or the cursings of David, or the Grecisms and\nheavier difficulties in the biographical chapters of the Book of Daniel,\nor the hydrography and natural philosophy of the Patriarchal ages.  I\nmust forego the means of silencing, and the prospect of convincing, an\nalienated brother, because I must not thus answer \u201cMy Brother!  What has\nall this to do with the truth and the worth of Christianity?  If you\nreject _\u00e0 priori_ all communion with the Holy Spirit, there is indeed a\nchasm between us, over which we cannot even make our voices intelligible\nto each other.  But if\u2014though but with the faith of a Seneca or an\nAntonine\u2014you admit the co-operation of a Divine Spirit in souls desirous\nof good, even as the breath of heaven works variously in each several\nplant according to its kind, character, period of growth, and\ncircumstance of soil, clime, and aspect; on what ground can you assume\nthat its presence is incompatible with all imperfection in the\nsubject\u2014even with such imperfection as is the natural accompaniment of\nthe unripe season?  If you call your gardener or husbandman to account\nfor the plants or crops he is raising, would you not regard the special\npurpose in each, and judge of each by that which it was tending to?\nThorns are not flowers, nor is the husk serviceable.  But it was not for\nits thorns, but for its sweet and medicinal flowers that the rose was\ncultivated; and he who cannot separate the husk from the grain, wants the\npower because sloth or malice has prevented the will.  I demand for the\nBible only the justice which you grant to other books of grave authority,\nand to other proved and acknowledged benefactors of mankind.  Will you\ndeny a spirit of wisdom in Lord Bacon, because in particular facts he did\nnot possess perfect science, or an entire immunity from the positive\nerrors which result from imperfect insight?  A Davy will not so judge his\ngreat predecessor; for he recognises the spirit that is now working in\nhimself, and which under similar defects of light and obstacles of error\nhad been his guide and guardian in the morning twilight of his own\ngenius.  Must not the kindly warmth awaken and vivify the seed, in order\nthat the stem may spring up and rejoice in the light?  As the genial\nwarmth to the informing light, even so is the predisposing Spirit to the\nrevealing Word.\u201d\n\nIf I should reason thus\u2014but why do I say _if_?  I have reasoned thus with\nmore than one serious and well-disposed sceptic; and what was the\nanswer?\u2014\u201c_You_ speak rationally, but seem to forget the subject.  I have\nfrequently attended meetings of the British and Foreign Bible Society,\nwhere I have heard speakers of every denomination, Calvinist and\nArminian, Quaker and Methodist, Dissenting Ministers and Clergymen, nay,\ndignitaries of the Established Church, and still have I heard the same\ndoctrine\u2014that the Bible was not to be regarded or reasoned about in the\nway that other good books are or may be\u2014that the Bible was different in\nkind, and stood by itself.  By some indeed this doctrine was rather\nimplied than expressed, but yet evidently implied.  But by far the\ngreater number of the speakers it was asserted in the strongest and most\nunqualified words that language could supply.  What is more, their\nprincipal arguments were grounded on the position, that the Bible\nthroughout was dictated by Omniscience, and therefore in all its parts\ninfallibly true and obligatory, and that the men whose names are prefixed\nto the several books or chapters were in fact but as different pens in\nthe hand of one and the same Writer, and the words the words of God\nHimself: and that on this account all notes and comments were\nsuperfluous, nay, presumptuous\u2014a profane mixing of human with divine, the\nnotions of fallible creatures with the oracles of Infallibility\u2014as if\nGod\u2019s meaning could be so clearly or fitly expressed in man\u2019s as in God\u2019s\nown words!  But how often you yourself must have heard the same language\nfrom the pulpit!\u201d\n\nWhat could I reply to this?  I could neither deny the fact, nor evade the\nconclusion\u2014namely, that such is at present the popular belief.  Yes\u2014I at\nlength rejoined\u2014I have heard this language from the pulpit, and more than\nonce from men who in any other place would explain it away into something\nso very different from the literal sense of their words as closely to\nresemble the contrary.  And this, indeed, is the peculiar character of\nthe doctrine, that you cannot diminish or qualify but you reverse it.  I\nhave heard this language from men who knew as well as myself that the\nbest and most orthodox divines have in effect disclaimed the doctrine,\ninasmuch as they confess it cannot be extended to the words of the sacred\nwriters, or the particular import\u2014that therefore the doctrine does not\nmean all that the usual wording of it expresses, though what it does\nmean, and why they continue to sanction this hyperbolical wording, I have\nsought to learn from them in vain.  But let a thousand orators blazon it\nat public meetings, and let as many pulpits echo it, surely it behoves\nyou to inquire whether you cannot be a Christian on your own faith; and\nit cannot but be beneath a wise man to be an Infidel on the score of what\nother men think fit to include in their Christianity!\n\nNow suppose\u2014and, believe me, the supposition will vary little from the\nfact\u2014that in consequence of these views the sceptic\u2019s mind had gradually\nopened to the reception of all the truths enumerated in my first Letter.\nSuppose that the Scriptures themselves from this time had continued to\nrise in his esteem and affection\u2014the better understood, the more dear; as\nin the countenance of one, whom through a cloud of prejudices we have at\nleast learned to love and value above all others, new beauties dawn on us\nfrom day to day, till at length we wonder how we could at any time have\nthought it other than most beautiful.  Studying the sacred volume in the\nlight and in the freedom of a faith already secured, at every fresh\nmeeting my sceptic friend has to tell me of some new passage, formerly\nviewed by him as a dry stick on a rotten branch, which has _budded_ and,\nlike the rod of Aaron, _brought forth buds and bloomed blossoms_, _and\nyielded almonds_.  Let these results, I say, be supposed\u2014and shall I\nstill be told that my friend is nevertheless an alien in the household of\nFaith?  Scrupulously orthodox as I know you to be, will you tell me that\nI ought to have left this sceptic as I found him, rather than attempt his\nconversion by such means; or that I was deceiving him, when I said to\nhim:\u2014\n\n\u201cFriend!  The truth revealed through Christ has its evidence in itself,\nand the proof of its divine authority in its fitness to our nature and\nneeds; the clearness and cogency of this proof being proportionate to the\ndegree of self-knowledge in each individual hearer.  Christianity has\nlikewise its historical evidences, and these as strong as is compatible\nwith the nature of history, and with the aims and objects of a religious\ndispensation.  And to all these Christianity itself, as an existing power\nin the world, and Christendom as an existing fact, with the no less\nevident fact of a progressive expansion, give a force of moral\ndemonstration that almost supersedes particular testimony.  These proofs\nand evidences would remain unshaken, even though the sum of our religion\nwere to be drawn from the theologians of each successive century, on the\nprinciple of receiving that only as divine which should be found in\nall\u2014_quod semper_, _quod ubique_, _quod ab omnibus_.  Be only, my friend!\nas orthodox a believer as you would have abundant reason to be, though\nfrom some accident of birth, country, or education, the precious boon of\nthe Bible, with its additional evidence, had up to this moment been\nconcealed from you;\u2014and then read its contents with only the same piety\nwhich you freely accord on other occasions to the writings of men,\nconsidered the best and wisest of their several ages!  What you find\ntherein coincident with your pre-established convictions, you will of\ncourse recognise as the Revealed Word, while, as you read the recorded\nworkings of the Word and the Spirit in the minds, lives, and hearts of\nspiritual men, the influence of the same Spirit on your own being, and\nthe conflicts of grace and infirmity in your own soul, will enable you to\ndiscern and to know in and by what spirit they spake and acted\u2014as far at\nleast as shall be needful for you, and in the times of your need.\n\n\u201cThenceforward, therefore, your doubts will be confined to such parts or\npassages of the received Canon as seem to you irreconcilable with known\ntruths, and at variance with the tests given in the Scriptures\nthemselves, and as shall continue so to appear after you have examined\neach in reference to the circumstances of the writer or speaker, the\ndispensation under which he lived, the purpose of the particular passage,\nand the intent and object of the Scriptures at large.  Respecting these,\ndecide for yourself: and fear not for the result.  I venture to tell it\nyou beforehand.  The result will be, a confidence in the judgment and\nfidelity of the compilers of the Canon increased by the apparent\nexceptions.  For they will be found neither more nor greater than may\nwell be supposed requisite, on the one hand, to prevent us from sinking\ninto a habit of slothful, undiscriminating acquiescence, and on the other\nto provide a check against those presumptuous fanatics who would rend the\n_Urim and Thummim from the breastplate of judgment_, and frame oracles by\nprivate divination from each letter of each disjointed gem, uninterpreted\nby the Priest, and deserted by the Spirit, which shines in the parts only\nas it pervades and irradiates the whole.\u201d\n\nSuch is the language in which I have addressed a halting friend\u2014halting,\nyet with his face toward the right path.  If I have erred, enable me to\nsee my error.  Correct me, or confirm me.\n\n                                                                 Farewell.\n\n\n\nLETTER V.\n\n\nYES, my dear friend, it is my conviction that in all ordinary cases the\nknowledge and belief of the Christian Religion should precede the study\nof the Hebrew Canon.  Indeed, with regard to both Testaments, I consider\noral and catechismal instruction as the preparative provided by Christ\nhimself in the establishment of a visible Church.  And to make the Bible,\napart from the truths, doctrines, and spiritual experiences contained\ntherein, the subject of a special article of faith, I hold an unnecessary\nand useless abstraction, which in too many instances has the effect of\nsubstituting a barren acquiescence in the letter for the lively _faith\nthat cometh by hearing_; even as the hearing is productive of this faith,\nbecause it is the Word of God that is heard and preached.  (Rom. x. 8,\n17.)  And here I mean the written Word preserved in the armoury of the\nChurch to be the sword of faith _out of the mouth_ of the preacher, as\nChrist\u2019s ambassador and representative (Rev. i. 16), and out of the heart\nof the believer from generation to generation.  Who shall dare dissolve\nor loosen this holy bond, this divine reciprocality, of Faith and\nScripture?  Who shall dare enjoin aught else as an object of saving\nfaith, beside the truths that appertain to salvation?  The imposers take\non themselves a heavy responsibility, however defensible the opinion\nitself, as an opinion, may be.  For by imposing it, they counteract their\nown purposes.  They antedate questions, and thus, in all cases, aggravate\nthe difficulty of answering them satisfactorily.  And not seldom they\ncreate difficulties that might never have occurred.  But, worst of all,\nthey convert things trifling or indifferent into mischievous pretexts for\nthe wanton, fearful difficulties for the weak, and formidable objections\nfor the inquiring.  For what man _fearing_ God dares think any the least\npoint indifferent, which he is required to receive as God\u2019s own immediate\nWord miraculously infused, miraculously recorded, and by a succession of\nmiracles preserved unblended and without change?\u2014Through all the pages of\na large and multifold volume, at each successive period, at every\nsentence, must the question recur:\u2014\u201cDare I believe\u2014do I in my heart\nbelieve\u2014these words to have been dictated by an infallible reason, and\nthe immediate utterance of Almighty God?\u201d\u2014No!  It is due to Christian\ncharity that a question so awful should not be put unnecessarily, and\nshould not be put out of time.  The necessity I deny.  And out of time\nthe question must be put, if after enumerating the several articles of\nthe Catholic Faith I am bound to add:\u2014\u201cand further you are to believe\nwith equal faith, as having the same immediate and miraculous derivation\nfrom God, whatever else you shall hereafter read in any of the sixty-six\nbooks collected in the Old and New Testaments.\u201d\n\nI would never say this.  Yet let me not be misjudged as if I treated the\nScriptures as a matter of indifference.  I would not say this, but where\nI saw a desire to believe, and a beginning love of Christ, I would there\nsay:\u2014\u201cThere are likewise sacred writings, which, taken in connection with\nthe institution and perpetuity of a visible Church, all believers revere\nas the most precious boon of God, next to Christianity itself, and\nattribute both their communication and preservation to an especial\nProvidence.  In them you will find all the revealed truths, which have\nbeen set forth and offered to you, clearly and circumstantially recorded;\nand, in addition to these, examples of obedience and disobedience both in\nstates and individuals, the lives and actions of men eminent under each\ndispensation, their sentiments, maxims, hymns, and prayers\u2014their\naffections, emotions, and conflicts;\u2014in all which you will recognise the\ninfluence of the Holy Spirit, with a conviction increasing with the\ngrowth of your own faith and spiritual experience.\u201d\n\n                                                                 Farewell.\n\n\n\nLETTER VI.\n\n\nMY DEAR FRIEND,\n\nIN my last two Letters I have given the state of the argument as it would\nstand between a Christian, thinking as I do, and a serious well-disposed\nDeist.  I will now endeavour to state the argument, as between the former\nand the advocates for the popular belief,\u2014such of them, I mean, as are\ncompetent to deliver a dispassionate judgment in the cause.  And again,\nmore particularly, I mean the learned and reflecting part of them, who\nare influenced to the retention of the prevailing dogma by the supposed\nconsequences of a different view, and, especially, by their dread of\nconceding to all alike, simple and learned, the privilege of picking and\nchoosing the Scriptures that are to be received as binding on their\nconsciences.  Between these persons and myself the controversy may be\nreduced to a single question:\u2014\n\nIs it safer for the individual, and more conducive to the interests of\nthe Church of Christ, in its twofold character of pastoral and militant,\nto conclude thus:\u2014The Bible is the Word of God, and therefore, true,\nholy, and in all parts unquestionable?  Or thus:\u2014The Bible, considered in\nreference to its declared ends and purposes, is true and holy, and for\nall who seek truth with humble spirits an unquestionable guide, and\ntherefore it is the Word of God?\n\nIn every generation, and wherever the light of Revelation has shone, men\nof all ranks, conditions, and states of mind have found in this volume a\ncorrespondent for every movement toward the better, felt in their own\nhearts, the needy soul has found supply, the feeble a help, the sorrowful\na comfort; yea, be the recipiency the least that can consist with moral\nlife, there is an answering grace ready to enter.  The Bible has been\nfound a Spiritual World, spiritual and yet at the same time outward and\ncommon to all.  You in one place, I in another, all men somewhere or at\nsome time, meet with an assurance that the hopes and fears, the thoughts\nand yearnings that proceed from, or tend to, a right spirit in us, are\nnot dreams or fleeting singularities, no voices heard in sleep, or\nspectres which the eye suffers but not perceives.  As if on some dark\nnight a pilgrim, suddenly beholding a bright star moving before him,\nshould stop in fear and perplexity.  But lo! traveller after traveller\npasses by him, and each, being questioned whither he is going, makes\nanswer, \u201cI am following yon guiding star!\u201d  The pilgrim quickens his own\nsteps, and presses onward in confidence.  More confident still will he\nbe, if, by the wayside, he should find, here and there, ancient\nmonuments, each with its votive lamp, and on each the name of some former\npilgrim, and a record that there he had first seen or begun to follow the\nbenignant Star!\n\nNo otherwise is it with the varied contents of the Sacred Volume.  The\nhungry have found food, the thirsty a living spring, the feeble a staff,\nand the victorious warfarer songs of welcome and strains of music; and as\nlong as each man asks on account of his wants, and asks what he wants, no\nman will discover aught amiss or deficient in the vast and many-chambered\nstorehouse.  But if, instead of this, an idler or scoffer should wander\nthrough the rooms, peering and peeping, and either detects, or fancies he\nhas detected, here a rusted sword or pointless shaft, there a tool of\nrude construction, and superseded by later improvements (and preserved,\nperhaps, to make us more grateful for them);\u2014which of two things will a\nsober-minded man,\u2014who, from his childhood upward had been fed, clothed,\narmed, and furnished with the means of instruction from this very\nmagazine,\u2014think the fitter plan?  Will he insist that the rust is not\nrust, or that it is a rust _sui generis_, intentionally formed on the\nsteel for some mysterious virtue in it, and that the staff and astrolabe\nof a shepherd-astronomer are identical with, or equivalent to, the\nquadrant and telescope of Newton or Herschel?  Or will he not rather give\nthe curious inquisitor joy of his mighty discoveries, and the credit of\nthem for his reward?\n\nOr lastly, put the matter thus: For more than a thousand years the Bible,\ncollectively taken, has gone hand in hand with civilisation, science,\nlaw\u2014in short, with the moral and intellectual cultivation of the species,\nalways supporting, and often leading, the way.  Its very presence, as a\nbelieved Book, has rendered the nations emphatically a chosen race, and\nthis too in exact proportion as it is more or less generally known and\nstudied.  Of those nations which in the highest degree enjoy its\ninfluences it is not too much to affirm, that the differences, public and\nprivate, physical, moral and intellectual, are only less than what might\nbe expected from a diversity in species.  Good and holy men, and the best\nand wisest of mankind, the kingly spirits of history, enthroned in the\nhearts of mighty nations, have borne witness to its influences, have\ndeclared it to be beyond compare the most perfect instrument, the only\nadequate organ, of Humanity; the organ and instrument of all the gifts,\npowers, and tendencies, by which the individual is privileged to rise\nabove himself\u2014to leave behind, and lose his individual phantom self, in\norder to find his true self in that Distinctness where no division can\nbe\u2014in the Eternal I AM, the Ever-living WORD, of whom all the elect from\nthe archangel before time throne to the poor wrestler with the Spirit\n_until the breaking of day_ are but the fainter and still fainter echoes.\nAnd are all these testimonies and lights of experience to lose their\nvalue and efficiency because I feel no warrant of history, or Holy Writ,\nor of my own heart for denying, that in the framework and outward case of\nthis instrument a few parts may be discovered of less costly materials\nand of meaner workmanship?  Is it not a fact that the Books of the New\nTestament were tried by their consonance with the rule, and according to\nthe analogy, of faith?  Does not the universally admitted canon\u2014that each\npart of Scripture must be interpreted by the spirit of the whole\u2014lead to\nthe same practical conclusion as that for which I am now\ncontending\u2014namely, that it is the spirit of the Bible, and not the\ndetached words and sentences, that is infallible and absolute?\nPractical, I say, and spiritual too; and what knowledge not practical or\nspiritual are we entitled to seek in our Bibles?  Is the grace of God so\nconfined\u2014are the evidences of the present and actuating Spirit so dim and\ndoubtful\u2014that to be assured of the same we must first take for granted\nthat all the life and co-agency of our humanity is miraculously\nsuspended?\n\nWhatever is spiritual, is _eo nomine_ supernatural; but must it be always\nand of necessity miraculous?  Miracles could open the eyes of the body;\nand he that was born blind beheld his Redeemer.  But miracles, even those\nof the Redeemer himself, could not open the eyes of the self-blinded, of\nthe Sadducean sensualist, or the self-righteous Pharisee\u2014while to have\nsaid, _I saw thee under the fig-tree_, sufficed to make a Nathanael\nbelieve.\n\nTo assert and to demand miracles without necessity was the vice of the\nunbelieving Jews of old; and from the Rabbis and Talmudists the infection\nhas spread.  And would I could say that the symptoms of the disease are\nconfined to the Churches of the Apostasy!  But all the miracles, which\nthe legends of Monk or Rabbi contain, can scarcely be put in competition,\non the score of complication, inexplicableness, the absence of all\nintelligible use or purpose, and of circuitous self-frustration, with\nthose that must be assumed by the maintainers of this doctrine, in order\nto give effect to the series of miracles, by which all the nominal\ncomposers of the Hebrew nation before the time of Ezra, of whom there are\nany remains, were successively transformed into _automaton_\ncompositors\u2014so that the original text should be in sentiment, image,\nword, syntax, and composition an exact impression of the divine copy!  In\ncommon consistency the theologians, who impose this belief on their\nfellow Christians, ought to insist equally on the superhuman origin and\nauthority of the Masora, and to use more respectful terms, than has been\ntheir wont of late, in speaking of the false Aristeas\u2019s legend concerning\nthe Septuagint.  And why the miracle should stop at the Greek Version,\nand not include the Vulgate, I can discover no ground in reason.  Or if\nit be an objection to the latter, that this belief is actually enjoined\nby the Papal Church, yet the number of Christians who road the Lutheran,\nthe Genevan, or our own authorised, Bible, and are ignorant of the dead\nlanguages, greatly exceeds the number of those who have access to the\nSeptuagint.  Why refuse the writ of consecration to these, or to the one\nat least appointed by the assertors\u2019 own Church?  I find much more\nconsistency in the opposition made under pretext of this doctrine to the\nproposals and publications of Kennicot, Mill, Bentley, and Archbishop\nNewcome.\n\nBut I am weary of discussing a tenet which the generality of divines and\nthe leaders of the religious public have ceased to defend, and yet\ncontinue to assert or imply.  The tendency manifested in this conduct,\nthe spirit of this and the preceding century, on which, not indeed the\ntenet itself, but the obstinate adherence to it against the clearest\nlight of reason and experience, is grounded\u2014this it is which, according\nto my conviction, gives the venom to the error, and justifies the attempt\nto substitute a juster view.  As long as it was the common and effective\nbelief of all the Reformed Churches (and by none was it more sedulously\nor more emphatically enjoined than by the great Reformers of our Church),\nthat by the good Spirit were the spirits tried, and that the light, which\nbeams forth from the written Word, was its own evidence for the children\nof light; as long as Christians considered their Bible as a plenteous\nentertainment, where every guest, duly called and attired, found the food\nneedful and fitting for him, and where each\u2014instead of troubling himself\nabout the covers not within his reach\u2014beholding all around him glad and\nsatisfied, praised the banquet and thankfully glorified the Master of the\nfeast\u2014so long did the tenet\u2014that the Scriptures were written under the\nspecial impulse of the Holy Ghost remain safe and profitable.  Nay, in\nthe sense, and with the feelings, in which it was asserted, it was a\ntruth\u2014a truth to which every spiritual believer now and in all times will\nbear witness by virtue of his own experience.  And if in the overflow of\nlove and gratitude they confounded the power and presence of the Holy\nSpirit, working alike in weakness and in strength, in the morning mists\nand in the clearness of the full day; if they confounded this communion\nand co-agency of divine grace, attributable to the Scripture generally,\nwith those express, and expressly recorded, communications and messages\nof the Most High which form so large and prominent a portion of the same\nScriptures; if, in short, they did not always duly distinguish the\ninspiration, the imbreathment, of the predisposing and assisting SPIRIT\nfrom the revelation of the informing WORD, it was at worst a harmless\nhyperbole.  It was holden by all, that if the power of the Spirit from\nwithout furnished the text, the grace of the same Spirit from within must\nsupply the comment.\n\nIn the sacred Volume they saw and reverenced the bounden wheat-sheaf that\n_stood upright_ and had _obeisance_ from all the other sheaves (the\nwritings, I mean, of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church), sheaves\ndepreciated indeed, more or less, with tares,\n\n                \u201cand furrow-weeds,\n    Darnel and many an idle flower that grew\n    Mid the sustaining corn;\u201d\n\nyet sheaves of the same harvest, the sheaves of brethren!  Nor did it\noccur to them, that, in yielding the more full and absolute honour to the\nsheaf of the highly favoured of their Father, they should be supposed to\nattribute the same worth and quality to the straw-bands which held it\ntogether.  The bread of life was there.  And this in an especial sense\nwas _bread from Heaven_; for no where had the same been found wild; no\nsoil or climate dared claim it for its natural growth.  In simplicity of\nheart they received the Bible as the precious gift of God, providential\nalike in origin, preservation, and distribution, without asking the nice\nquestion whether all and every part were likewise miraculous.  The\ndistinction between the providential and the miraculous, between the\nDivine Will working with the agency of natural causes, and the same Will\nsupplying their place by a special _fiat_\u2014this distinction has, I doubt\nnot, many uses in speculative divinity.  But its weightiest practical\napplication is shown, when it is employed to free the souls of the unwary\nand weak in faith from the nets and snares, the insidious queries and\ncaptious objections, of the Infidel by calming the flutter of their\nspirits.  They must be quieted, before we can commence the means\nnecessary for their disentanglement.  And in no way can this be better\neffected than when the frightened captives are made to see in how many\npoints the disentangling itself is a work of expedience rather than of\nnecessity; so easily and at so little loss might the web be cut or\nbrushed away.\n\nFirst, let their attention be fixed on the history of Christianity as\nlearnt from universal tradition, and the writers of each successive\ngeneration.  Draw their minds to the fact of the progressive and still\ncontinuing fulfilment of the assurance of a few fishermen, that both\ntheir own religion, though of Divine origin, and the religion of their\nconquerors, which included or recognised all other religious of the known\nworld, should be superseded by the faith in a man recently and\nignominiously executed.  Then induce them to meditate on the universals\nof Christian Faith\u2014on Christianity taken as the sum of belief common to\nGreek and Latin, to Romanist and Protestant.  Show them that this and\nonly this is the _ordo traditionis_, _quam tradiderunt Apostoli iis\nquibus committebant ecclesias_, and which we should have been bound to\nfollow, says Iren\u00e6us, _si neque Apostoli quidem Scripturas reliquissent_.\nThis is that _regula fidei_, that _sacramentum symboli memori\u00e6 mandatum_,\nof which St. Augustine says:\u2014_noveritis hoc esse Fidei Catholic\u00e6\nfundamentum super quod edificium surrexit Ecclesi\u00e6_.  This is the _norma\nCatholici et Ecclesiastici sensus_, determined and explicated, but not\naugmented, by the Nicene Fathers, as Waterland has irrefragably shown; a\nnorm or model of Faith grounded on the solemn affirmations of the Bishops\ncollected from all parts of the Roman Empire, that this was the essential\nand unalterable Gospel received by them from their predecessors in all\nthe churches as the \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b4\u03bf\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f10\u03ba\u03ba\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u1f74 _cui_, says Iren\u00e6us,\n_assentiunt mult\u00e6 gentes eorum qui in Christum credunt sine charta et\natramento_, _scriptam habentes per Spiritum in cordibus suis salutem_,\n_et veterum traditionem diligenter custodientes_.  Let the attention of\nsuch as have been shaken by the assaults of infidelity be thus directed,\nand then tell me wherein a spiritual physician would be blameworthy, if\nhe carried on the cure by addressing his patient in this manner:\u2014\n\n\u201cAll men of learning, even learned unbelievers, admit that the greater\npart of the objections, urged in the popular works of infidelity, to this\nor that verse or chapter of the Bible, prove only the ignorance or\ndishonesty of the objectors.  But let it be supposed for a moment that a\nfew remain hitherto unanswered\u2014nay, that to your judgment and feelings\nthey appear unanswerable.  What follows?  That the Apostles\u2019 and Nicene\nCreed is not credible, the Ten Commandments not to be obeyed, the clauses\nof the Lord\u2019s Prayer not to be desired, or the Sermon on the Mount not to\nbe practised?  See how the logic would look.  David cruelly tortured the\ninhabitants of Rabbah (2 Sam. xii. 31; 1 Chron. xx. 3), and in several of\nthe Psalms he invokes the bitterest curses on his enemies: therefore it\nis not to be believed that _the love of God toward us was manifested in\nsending His only begotten Son into the world_, _that we might live\nthrough Him_ (1 John iv. 9).  Or, Abijah is said to have collected an\narmy of 400,000 men, and Jeroboam to have met him with an army of 800,000\nmen, each army consisting of chosen men (2 Chron. xiii. 3), and making\ntogether a host of 1,200,000, and Abijah to have slain 500,000 out of the\n800,000: therefore, the words which admonish us that _if God so loved\nus_, _we ought also to love one another_ (1 John iv. 11), even our\nenemies, yea, _to bless them that curse_ us, and to _do good to them that\nhate_ us (Matt. v. 44), cannot proceed from the Holy Spirit.  Or: The\nfirst six chapters of the book of Daniel contain several words and\nphrases irreconcilable with the commonly received dates, and those\nchapters and the Book of Esther have a traditional and legendary\ncharacter unlike that of the other historical books of the Old Testament;\ntherefore those other books, by contrast with which the former appear\nsuspicious, and the historical document (1 Cor. xv. 1\u20138), are not to be\ncredited!\u201d\n\nWe assuredly believe that the Bible contains all truths necessary to\nsalvation, and that therein is preserved the undoubted Word of God.  We\nassert likewise that, besides these express oracles and immediate\nrevelations, there are Scriptures which to the soul and conscience of\nevery Christian man bear irresistible evidence of the Divine Spirit\nassisting and actuating the authors; and that both these and the former\nare such as to render it morally impossible that any passage of the small\ninconsiderable portion, not included in one or other of these, can supply\neither ground or occasion of any error in faith, practice, or affection,\nexcept to those who wickedly and wilfully seek a pretext for their\nunbelief.  And if in that small portion of the Bible which stands in no\nnecessary connection with the known and especial ends and purposes of the\nScriptures, there should be a few apparent errors resulting from the\nstate of knowledge then existing\u2014errors which the best and holiest men\nmight entertain uninjured, and which without a miracle those men must\nhave entertained; if I find no such miraculous prevention asserted, and\nsee no reason for supposing it\u2014may I not, to ease the scruples of a\nperplexed inquirer, venture to say to him; \u201cBe it so.  What then?  The\nabsolute infallibility even of the inspired writers in matters altogether\nincidental and foreign to the objects and purposes of their inspiration\nis no part of my creed: and even if a professed divine should follow the\ndoctrine of the Jewish Church so far as not to attribute to the\n_Hagiographa_, in every word and sentence, the same height and fulness of\ninspiration as to the Law and the Prophets, I feel no warrant to brand\nhim as a heretic for an opinion, the admission of which disarms the\ninfidel without endangering a single article of the Catholic Faith.\u201d\u2014If\nto an unlearned but earnest and thoughtful neighbour I give the\nadvice;\u2014\u201cUse the Old Testament to express the affections excited, and to\nconfirm the faith and morals taught you, in the New, and leave all the\nrest to the students and professors of theology and Church history!  You\nprofess only to be a Christian:\u201d\u2014am I misleading my brother in Christ?\n\nThis I believe by my own dear experience\u2014that the more tranquilly an\ninquirer takes up the Bible as he would any other body of ancient\nwritings, the livelier and steadier will be his impressions of its\nsuperiority to all other books, till at length all other books and all\nother knowledge will be valuable in his eyes in proportion as they help\nhim to a better understanding of his Bible.  Difficulty after difficulty\nhas been overcome from the time that I began to study the Scriptures with\nfree and unboding spirit, under the conviction that my faith in the\nIncarnate Word and His Gospel was secure, whatever the result might\nbe;\u2014the difficulties that still remain being so few and insignificant in\nmy own estimation, that I have less personal interest in the question\nthan many of those who will most dogmatically condemn me for presuming to\nmake a question of it.\n\nSo much for scholars\u2014for men of like education and pursuits as myself.\nWith respect to Christians generally, I object to the consequence drawn\nfrom the doctrine rather than to the doctrine itself;\u2014a consequence not\nonly deducible from the premises, but actually and imperiously deduced;\naccording to which every man that can but read is to sit down to the\nconsecutive and connected perusal of the Bible under the expectation and\nassurance that the whole is within his comprehension, and that, unaided\nby note or comment, catechism or liturgical preparation, he is to find\nout for himself what he is bound to believe and practise, and that\nwhatever he conscientiously understands by what he reads is to be _his_\nreligion.  For he has found it in his Bible, and the Bible is the\nReligion of Protestants!\n\nWould I then withhold the Bible from the cottager and the artisan?\u2014Heaven\nforfend!  The fairest flower that ever clomb up a cottage window is not\nso fair a sight to my eyes as the Bible gleaming through the lower panes.\nLet it but be read as by such men it used to be read; when they came to\nit as to a ground covered with manna, even the bread which the Lord had\ngiven for his people to eat; where he that gathered much had nothing\nover, and he that gathered little had no lack.  They gathered every man\naccording to his eating.  They came to it as to a treasure-house of\nScriptures; each visitant taking what was precious and leaving as\nprecious for others;\u2014Yea, more, says our worthy old Church-historian,\nFuller, where \u201cthe same man at several times may in his apprehension\nprefer several Scriptures as best, formerly most affected with one place,\nfor the present more delighted with another, and afterwards, conceiving\ncomfort therein not so clear, choose other places as more pregnant and\npertinent to his purpose.  Thus God orders it, that divers men (and\nperhaps the same man at divers times), make use of all His gifts,\ngleaning and gathering comfort as it is scattered through the whole field\nof the Scripture.\u201d\n\n                                                                 Farewell.\n\n\n\nLETTER VII.\n\n\nYOU are now, my dear friend, in possession of my whole mind on this\npoint\u2014one thing only excepted which has weighed with me more than all the\nrest, and which I have therefore reserved for my concluding letter.  This\nis the impelling principle or way of thinking, which I have in most\ninstances noticed in the assertors of what I have ventured to call\nBibliolatry, and which I believe to be the main ground of its prevalence\nat this time, and among men whose religious views are anything rather\nthan enthusiastic.  And I here take occasion to declare, that my\nconviction of the danger and injury of this principle was and is my chief\nmotive for bringing the doctrine itself into question; the main error of\nwhich consists in the confounding of two distinct conceptions\u2014revelation\nby the Eternal Word, and actuation of the Holy Spirit.  The former indeed\nis not always or necessarily united with the latter\u2014the prophecy of\nBalaam is an instance of the contrary,\u2014but yet being ordinarily, and only\nnot always, so united, the term, \u201cInspiration,\u201d has acquired a double\nsense.\n\nFirst, the term is used in the sense of Information miraculously\ncommunicated by voice or vision; and secondly, where without any sensible\naddition or infusion, the writer or speaker uses and applies his existing\ngifts of power and knowledge under the predisposing, aiding, and\ndirecting actuation of God\u2019s Holy Spirit.  Now, between the first sense,\nthat is, inspired revelation, and the highest degree of that grace and\ncommunion with the Spirit which the Church under all circumstances, and\nevery regenerate member of the Church of Christ, is permitted to hope and\ninstructed to pray for, there is a positive difference of kind\u2014a chasm,\nthe pretended overleaping of which constitutes imposture, or betrays\ninsanity.  Of the first kind are the Law and the Prophets, no jot or\ntittle of which can pass unfulfilled, and the substance and last\ninterpretation of which passes not away; for they wrote of Christ, and\nshadowed out the everlasting Gospel.  But with regard to the second,\nneither the holy writers\u2014the so-called _Hagiographi_\u2014themselves, nor any\nfair interpretations of Scripture, assert any such absolute diversity, or\nenjoin the belief of any greater difference of degree, than the\nexperience of the Christian World, grounded on and growing with the\ncomparison of these Scriptures with other works holden in honour by the\nChurches, has established.  And _this_ difference I admit, and doubt not\nthat it has in every generation been rendered evident to as many as read\nthese Scriptures under the gracious influence of the spirit in which they\nwere written.\n\nBut alas! this is not sufficient; this cannot but be vague and\nunsufficing to those with whom the Christian religion is wholly\nobjective, to the exclusion of all its correspondent subjective.  It must\nappear vague, I say, to those whose Christianity as matter of belief is\nwholly external, and like the objects of sense, common to all alike;\naltogether historical, an _opus operatum_\u2014its existing and present\noperancy in no respect differing from any other fact of history, and not\nat all modified by the supernatural principle in which it had its origin\nin time.  Divines of this persuasion are actually, though without their\nown knowledge, in a state not dissimilar to that into which the Latin\nChurch sank deeper amid deeper from the sixth to the fourteenth century;\nduring which time religion was likewise merely objective and\nsuperstitious\u2014a letter proudly emblazoned and illuminated, but yet a dead\nletter that was to be read by its own outward glories without the light\nof the Spirit in the mind of the believer.  The consequence was too\nglaring not to be anticipated, and, if possible, prevented.  Without that\nspirit in each true believer, whereby we know the spirit of truth and the\nspirit of error in all things appertaining to salvation, the consequence\nmust be\u2014so many men, so many minds!  And what was the antidote which the\nPriests and Rabbis of this purely objective Faith opposed to this peril?\nWhy, an objective, outward Infallibility, concerning which, however, the\ndifferences were scarcely less or fewer than those which it was to heal;\nan Infallibility which taken literally and unqualified, became the source\nof perplexity to the well-disposed, of unbelief to the wavering, and of\nscoff and triumph to the common enemy, and which was, therefore, to be\nqualified and limited, and then it meant so munch and so little that to\nmen of plain understandings and single hearts it meant nothing at all.\nIt resided here.  No! there.  No! but in a third subject.  Nay! neither\nhere, nor there, nor in the third, but in all three conjointly!\n\nBut even this failed to satisfy; and what was the final resource\u2014the\ndoctrine of those who would not be called a Protestant Church, but in\nwhich doctrine the Fathers of Protestantism in England would have found\nlittle other fault, than that it might be affirmed as truly of the\ndecisions of any other bishop as of the Bishop of Rome?  The final\nresource was to restore what ought never to have been removed\u2014the\ncorrespondent subjective, that is, the assent and confirmation of the\nSpirit promised to all true believers, as proved and manifested in the\nreception of such decision by the Church Universal in all its rightful\nmembers.\n\nI comprise and conclude the sum of my conviction in this one sentence.\nRevealed religion (and I know of no religion not revealed) is in its\nhighest contemplation the unity, that is, the identity or co-inherence,\nof subjective and objective.  It is in itself, and irrelatively at once\ninward life and truth, and outward fact and luminary.  But as all power\nmanifests itself in the harmony of correspondent opposites, each\nsupposing and supporting the other; so has religion its objective, or\nhistoric and ecclesiastical pole and its subjective, or spiritual and\nindividual pole.  In the miracles and miraculous parts of religion\u2014both\nin the first communication of Divine truths, and in the promulgation of\nthe truths thus communicated\u2014we have the union of the two, that is, the\nsubjective and supernatural displayed objectively\u2014outwardly and\nphenomenally\u2014_as_ subjective and supernatural.\n\nLastly, in the Scriptures, as far as they are not included in the above\nas miracles, and in the mind of the believing and regenerate reader and\nmeditater, there is proved to us the reciprocity or reciprocation of the\nspirit as subjective and objective, which in conformity with the scheme\nproposed by me, in aid of distinct conception and easy recollection, I\nhave named the Indifference.  What I mean by this, a familiar\nacquaintance with the more popular parts of Luther\u2019s works, especially\nhis \u201cCommentaries,\u201d and the delightful volume of his \u201cTable Talk,\u201d would\ninterpret for me better than I can do for myself.  But I do my best, when\nI say that no Christian probationer, who is earnestly working out his\nsalvation, and experiences the conflict of the spirit with the evil and\nthe infirmity within him and around him, can find his own state brought\nbefore him, and, as it were, antedated, in writings reverend even for\ntheir antiquity and enduring permanence, and far more and more abundantly\nconsecrated by the reverence, love, and grateful testimonies of good men,\nthrough the long succession of ages, in every generation, and under all\nstates of minds and circumstances of fortune, that no man, I say, can\nrecognise his own inward experiences in such writings, and not find an\nobjectiveness, a confirming and assuring outwardness, and all the main\ncharacters of reality reflected therefrom on the spirit, working in\nhimself and in his own thoughts, emotions, and aspirations, warring\nagainst sin and the motions of sin.  The unsubstantial, insulated self\npasses away as a stream; but these are the shadows and reflections of the\nRock of Ages, and of the Tree of Life that starts forth from its side.\n\nOn the other hand, as much of reality, as much of objective truth, as the\nScriptures communicate to the subjective experiences of the believer, so\nmuch of present life, of living and effective import, do these\nexperiences give to the letter of these Scriptures.  In the one _the\nSpirit itself beareth witness with our spirit_, that we have received the\n_spirit of adoption_; in the other our spirit bears witness to the power\nof the Word, that it is indeed the Spirit that proceedeth from God.  If\nin the holy men thus actuated all imperfection of knowledge, all\nparticipation in the mistakes and limits of their several ages had been\nexcluded, how could these writings be or become the history and example,\nthe echo and more lustrous image of the work and warfare of the\nsanctifying principle in us?  If after all this, and in spite of all\nthis, some captious litigator should lay hold of a text here or there\u2014St.\nPaul\u2019s _cloak left at Troas with Carpus_, or a verse from the Canticles,\nand ask, \u201cOf what spiritual use is this?\u201d\u2014the answer is ready:\u2014It proves\nto us that nothing can be so trifling, as not to supply an evil heart\nwith a pretext for unbelief.\n\nArchbishop Leighton has observed that the Church has its extensive and\nintensive states, and that they seldom fall together.  Certain it is,\nthat since kings have been her nursing fathers, and queens her nursing\nmothers, our theologians seem to act in the spirit of fear rather than in\nthat of faith; and too often, instead of inquiring after the truth in the\nconfidence that whatever is truth must be fruitful of good to all who\n_are in Him that is true_, they seek with vain precautions to _guard\nagainst the possible inferences_ which perverse and distempered minds may\npretend, whose whole Christianity\u2014do what we will\u2014is and will remain\nnothing but a pretence.\n\nYou have now my entire mind on this momentous question, the grounds on\nwhich it rests, and the motives which induce me to make it known; and I\nnow conclude by repeating my request: Correct me, or confirm me.\n\n                                                                 Farewell.\n\n\n\n\nESSAY ON FAITH.\n\n\nFAITH may be defined as fidelity to our own being, so far as such being\nis not and cannot become an object of the senses; and hence, by clear\ninference or implication to being generally, as far as the same is not\nthe object of the senses; and again to whatever is affirmed or understood\nas the condition, or concomitant, or consequence of the same.  This will\nbe best explained by an instance or example.  That I am conscious of\nsomething within me peremptorily commanding me to do unto others as I\nwould they should do unto me; in other words a categorical (that is,\nprimary and unconditional) imperative; that the maxim (_regula maxima_,\nor supreme rule) of my actions, both inward and outward, should be such\nas I could, without any contradiction arising therefrom, will to be the\nlaw of all moral and rational beings.  This, I say, is a fact of which I\nam no less conscious (though in a different way), nor less assured, than\nI am of any appearance presented by my outward senses.  Nor is this all;\nbut in the very act of being conscious of this in my own nature, I know\nthat it is a fact of which all men either are or ought to be conscious; a\nfact, the ignorance of which constitutes either the non-personality of\nthe ignorant, or the guilt; in which latter case the ignorance is\nequivalent to knowledge wilfully darkened.  I know that I possess this\nknowledge as a man, and not as Samuel Taylor Coleridge; hence, knowing\nthat consciousness of this fact is the root of all other consciousness,\nand the only practical contradistinction of man from the brutes, we name\nit the conscience, by the natural absence or presumed presence of which\nthe law, both Divine and human, determines whether X Y Z be a thing or a\nperson; the conscience being that which never to have had places the\nobjects in the same order of things as the brutes, for example, idiots,\nand to have lost which implies either insanity or apostasy.  Well, this\nwe have affirmed is a fact of which every honest man is as fully assured\nas of his seeing, hearing, or smelling.  But though the former assurance\ndoes not differ from the latter in the degree, it is altogether diverse\nin the kind; the senses being morally passive, while the conscience is\nessentially connected with the will, though not always, nor indeed in any\ncase, except after frequent attempts and aversions of will dependent on\nthe choice.  Thence we call the presentations of the senses impressions,\nthose of the conscience commands or dictates.  In the senses we find our\nreceptivity, and as far as our personal being is concerned, we are\npassive, but in the fact of the conscience we are not only agents, but it\nis by this alone that we know ourselves to be such\u2014nay, that our very\npassiveness in this latter is an act of passiveness, and that we are\npatient (_patientes_), not, as in the other case, _simply_ passive.\n\nThe result is the consciousness of responsibility, and the proof is\nafforded by the inward experience of the diversity between regret and\nremorse.\n\nIf I have sound ears, and my companion speaks to me with a due proportion\nof voice, I may persuade him that I did not hear, but cannot deceive\nmyself.  But when my conscience speaks to me, I can by repeated efforts\nrender myself finally insensible; to which add this other difference,\nnamely, that to make myself deaf is one and the same thing with making my\nconscience dumb, till at length I became unconscious of my conscience.\nFrequent are the instances in which it is suspended, and, as it were,\ndrowned in the inundation of the appetites, passions, and imaginations to\nwhich I have resigned myself, making use of my will in order to abandon\nmy free-will; and there are not, I fear, examples wanting of the\nconscience being utterly destroyed, or of the passage of wickedness into\nmadness; that species of madness, namely, in which the reason is lost.\nFor so long as the reason continues, so long must the conscience exist,\neither as a good conscience or as a bad conscience.\n\nIt appears, then, that even the very first step\u2014that the initiation of\nthe process, the becoming conscious of a conscience\u2014partakes of the\nnature of an act.  It is an act in and by which we take upon ourselves an\nallegiance, and consequently the obligation of fealty; and this fealty or\nfidelity implying the power of being unfaithful, it is the first and\nfundamental sense of faith.  It is likewise the commencement of\nexperience, and the result of all other experience.  In other words,\nconscience in this its simplest form, must be supposed in order to\nconsciousness, that is, to human consciousness.  Brutes may be and are\nscions, but those beings only who have an I, _scire possunt hoc vel illud\nuna cum seipsis_; that is, _conscire vel scire aliquid mecum_, or to know\na thing in relation to myself, and in the act of knowing myself as acted\nupon by that something.\n\nNow the third person could never have been distinguished from the first\nbut by means of the second.  There can be no He without a previous Thou.\nMuch less could an I exist for us except as it exists during the\nsuspension of the will, as in dreams; and the nature of brutes may be\nbest understood by considering them as somnambulists.  This is a deep\nmeditation, though the position is capable of the strictest proof,\nnamely, that there can be no I without a Thou, and that a Thou is only\npossible by an equation in which I is taken as equal to Thou, and yet not\nthe same.  And this, again, is only possible by putting them in\nopposition as correspondent opposites, or correlatives.  In order to\nthis, a something must be affirmed in the one which is rejected in the\nother, and this something is the will.  I do not will to consider myself\nas equal to myself, for in the very act of constructing myself _I_, I\ntake it as the same, and therefore as incapable of comparison, that is,\nof any application of the will.  If, then, I _minus_ the will be the\n_thesis_, Thou, _plus_ will, must be the _antithesis_, but the equation\nof Thou with I, by means of a free act, negativing the sameness in order\nto establish the equality, is the true definition of conscience.  But as\nwithout a Thou there can be no You, so without a You no They, These, or\nThose; and as all these conjointly form the materials and subjects of\nconsciousness and the conditions of experience, it is evident that\nconscience is the root of all consciousness\u2014_\u00e0 fortiori_, the\nprecondition of all experience\u2014and that the conscience cannot have been\nin its first revelation deduced from experience.\n\nSoon, however, experience comes into play.  We learn that there are other\nimpulses beside the dictates of conscience, that there are powers within\nus and without us ready to usurp the throne of conscience, and busy in\ntempting us to transfer our allegiance.  We learn that there are many\nthings contrary to conscience, and therefore to be rejected and utterly\nexcluded, and many that can coexist with its supremacy only by being\nsubjugated as beasts of burthen; and others again, as for instance the\nsocial tendernesses and affections, and the faculties and excitations of\nthe intellect, which must be at least subordinated.  The preservation of\nour loyalty and fealty under these trials, and against these rivals,\nconstitutes the second sense of faith; and we shall need but one more\npoint of view to complete its full import.  This is the consideration of\nwhat is presupposed in the human conscience.  The answer is ready.  As in\nthe equation of the correlative I and Thou, one of the twin constituents\nis to be taken as _plus_ will, the other as _minus_ will, so is it here;\nand it is obvious that the reason or _super_-individual of each man,\nwhereby he is a man, is the factor we are to take as _minus_ will, and\nthat the individual will or personalising principle of free agency\n(\u201carbitrement\u201d is Milton\u2019s word) is the factor marked _plus_ will; and\nagain, that as the identity or co-inherence of the absolute will and the\nreason, is the peculiar character of God, so is the _synthesis_ of the\nindividual will and the common reason, by the subordination of the former\nto the latter, the only possible likeness or image of the _prothesis_ or\nidentity, and therefore the required proper character of man.\nConscience, then, is a witness respecting the identity of the will and\nthe reason, effected by the self-subordination of the will or self to the\nreason, as equal to or representing the will of God.  But the personal\nwill is a factor in other moral _synthesis_, for example, appetite _plus_\npersonal will = sensuality; lust of power, _plus_ personal will =\nambition, and so on, equally as in the _synthesis_ on which the\nconscience is grounded.  Not this, therefore, but the other _synthesis_,\nmust supply the specific character of the conscience, and we must enter\ninto an analysis of reason.  Such as the nature and objects of the reason\nare, such must be the functions and objects of the conscience.  And the\nformer we shall best learn by recapitulating those constituents of the\ntotal man which are either contrary to or disparate from the reason.\n\nI.  Reason, and the proper objects of reason, are wholly alien from\nsensation.  Reason is supersensual, and its antagonist is appetite, and\nthe objects of appetite the lust of the flesh.\n\nII.  Reason and its objects do not appertain to the world of the senses,\ninward or outward; that is, they partake not of sense or fancy.  Reason\nis supersensuous, and here its antagonist is the lust of the eye.\n\nIII.  Reason and its objects are not things of reflection, association,\ndiscursion, discourse in the old sense of the word as opposed to\nintuition; \u201cdiscursive or intuitive,\u201d as Milton has it.  Reason does not\nindeed necessarily exclude the finite, either in time or in space, but it\nincludes them _eminenter_.  Thus the prime mover of the material universe\nis affirmed to contain all motion as its cause, but not to be, or to\nsuffer, motion in itself.\n\nReason is not the faculty of the finite.  But here I must premise the\nfollowing.  The faculty of the finite is that which reduces the confused\nimpressions of sense to their essential forms\u2014quantity, quality,\nrelation, and in these action and reaction, cause and effect, and the\nlike; thus raises the materials furnished by the senses and sensations\ninto objects of reflection, and so makes experience possible.  Without\nit, man\u2019s representative powers would be a delirium, a chaos, a scudding\ncloudage of shapes; and it is therefore most appropriately called the\nunderstanding, or substantiative faculty.  Our elder metaphysicians, down\nto Hobbes inclusively, called this likewise discourse, _discuvsus\ndiscursio_, from its mode of action as not staying at any one object, but\nrunning, as it were, to and fro to abstract, generalise, and classify.\nNow when this faculty is employed in the service of the pure reason, it\nbrings out the necessary and universal truths contained in the infinite\ninto distinct contemplation by the pure act of the sensuous\nimagination\u2014that is, in the production of the forms of space and time\nabstracted from all corporeity, and likewise of the inherent forms of the\nunderstanding itself abstractedly from the consideration of particulars,\nas in the case of geometry, numeral mathematics, universal logic, and\npure metaphysics.  The discursive faculty then becomes what our\nShakespeare, with happy precision, calls \u201cdiscourse of reason.\u201d\n\nWe will now take up our reasoning again from the words \u201cmotion in\nitself.\u201d\n\nIt is evident, then, that the reason as the irradiative power, and the\nrepresentative of the infinite, judges the understanding as the faculty\nof the finite, and cannot without error be judged by it.  When this is\nattempted, or when the understanding in its _synthesis_ with the personal\nwill, usurps the supremacy of the reason, or affects to supersede the\nreason, it is then what St. Paul calls the mind of the flesh (\u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\n\u03c3\u03b1\u03c1\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2), or the wisdom of this world.  The result is, that the reason is\nsuperfinite; and in this relation, its antagonist is the insubordinate\nunderstanding, or mind of the flesh.\n\nIV.  Reason, as one with the absolute will (_In the beginning was the\nLogos_, _and the Logos was with God_, _and the Logos was God_), and\ntherefore for man the certain representative of the will of God, is above\nthe will of man as an individual will.  We have seen in III. that it\nstands in antagonism to all mere particulars; but here it stands in\nantagonism to all mere individual interests as so many selves, to the\npersonal will as seeking its objects in the manifestation of itself for\nitself\u2014_sit pro ratione voluntas_;\u2014whether this be realised with\nadjuncts, as in the lust of the flesh, and in the lust of the eye; or\nwithout adjuncts, as in the thirst and pride of power, despotism,\negoistic ambition.  The fourth antagonist, then, of reason, is the lust\nof the will.\n\nCorollary.  Unlike a million of tigers, a million of men is very\ndifferent from a million times one man.  Each man in a numerous society\nis not only coexistent with, but virtually organised into, the multitude\nof which he is an integral part.  His _idem_ is modified by the _alter_.\nAnd there arise impulses and objects from this _synthesis_ of the _alter\net idem_, myself and my neighbour.  This, again, is strictly analogous to\nwhat takes place in the vital organisation of the individual man.  The\ncerebral system of the nerves has its correspondent _antithesis_ in the\nabdominal system: but hence arises a _synthesis_ of the two in the\npectoral system as the intermediate, and, like a drawbridge, at once\nconductor and boundary.  In the latter, as objectised by the former,\narise the emotions, the affections, and, in one word, the passions, as\ndistinguished from the cognitions and appetites.  Now, the reason has\nbeen shown to be superindividual, generally, and therefore not less so\nwhen the form of an individualisation subsists in the _alter_ than when\nit is confined to the _idem_; not less when the emotions have their\nconscious or believed object in another, than when their subject is the\nindividual personal self.  For though these emotions, affections,\nattachments, and the like, are the prepared ladder by which the lower\nnature is taken up into, and made to partake of, the highest room\u2014as we\nare taught to give a feeling of reality to the higher _per medium\ncommune_ with the lower, and thus gradually to see the reality of the\nhigher (namely, the objects of reason), and finally to know that the\nlatter are indeed, and pre-eminently real, as if you love your earthly\nparents whom you see, by these means you will learn to love your Heavenly\nFather who is invisible;\u2014yet this holds good only so far as the reason is\nthe president, and its objects the ultimate aim; and cases may arise in\nwhich the Christ as the Logos, or Redemptive Reason, declares, _He that\nloves father or another more than Me_, _is not worthy of Me_; nay, he\nthat can permit his emotions to rise to an equality with the universal\nreason, is in enmity with that reason.  Here, then, reason appears as the\nlove of God; and its antagonist is the attachment to individuals wherever\nit exists in diminution of, or in competition with, the love which is\nreason.\n\nIn these five paragraphs I have enumerated and explained the several\npowers or forces belonging or incidental to human nature, which in all\nmatters of reason the man is bound either to subjugate or subordinate to\nreason.  The application to faith follows of its own accord.  The first\nor most indefinite sense of faith is fidelity: then fidelity under\nprevious contract or particular moral obligation.  In this sense faith is\nfealty to a rightful superior: faith is the duty of a faithful subject to\na rightful governor.  Then it is allegiance in active service; fidelity\nto the liege lord under circumstances, and amid the temptations of\nusurpation, rebellion, and intestine discord.  Next we seek for that\nrightful superior on our duties to whom all our duties to all other\nsuperiors, on our faithfulness to whom all our bounden relations to all\nother objects of fidelity, are founded.  We must inquire after that duty\nin which all others find their several degrees and dignities, and from\nwhich they derive their obligative force.  We are to find a superior,\nwhose rights, including our duties, are presented to the mind in the very\nidea of that Supreme Being, whose sovereign prerogatives are predicates\nimplied in the subjects, as the essential properties of a circle are\nco-assumed in the first assumption of a circle, consequently underived,\nunconditional, and as rationally unsusceptible, so probably prohibitive,\nof all further question.  In this sense, then, faith is fidelity, fealty,\nallegiance of the moral nature to God, in opposition to all usurpation,\nand in resistance to all temptation to the placing any other claim above\nor equal with our fidelity to God.\n\nThe will of God is the last ground and final aim of all our duties, and\nto that the whole man is to be harmonised by subordination, subjugation,\nor suppression alike in commission and omission.  But the will of God,\nwhich is one with the supreme intelligence, is revealed to man through\nthe conscience.  But the conscience, which consists in an inappellable\nbearing-witness to the truth and reality of our reason, may legitimately\nbe construed with the term reason, so far as the conscience is\nprescriptive; while as approving or condemning, it is the consciousness\nof the subordination or insubordination, the harmony or discord, of the\npersonal will of man to and with the representative of the will of God.\nThis brings me to the last and fullest sense of faith, that is, the\nobedience of the individual will to the reason, in the lust of the flesh\nas opposed to the supersensual; in the lust of the eye as opposed to the\nsupersensuous; in the pride of the understanding as opposed to the\ninfinite; in the \u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b1\u03c1\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2 in contrariety to the spiritual truth; in\nthe lust of the personal will as opposed to the absolute and universal;\nand in the love of the creature, as far as it is opposed to the love\nwhich is one with the reason, namely, the love of God.\n\nThus, then, to conclude.  Faith subsists in the _synthesis_ of the Reason\nand the individual Will.  By virtue of the latter therefore, it must be\nan energy, and, inasmuch as it relates to the whole moral man, it must be\nexerted in each and all of his constituents or incidents, faculties and\ntendencies;\u2014it must be a total, not a partial\u2014a continuous, not a\ndesultory or occasional\u2014energy.  And by virtue of the former, that is\nReason, Faith must be a Light, a form of knowing, a beholding of truth.\nIn the incomparable words of the Evangelist, therefore, _Faith must be a\nLight originating in the Logos_, _or the substantial Reason_, _which is\nco-eternal and one with the Holy Will_, _and which Light is at the same\ntime the Life of men_.  Now, as _Life_ is here the sum or collective of\nall moral and spiritual acts, in suffering, doing, and being, so is Faith\nthe source and the sum, the energy and the principle of the fidelity of\nman to God, by the subordination of his human Will, in all provinces of\nhis nature, to his Reason, as the sum of spiritual Truth, representing\nand manifesting the Will Divine.\n\n\n\n\nNOTES ON THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.\n\n\nPRAYER.\n\n\nA MAN may pray night and day, and yet deceive himself; but no man can be\nassured of his sincerity who does not pray.  Prayer is faith passing into\nact; a union of the will and the intellect realising in an intellectual\nact.  It is the whole man that prays.  Less than this is wishing, or\nlip-work; a charm or a mummery.  _Pray always_, says the apostle: that\nis, have the habit of prayer, turning your thoughts into acts by\nconnecting them with the idea of the redeeming God, and even so\nreconverting your actions into thoughts.\n\n\n\nTHE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST.\n\n\nThe best preparation for taking this sacrament, better than any or all of\nthe books or tracts composed for this end, is to read over and over\nagain, and often on your knees\u2014at all events with a kneeling and praying\nheart\u2014the Gospel according to St. John, till your mind is familiarised to\nthe contemplation of Christ, the Redeemer and Mediator of mankind, yea,\nof every creature, as the living and self-subsisting Word, the very truth\nof all true being, and the very being of all enduring truth; the reality,\nwhich is the substance and unity of all reality; _the light which\nlighteth every man_, so that what we call reason is itself a light from\nthat light, _lumen a luce_, as the Latin more distinctly expresses this\nfact.  But it is not merely light, but therein is life; and it is the\nlife of Christ, the co-eternal Son of God, that is the only true\nlife-giving light of men.  We are assured, and we believe, that Christ is\nGod; God manifested in the flesh.  As God, he must be present entire in\nevery creature;\u2014(for how can God, or indeed any spirit, exist in\nparts?)\u2014but he is said to dwell in the regenerate, to come to them who\nreceive him by faith in his name, that is, in his power and influence;\nfor this is the meaning of the word \u201cname\u201d in Scripture when applied to\nGod or his Christ.  Where true belief exists, Christ is not only present\nwith or among us;\u2014for so he is in every man, even the most wicked;\u2014but to\nus and for us.  _That was the true light_, _which lighteth every man that\ncometh into the world_.  _He was in the world_, _and the world was made\nby him_, _and the world knew him not_.  _But as many as received him_,\n_to them gave he power to become the sons of God_, _even to them that\nbelieve in his name_; _which were born_, _not of blood_, _nor of the will\nof the flesh_, _nor of the will of man_, _but of God_.  _And the Word was\nmade flesh and dwelt among us_.  John i. 9\u201314.  Again\u2014_We will come unto\nhim_, _and make our abode with him_.  John xiv. 23.  As truly and as\nreally as your soul resides constitutively in your living body,\npersonally and substantially does Christ dwell in every regenerate man.\n\nAfter this course of study, you may then take up and peruse sentence by\nsentence the communion service, the best of all comments on the\nScriptures appertaining to this mystery.  And this is the preparation\nwhich will prove, with God\u2019s grace, the surest preventive of, or antidote\nagainst, the freezing poison, the lethargising hemlock, of the doctrine\nof the Sacramentaries, according to whom the Eucharist is a mere\npractical metaphor, in which things are employed instead of articulated\nsounds for the exclusive purpose of recalling to our minds the historical\nfact of our Lord\u2019s crucifixion; in short\u2014(the profaneness is with them,\nnot with me)\u2014just the same as when Protestants drink a glass of wine to\nthe glorious memory of William III.!  True it is that the remembrance is\none end of the sacrament; but it is, _Do this in remembrance of me_,\u2014of\nall that Christ was and is, hath done and is still doing for fallen\nmankind, and, of course, of his crucifixion inclusively, but not of his\ncrucifixion alone.  14 December, 1827.\n\n\n\nCOMPANION TO THE ALTAR.\n\n\nFirst, then, that we may come to this heavenly feast holy, and adorned\nwith the wedding garment, Matt. xxii. ii, we must search our hearts, and\nexamine our consciences, not only till we see our sins, but until we hate\nthem.\n\nBut what if a man, seeing his sin, earnestly desire to hate it?  Shall he\nnot at the altar offer up at once his desire, and the yet lingering sin,\nand seek for strength?  Is not this sacrament medicine as well as food?\nIs it an end only, and not likewise the means?  Is it merely the\ntriumphal feast; or is it not even more truly a blessed refreshment for\nand during the conflict?\n\nThis confession of sins must not be in general terms only, that we are\nsinners with the rest of mankind, but it must be a special declaration to\nGod of all our most heinous sins in thought, word, and deed.\n\nLuther was of a different judgment.  He would have us feel and groan\nunder our sinfulness and utter incapability of redeeming ourselves from\nthe bondage, rather than hazard the pollution of our imaginations by a\nrecapitulation and renewing of sins and their images in detail.  Do not,\nhe says, stand picking the flaws out one by one, but plunge into the\nriver and drown them!\u2014I venture to be of Luther\u2019s doctrine.\n\n\n\nCOMMUNION SERVICE.\n\n\nIn the first Exhortation, before the words \u201cmeritorious Cross and\nPassion,\u201d I should propose to insert \u201chis assumption of humanity, his\nincarnation, and.\u201d  Likewise, a little lower down, after the word\n\u201csustenance,\u201d I would insert \u201cas.\u201d  For not in that sacrament\nexclusively, but in all the acts of assimilative faith, of which the\nEucharist is a solemn, eminent, and representative instance, an instance\nand the symbol, Christ is our spiritual food and sustenance.\n\n\n\nMARRIAGE SERVICE.\n\n\nMarriage, simply as marriage, is not the means \u201cfor the procreation of\nchildren,\u201d but for the humanisation of the offspring procreated.\nTherefore, in the Declaration at the beginning, after the words\n\u201cprocreation of children,\u201d I would insert, \u201cand as the means of securing\nto the children procreated enduring care, and that they may be,\u201d &c.\n\n\n\nCOMMUNION OF THE SICK.\n\n\nThird rubric at the end.\n\n    But if a man, either by reason of extremity of sickness, &c.\n\nI think this rubric, in what I conceive to be its true meaning, a\nprecious doctrine, as fully acquitting our Church of all Romish\nsuperstition, respecting the nature of the Eucharist, in relation to the\nwhole scheme of man\u2019s redemption.  But the latter part of it\u2014\u201che doth eat\nand drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ profitably to his\nsoul\u2019s health, although he do not receive the sacrament with his\nmouth\u201d\u2014seems to me very incautiously expressed, and scarcely to be\nreconciled with the Church\u2019s own definition of a sacrament in general.\nFor in such a case, where is \u201cthe outward and visible sign of the inward\nand spiritual grace given?\u201d\n\n\n\nXI.  SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.\n\n\nEpistle.\u2014l Cor. xv. 1.\n\n    _Brethren_, _I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto\n    you_.\n\nWhy should the obsolete, though faithful, Saxon translation of \u03b5\u1f50\u03b1\u03b3\u03b3\u03ad\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd\nbe retained?  Why not \u201cgood tidings?\u201d  Why thus change a most appropriate\nand intelligible designation of the matter into a mere conventional name\nof a particular book?\n\nIb.\n\n    \u2014_how that Christ died for our sins_.\n\nBut the meaning of \u1f51\u03c0\u1f72\u03c1 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f01\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u03b9\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f21\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd is, that Christ died through\nthe sins, and for the sinners.  He died through our sins, and we live\nthrough his righteousness.\n\nGospel\u2014Luke xviii. 14.\n\n    _This man went down to his house justified rather than the other_.\n\nNot simply justified, observe; but justified rather than the other, \u1f24\n\u1f10\u03ba\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2,\u2014that is, less remote from salvation.\n\n\n\nXXV.  SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.\n\n\nCollect.\n\n    \u2014that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may\n    of thee be plenteously rewarded.\n\nRather\u2014\u201cthat with that enlarged capacity, which without thee we cannot\nacquire, there may likewise be an increase of the gift, which from thee\nalone we can wholly receive.\u201d\n\n\n\nPs. VIII.\n\n\n    V. 2.  _Out of the mouth of very babes and sucklings hast thou\n    ordained strength_, _because of thine enemies_; _that thou mightest\n    still the enemy and the avenger_.\n\nTo the dispensations of the twilight dawn, to the first messengers of the\nredeeming word, the yet lisping utterers of light and life, a strength\nand power were given _because of the enemies_, greater and of more\nimmediate influence, than to the seers and proclaimers of a clearer day:\neven as the first reappearing crescent of the eclipsed moon shines for\nmen with a keener brilliance than the following larger segments,\npreviously to its total emersion.\n\nIb. v. 5.\n\n    _Thou madest him lower than the angels_, _to crown him with glory and\n    worship_.\n\nPower + idea = angel.\n\nIdea\u2014power = man, or Prometheus.\n\n\n\nPs.  LXVIII.\n\n\n    V. 34.  _Ascribe ye the power to God over Israel_: _his worship and\n    strength is in the clouds_.\n\nThe \u201cclouds,\u201d in the symbolical language of the Scriptures, mean the\nevents and course of things, seemingly effects of human will or chance,\nbut overruled by Providence.\n\n\n\nPs.  LXXII.\n\n\nThis psalm admits no other interpretation but of Christ, as the Jehovah\nincarnate.  In any other sense it would be a specimen of more than\nPersian or Moghul hyperbole, and bombast, of which there is no other\ninstance in Scripture, and which no Christian would dare to attribute to\nan inspired writer.  We know, too, that the elder Jewish Church ranked it\namong the Messianic Psalms.\u2014N.B.  The word in St. John and the Name of\nthe Most High in the Psalms are equivalent terms.\n\n    V. 1.  _Give the king thy judgments_, _O God_; _and thy righteousness\n    unto the king\u2019s son_.\n\nGod of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, the only begotten, the\nSon of God and God, King of Kings, and the Son of the King of Kings!\n\n\n\nPs. LXXIV.\n\n\n    V. 2.  _O think upon thy congregation_, _whom thou hast purchased and\n    redeemed of old_.\n\nThe Lamb sacrificed from the beginning of the world, the God-Man, the\nJudge, the self-promised Redeemer to Adam in the garden!\n\n    V. 15.  _Thou smotest the heads of the Leviathan in pieces_; _and\n    gavest him to be meat for the people in the wilderness_.\n\nDoes this allude to any real tradition?  The Psalms appears to have been\ncomposed shortly before the captivity of Judah.\n\n\n\nPs. LXXXII. vv. 6\u20137.\n\n\nThe reference which our Lord made to these mysterious verses gives them\nan especial interest.  The first apostasy, the fall of the angels, is,\nperhaps, intimated.\n\n\n\nPs. LXXXVII.\n\n\nI would fain understand this Psalm; but first I must collate it word by\nword with the original Hebrew.  It seems clearly Messianic.\n\n\n\nPs. LXXXVIII.\n\n\n    Vv. 10\u201312.  _Dost thou show wonders among the dead_, _or shall the\n    dead rise up again and praise thee_? _&c._\n\nCompare Ezekiel xxxvii.\n\n\n\nPs. CIV.\n\n\nI think the Bible version might with advantage be substituted for this,\nwhich in some parts is scarcely intelligible.\n\n    V. 6.\u2014_the waters stand in the hills_.\n\nNo; _stood above the mountains_.  The reference is to the Deluge.\n\n\n\nPs. CV.\n\n\n    V. 3.\u2014_Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord_.\n\nIf even to seek the Lord be joy, what will it be to find him?  Seek me, O\nLord, that I may be found by thee!\n\n\n\nPs. CX.\n\n\nV. 2.\u2014_The Lord shall send the rod of thy power out of Sion_; (saying)\n_Rule_, &c.\n\nV. 3.  Understand\u2014\u201cThy people shall offer themselves willingly in the day\nof conflict in holy clothing, in their best array, in their best arms and\naccoutrements.  As the dew from the womb of the morning, in number and\nbrightness like dew-drops, so shall be thy youth, or the youth of thee,\nthe young volunteer warriors.\u201d\n\nV. 5.  \u201cHe shall shake,\u201d concuss, _concutiet reges die ir\u00e6 su\u00e6_.\n\nV. 6.  For \u201csmite in sunder, or wound the heads;\u201d some word answering to\nthe Latin _conquassare_.\n\nV. 7.  For \u201ctherefore,\u201d translate \u201cthen shall he lift up his head again;\u201d\nthat is, as a man languid and sinking from thirst and fatigue after\nrefreshment.\n\nN.B.\u2014I see no poetic discrepancy between vv. 1 and 5.\n\n\n\nPs. CXVIII.\n\n\nTo be interpreted of Christ\u2019s Church.\n\n\n\nPs. CXXVI.\n\n\n    V. 5.  As the rivers in the south.\n\nDoes this allude to the periodical rains?\n\nAs a transparency on some night of public rejoicing, seen by common day,\nwith the lamps from within removed\u2014even such would the Psalms be to me\nuninterpreted by the Gospel.  O honoured Mr. Hurwitz!  Could I but make\nyou feel what grandeur, what magnificence, what an everlasting\nsignificance and import Christianity gives to every fact of your national\nhistory\u2014to every page of your sacred records!\n\n\n\nARTICLES OF RELIGION.\n\n\nXX.  It is mournful to think how many recent writers have criminated our\nChurch in consequence of their ignorance and inadvertence in not knowing,\nor not noticing, the contradistinction here meant between power and\nauthority.  Rites and ceremonies the Church may ordain _jure proprio_: on\nmatters of faith her judgment is to be received with reverence, and not\ngainsayed but after repeated inquiries, and on weighty grounds.\n\nXXXVII.  It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the\nmagistrate, to wear weapons, and to serve in wars.\n\nThis is a very good instance of an unseemly matter neatly wrapped up.\nThe good men recoiled from the plain words\u2014\u201cIt is lawful for Christian\nmen at the Command of a king to slaughter as many Christians as they\ncan!\u201d\n\nWell!  I could most sincerely subscribe to all these articles.\nSeptember, 1831.\n\n\n\n\nA NIGHTLY PRAYER.  1831.\n\n\nALMIGHTY GOD, by thy eternal Word my Creator Redeemer and Preserver! who\nhast in thy free communicative goodness glorified me with the capability\nof knowing thee, the one only absolute Good, the eternal I Am, as the\nauthor of my being, and of desiring and seeking thee as its ultimate\nend;\u2014who, when I fell from thee into the mystery of the false and evil\nwill, didst not abandon me, poor self-lost creature, but in thy\ncondescending mercy didst provide an access and a return to thyself, even\nto thee the Holy One, in thine only begotten Son, the way and the truth\nfrom everlasting, and who took on himself humanity, yea, became flesh,\neven the man Christ Jesus, that for man he might be the life and the\nresurrection!\u2014O Giver of all good gifts, who art thyself the one only\nabsolute Good, from whom I have received whatever good I have, whatever\ncapability of good there is in me, and from thee good alone,\u2014from myself\nand my own corrupted will all evil and the consequents of evil,\u2014with\ninward prostration of will, mind, and affections I adore thy infinite\nmajesty; I aspire to love thy transcendent goodness!\u2014In a deep sense of\nmy unworthiness, and my unfitness to present myself before thee, of eyes\ntoo pure to behold iniquity, and whose light, the beautitude of spirits\nconformed to thy will, is a consuming fire to all vanity and\ncorruption;\u2014but in the name of the Lord Jesus, of the dear Son of thy\nlove, in whose perfect obedience thou deignest to behold as many as have\nreceived the seed of Christ into the body of this death;\u2014I offer this, my\nbounden nightly sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, in humble trust\nthat the fragrance of my Saviour\u2019s righteousness may remove from it the\ntaint of my mortal corruption.  Thy mercies have followed me through all\nthe hours and moments of my life; and now I lift up my heart in awe and\nthankfulness for the preservation of my life through the past day, for\nthe alleviation of my bodily sufferings and languors, for the manifold\ncomforts which thou hast reserved for me, yea, in thy fatherly compassion\nhast rescued from the wreck of my own sins or sinful infirmities;\u2014for the\nkind and affectionate friends thou hast raised up for me, especially for\nthose of this household, for the mother and mistress of this family,\nwhose love to me hath been great and faithful, and for the dear friend,\nthe supporter and sharer of my studies and researches; but, above all,\nfor the heavenly Friend, the crucified Saviour, the glorified Mediator,\nChrist Jesus, and for the heavenly Comforter, source of all abiding\ncomforts, thy Holy Spirit!  O grant me the aid of thy Spirit, that I may\nwith a deeper faith, a more enkindled love, bless thee, who through thy\nSon hast privileged me to call thee Abba, Father!  O, thou, who hast\nrevealed thyself in thy holy word as a God that hearest prayer; before\nwhose infinitude all differences cease of great and small; who like a\ntender parent foreknowest all our wants, yet listenest well-pleased to\nthe humble petitions of thy children; who hast not alone permitted, but\ntaught us; to call on thee in all our needs,\u2014earnestly I implore the\ncontinuance of thy free mercy, of thy protecting providence, through the\ncoming night.  Thou hearest every prayer offered to thee believingly with\na penitent and sincere heart.  For thou in withholding grantest, healest\nin inflicting the wound, yea, turnest all to good for as many as truly\nseek thee through Christ, the Mediator!  Thy will be done!  But if it be\naccording to thy wise and righteous ordinances, O shield me this night\nfrom the assaults of disease, grant me refreshment of sleep unvexed by\nevil and distempered dreams; and if the purpose and aspiration of my\nheart be upright before thee, who alone knowest the heart of man, O in\nthy mercy vouchsafe me yet in this my decay of life an interval of ease\nand strength; if so (thy grace disposing and assisting) I may make\ncompensation to thy Church for the unused talents thou hast entrusted to\nme, for the neglected opportunities which thy loving-kindness had\nprovided.  O let me be found a labourer in the vineyard, though of the\nlate hour, when the Lord and Heir of the vintage, Christ Jesus, calleth\nfor his servant.\n\n_Our Father_, &c.\n\nTo thee, great omnipresent Spirit, whose mercy is over all thy works, who\nnow beholdest me, who hearest me, who hast framed my heart to seek and to\ntrust in thee, in the name of my Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, I humbly\ncommit and commend my body, soul, and spirit.\n\nGlory be to thee, O God!\n\n\n\n\nA SAILOR\u2019S FORTUNE.\n\n\nESSAY I.\n\n\n    Fortuna plerumque est veluti\n    Galaxia quarundam obscurarum\n    Virtutum sine nomine.\n\n                                                                    BACON.\n\n    (_Translation_.)\u2014Fortune is for the most part but a galaxy or milky\n    way, as it were, of certain obscure virtues without a name.\n\n\u201cDOES Fortune favour fools?  Or how do you explain the origin of the\nproverb, which, differently worded, is to be found in all the languages\nof Europe?\u201d\n\nThis proverb admits of various explanations, according to the mood of\nmind in which it is used.  It may arise from pity, and the soothing\npersuasion that Providence is eminently watchful over the helpless, and\nextends an especial care to those who are not capable of caring for\nthemselves.  So used, it breathes the same feeling as \u201cGod tempers the\nwind to the shorn lamb\u201d\u2014or the more sportive adage, that \u201cthe fairies\ntake care of children and tipsy folk.\u201d  The persuasion itself, in\naddition to the general religious feeling of mankind, and the scarcely\nless general love of the marvellous, may be accounted for from our\ntendency to exaggerate all effects that seem disproportionate to their\nvisible cause, and all circumstances that are in any way strongly\ncontrasted with our notions of the persons under them.  Secondly, it\narises from the safety and success which an ignorance of danger and\ndifficulty sometimes actually assists in procuring; inasmuch as it\nprecludes the despondence, which might have kept the more foresighted\nfrom undertaking the enterprise, the depression which would retard its\nprogress, and those overwhelming influences of terror in cases where the\nvivid perception of the danger constitutes the greater part of the danger\nitself.  Thus men are said to have swooned and even died at the sight of\na narrow bridge, over which they had ridden, the night before, in perfect\nsafety; or at tracing the footmarks along the edge of a precipice which\nthe darkness had concealed from them.  A more obscure cause, yet not\nwholly to be omitted, is afforded by the undoubted fact that the exertion\nof the reasoning faculties tends to extinguish or bedim those mysterious\ninstincts of skill, which, though for the most part latent, we\nnevertheless possess in common with other animals.\n\nOr the proverb may be used invidiously; and folly in the vocabulary of\nenvy or baseness may signify courage and magnanimity.  Hardihood and\nfool-hardiness are indeed as different as green and yellow, yet will\nappear the same to the jaundiced eye.  Courage multiplies the chances of\nsuccess by sometimes making opportunities, and always availing itself of\nthem: and in this sense Fortune may be said to favour fools by those who,\nhowever prudent in their own opinion, are deficient in valour and\nenterprise.  Again: an emiently good and wise man, for whom the praises\nof the judicious have procured a high reputation even with the world at\nlarge, proposes to himself certain objects, and adapting the right means\nto the right end attains them; but his objects not being what the world\ncalls fortune, neither money nor artificial rank, his admitted inferiors\nin moral and intellectual worth, but more prosperous in their worldly\nconcerns, are said to have been favoured by Fortune and be slighted;\nalthough the fools did the same in their line as the wise man in his;\nthey adapted the appropriate means to the desired end, and so succeeded.\nIn this sense the proverb is current by a misuse, or a catachresis at\nleast, of both the words, fortune and fools.\n\n   How seldom, friend, a good great man inherits\n   Honour or wealth with all his worth and pains!\n   It sounds like stories from the land of spirits,\n   If any man obtain that which he merits,\n   Or any merit that which he obtains.\n\n                                   REPLY.\n\n   For shame! dear friend, renounce this canting strain;\n   What would\u2019st thou have a good great man obtain?\n   Place? titles? salary? a gilded chain?\n   Or throne of corses which his sword hath slain?\n   Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!\n   Hath he not always treasures, always friends,\n   The good great man?  Three treasures, love, and light,\n   And calm thoughts regular as infant\u2019s breath:\n   And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,\n   Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.\n\n                                                                  S. T. C.\n\nBut, lastly, there is, doubtless, a true meaning attached to fortune,\ndistinct both from prudence and from courage; and distinct too from that\nabsence of depressing or bewildering passions, which (according to my\nfavourite proverb, \u201cextremes meet,\u201d) the fool not seldom obtains in as\ngreat perfection by his ignorance as the wise man by the highest energies\nof thought and self-discipline.  Luck has a real existence in human\naffairs, from the infinite number of powers that are in action at the\nsame time, and from the co-existence of things contingent and accidental\n(such as to _us_ at least are accidental) with the regular appearances\nand general laws of nature.  A familiar instance will make these words\nintelligible.  The moon waxes and wanes according to a necessary law.\nThe clouds likewise, and all the manifold appearances connected with\nthem, are governed by certain laws no less than the phases of the moon.\nBut the laws which determine the latter are known and calculable, while\nthose of the former are hidden from us.  At all events, the number and\nvariety of their effects baffle our powers of calculation; and that the\nsky is clear or obscured at any particular time, we speak of, in common\nlanguage, as a matter of accident.  Well! at the time of the full moon,\nbut when the sky is completely covered with black clouds, I am walking on\nin the dark, aware of no particular danger: a sudden gust of wind rends\nthe cloud for a moment, and the moon emerging discloses to me a chasm or\nprecipice, to the very brink of which I had advanced my foot.  This is\nwhat is meant by luck, and according to the more or less serious mood or\nhabit of our mind we exclaim, how lucky! or, how providential!  The\nco-presence of numberless ph\u00e6nomena, which from the complexity or\nsubtlety of their determining causes are called contingencies, and the\nco-existence of these with any regular or necessary ph\u00e6nomenon (as the\nclouds with the moon for instance), occasion coincidences, which, when\nthey are attended by any advantage or injury, and are at the same time\nincapable of being calculated or foreseen by human prudence, form good or\nill luck.  On a hot sunshiny afternoon came on a sudden storm and spoilt\nthe farmer\u2019s hay; and this is called ill luck.  We will suppose the same\nevent to take place, when meteorology shall have been perfected into a\nscience, provided with unerring instruments; but which the farmer had\nneglected to examine.  This is no longer ill luck, but imprudence.  Now\napply this to our proverb.  Unforeseen coincidences may have greatly\nhelped a man, yet if they have done for him only what possibly from his\nown abilities he might have effected for himself, his good luck will\nexcite less attention and the instances be less remembered.  That clever\nmen should attain their objects seems natural, and we neglect the\ncircumstances that perhaps produced that success of themselves without\nthe intervention of skill or foresight; but we dwell on the fact and\nremember it, as something strange, when the same happens to a weak or\nignorant man.  So, too, though the latter should fail in his undertakings\nfrom concurrences that might have happened to the wisest man, yet his\nfailure being no more than might have been expected and accounted for\nfrom his folly, it lays no hold on our attention, but fleets away among\nthe other undistinguished waves, in which the stream of ordinary life\nmurmurs by us, and is forgotten.  Had it been as true as it was\nnotoriously false, that those all-embracing discoveries, which have shed\na dawn of science on the art of chemistry, and give no obscure promise of\nsome one great constitutive law, in the light of which dwell dominion and\nthe power of prophecy; if these discoveries, instead of having been as\nthey really were, preconcerted by meditation, and evolved out of his own\nintellect, had occurred by a set of lucky accidents to the illustrious\nfather and founder of philosophic alchemy; if they presented themselves\nto Sir Humphry Davy exclusively in consequence of his luck in possessing\na particular galvanic battery; if this battery, as far as Davy was\nconcerned, had itself been an accident, and not (as in point of fact it\nwas) desired and obtained by him for the purpose of insuring the\ntestimony of experience to his principles, and in order to bind down\nmaterial nature under the inquisition of reason, and force from her, as\nby torture, unequivocal answers to prepared and preconceived\nquestions\u2014yet still they would not have been talked of or described, as\ninstances of _luck_, but as the natural results of his admitted genius\nand known skill.  But should an accident have disclosed similar\ndiscoveries to a mechanic at Birmingham or Sheffield, and if the man\nshould grow rich in consequence, and partly by the envy of his\nneighbours, and partly with good reason, be considered by them as a man\nbelow par in the general powers of his understanding; then, \u201cOh, what a\nlucky fellow!  Well, Fortune does favour fools\u2014that\u2019s certain!  It is\nalways so!\u201d\u2014and forthwith the exclaimer relates half a dozen similar\ninstances.  Thus accumulating the one sort of facts and never collecting\nthe other, we do, as poets in their diction, and quacks of all\ndenominations do in their reasoning, put a part for the whole, and at\nonce soothe our envy and gratify our love of the marvellous, by the\nsweeping proverb, \u201cFortune favours fools.\u201d\n\n\n\nESSAY II.\n\n\n    Quod me non movet \u00e6stimatione:\n    Verum est \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03bc\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03c5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd mei sodalis.\n\n                                                              CATULL. xii.\n\n    (_Translation_.)\u2014It interests not by any conceit of its value; but it\n    is a remembrance of my honoured friend.\n\nTHE philosophic ruler, who secured the favours of fortune by seeking\nwisdom and knowledge in preference to them, has pathetically\nobserved\u2014\u201cThe heart knoweth its own bitterness; and there is a joy in\nwhich the stranger intermeddleth not.\u201d  A simple question founded on a\ntrite proverb, with a discursive answer to it, would scarcely suggest to\nan indifferent person any other notion than that of a mind at ease,\namusing itself with its own activity.  Once before (I believe about this\ntime last year), I had taken up the old memorandum book, from which I\ntranscribed the preceding essay, and they had then attracted my notice by\nthe name of the illustrious chemist mentioned in the last illustration.\nExasperated by the base and cowardly attempt that had been made to\ndetract from the honours due to his astonishing genius, I had slightly\naltered the concluding sentences, substituting the more recent for his\nearlier discoveries; and without the most distant intention of publishing\nwhat I then wrote, I had expressed my own convictions for the\ngratification of my own feelings, and finished by tranquilly paraphrasing\ninto a chemical allegory the Homeric adventure of Menelaus with Proteus.\nOh! with what different feelings, with what a sharp and sudden emotion\ndid I re-peruse the same question yester-morning, having by accident\nopened the book at the page upon which it was written.  I was moved; for\nit was Admiral Sir Alexander Ball who first proposed the question to me,\nand the particular satisfaction which he expressed had occasioned me to\nnote down the substance of my reply.  I was moved; because to this\nconversation I was indebted for the friendship and confidence with which\nhe afterwards honoured me, and because it recalled the memory of one of\nthe most delightful mornings I ever passed; when, as we were riding\ntogether, the same person related to me the principal events of his own\nlife, and introduced them by adverting to this conversation.  It recalled\ntoo the deep impression left on my mind by that narrative\u2014the impression\nthat I had never known any analogous instance, in which a man so\nsuccessful had been so little indebted to fortune, or lucky accidents, or\nso exclusively both the architect and builder of his own success.  The\nsum of his history may be comprised in this one sentence\u2014_H\u00e6c_, _sab\nnumine_, _nobismet fecimas_, _sapientia duce_, _fortune permittente_.\n(_i.e._ These things under God, we have done for ourselves, through the\nguidance of wisdom, and with the permission of fortune.)  Luck gave him\nnothing: in her most generous moods, she only worked with him as with a\nfriend, not for him as for a fondling; but more often she simply stood\nneuter, and suffered him to work for himself.  Ah! how could I be\notherwise than affected by whatever reminded me of that daily and\nfamiliar intercourse with him, which made the fifteen months from May,\n1804, to October, 1805, in many respects the most memorable and\ninstructive period of my life?  Ah! how could I be otherwise than most\ndeeply affected, when there was still lying on my table the paper which\nthe day before had conveyed to me the unexpected and most awful tidings\nof this man\u2019s death? his death in the fulness of all his powers, in the\nrich autumn of ripe yet undecaying manhood!  I once knew a lady who,\nafter the loss of a lovely child, continued for several days in a state\nof seeming indifference, the weather at the same time, as if in unison\nwith her, being calm, though gloomy; till one morning a burst of sunshine\nbreaking in upon her, and suddenly lighting up the room where she was\nsitting, she dissolved at once into tears, and wept passionately.  In no\nvery dissimilar manner did the sudden gleam of recollection at the sight\nof this memorandum act on myself.  I had been stunned by the\nintelligence, as by an outward blow, till this trifling incident startled\nand disentranced me; the sudden pang shivered through my whole frame; and\nif I repressed the outward shows of sorrow, it was by force that I\nrepressed them, and because it is not by tears that I ought to mourn for\nthe loss of Sir Alexander Ball.\n\nHe was a man above his age; but for that very reason the age has the more\nneed to have the master-features of his character portrayed and\npreserved.  This I feel it my duty to attempt, and this alone; for having\nreceived neither instructions nor permission from the family of the\ndeceased, I cannot think myself allowed to enter into the particulars of\nhis private history, strikingly as many of them would illustrate the\nelements and composition of his mind.  For he was indeed a living\nconfutation of the assertion attributed to the Prince of Cond\u00e9, that no\nman appeared great to his _valet de chambre_\u2014a saying which, I suspect,\nowes its currency less to its truth than to the envy of mankind, and the\nmisapplication of the word great, to actions unconnected with reason and\nfree will.  It will be sufficient for my purpose to observe that the\npurity and strict propriety of his conduct, which precluded rather than\nsilenced calumny, the evenness of his temper, and his attentive and\naffectionate manners in private life, greatly aided and increased his\npublic utility; and, if it should please Providence that a portion of his\nspirit should descend with his mantle, the virtues of Sir Alexander Ball,\nas a master, a husband, and a parent, will form a no less remarkable\nepoch in the moral history of the Maltese than his wisdom, as a governor,\nhas made in that of their outward circumstances.  That the private and\npersonal qualities of a first magistrate should have political effects\nwill appear strange to no reflecting Englishman, who has attended to the\nworkings of men\u2019s minds during the first ferment of revolutionary\nprinciples, and must therefore have witnessed the influence of our own\nsovereign\u2019s domestic character in counteracting them.  But in Malta there\nwere circumstances which rendered such an example peculiarly requisite\nand beneficent.  The very existence for so many generations of an order\nof lay celibates in that island, who abandoned even the outward shows of\nan adherence to their vow of chastity, must have had pernicious effects\non the morals of the inhabitants.  But when it is considered too that the\nKnights of Malta had been for the last fifty years or more a set of\nuseless idlers, generally illiterate, for they thought literature no part\nof a soldier\u2019s excellence; and yet effeminate, for they were soldiers in\nname only; when it is considered that they were, moreover, all of them\naliens, who looked upon themselves not merely as of a superior rank to\nthe native nobles, but as beings of a different race (I had almost said\nspecies) from the Maltese collectively; and finally, that these men\npossessed exclusively the government of the island; it may be safely\nconcluded that they were little better than a perpetual influenza,\nrelaxing and diseasing the hearts of all the families within their sphere\nof influence.  Hence the peasantry, who fortunately were below their\nreach, notwithstanding the more than childish ignorance in which they\nwere kept by their priests, yet compared with the middle and higher\nclasses, were both in mind and body as ordinary men compared with dwarfs.\nEvery respectable family had some one knight for their patron, as a\nmatter of course; and to him the honour of a sister or a daughter was\nsacrificed, equally as a matter of course.  But why should I thus\ndisguise the truth?  Alas! in nine instances out of ten, this patron was\nthe common paramour of every female in the family.  Were I composing a\nstate memorial I should abstain from all allusion to moral good or evil,\nas not having now first to learn, that with diplomatists and with\npractical statesmen of every denomination, it would preclude all\nattention to its other contents, and have no result but that of securing\nfor its author\u2019s name the official private mark of exclusion or\ndismission, as a weak or suspicions person.  But among those for whom I\nam now writing, there are, I trust, many who will think it not the\nfeeblest reason for rejoicing in our possession of Malta, and not the\nleast worthy motive for wishing its retention, that one source of human\nmisery and corruption has been dried up.  Such persons will hear the name\nof Sir Alexander Ball with additional reverence, as of one who has made\nthe protection of Great Britain a double blessing to the Maltese, and\nbroken \u201c_the bonds of iniquity_\u201d as well as unlocked the fetters of\npolitical oppression.\n\nWhen we are praising the departed by our own firesides, we dwell most\nfondly on those qualities which had won our personal affection, and which\nsharpen our individual regrets.  But when impelled by a loftier and more\nmeditative sorrow, we would raise a public monument to their memory, we\npraise them appropriately when we relate their actions faithfully; and\nthus preserving their example for the imitation of the living alleviate\nthe loss, while we demonstrate its magnitude.  My funeral eulogy of Sir\nAlexander Ball must therefore he a narrative of his life; and this friend\nof mankind will be defrauded of honour in proportion as that narrative is\ndeficient and fragmentary.  It shall, however, be as complete as my\ninformation enables, and as prudence and a proper respect for the\nfeelings of the living permit me to render it.  His fame (I adopt the\nwords of our elder writers) is so great throughout the world that he\nstands in no need of an encomium; and yet his worth is much greater these\nhis fame.  It is impossible not to speak great things of him, and yet it\nwill be very difficult to speak what he deserves.  But custom requires\nthat something should be said; it is a duty and a debt which we owe to\nourselves and to mankind, not less than to his memory; and I hope his\ngreat soul, if it hath any knowledge of what is done here below, will not\nbe offended at the smallness even of my offering.\n\nAh, how little, when among the subjects of The Friend I promised\n\u201cCharacters met with in Real Life,\u201d did I anticipate the sad event, which\ncompels one to weave on a cypress branch those sprays of laurel which I\nhad destined for his bust, not his monument!  He lived as we should all\nlive; and, I doubt not, left the world as we should all wish to leave it.\nSuch is the power of dispensing blessings, which Providence has attached\nto the truly great and good, that they cannot even die without advantage\nto their fellow-creatures; for death consecrates their example, and the\nwisdom, which might have been slighted at the council-table, becomes\noracular from the shrine.  Those rare excellences, which make our grief\npoignant, make it likewise profitable; and the tears which wise men shed\nfor the departure of the wise, are among those that are preserved in\nheaven.  It is the fervent aspiration of my spirit, that I may so perform\nthe task which private gratitude and public duty impose on me, that \u201cas\nGod hath cut this tree of paradise down from its seat of earth, the dead\ntrunk may yet support a part of the declining temple, or at least serve\nto kindle the fire on the altar.\u201d\n\n\n\nESSAY III.\n\n\n    Si partem tacuisse velim, quodeumque relinquam,\n    Majus erit.  Veteres actus, primamque juventam\n    Prosequar?  Ad sese mentem pr\u00e6sentia ducunt.\n    Narrem justitiam?  Resplendet gloria Martis.\n    Armati referam vires?  Plus egit inermis.\n\n                                                   CLAUDIAN DE LAUD. STIL.\n\n    (_Translation_.)\u2014If I desire to pass over a part in silence, whatever\n    I omit will seem the most worthy to have been recorded.  Shall I\n    pursue his old exploits and early youth?  His recent merits recall\n    the mind to themselves.  Shall I dwelt on his justice?  The glory of\n    the warrior rises before me resplendent.  Shall I relate his strength\n    in arms?  He performed yet greater things unarmed.\n\n\u201cTHERE is something,\u201d says Harrington, in the Preliminaries to the\nOceana, \u201cfirst in the making of a commonwealth, then in the governing of\nit, and last of all in the leading of its armies, which though there be\ngreat divines, great lawyers, great men in all ranks of life, seems to be\npeculiar only to the genius of a gentleman.  For so it is in the\nuniversal series of history, that if any man has founded a commonwealth,\nhe was first a gentleman.\u201d  Such also, he adds, as have got any fame as\ncivil governors, have been gentlemen, or persons of known descents.  Sir\nAlexander Ball was a gentleman by birth; a younger brother of an old and\nrespectable family in Gloucestershire.  He went into the navy at an early\nage from his own choice, and, as he himself told me, in consequence of\nthe deep impression and vivid images left on his mind by the perusal of\n\u201cRobinson Crusoe.\u201d  It is not my intention to detail the steps of his\npromotion, or the services in which he was engaged as a subaltern.  I\nrecollect many particulars indeed, but not the dates, with such\ndistinctness as would enable me to state them (as it would be necessary\nto do if I stated them at all) in the order of time.  These dates might\nperhaps have been procured from the metropolis; but incidents that are\nneither characteristic nor instructive, even such as would be expected\nwith reason in a regular life, are no part of my plan; while those which\nare both interesting and illustrative I have been precluded from\nmentioning, some from motives which have been already explained, and\nothers from still higher considerations.  The most important of these may\nbe deduced from a reflection with which he himself once concluded a long\nand affecting narration: namely, that no body of men can for any length\nof time be safely treated otherwise than as rational beings; and that,\ntherefore, the education of the lower classes was of the utmost\nconsequence to the permanent security of the empire, even for the sake of\nour navy.  The dangers, apprehended from the education of the lower\nclasses, arose (he said) entirely from its not being universal, and from\nthe unusualness in the lowest classes of those accomplishments which he,\nlike Dr. Bell, regarded as one of the means of education, and not as\neducation itself.  If, he observed, the lower classes in general\npossessed but one eye or one arm, the few who were so fortunate as to\npossess two would naturally become vain and restless, and consider\nthemselves as entitled to a higher situation.  He illustrated this by the\nfaults attributed to learned women, and that the same objections were\nformerly made to educating women at all; namely, that their knowledge\nmade them vain, affected, and neglectful of their proper duties.  Now\nthat all women of condition are well educated, we hear no more of these\napprehensions, or observe any instances to justify them.  Yet if a lady\nunderstood the Greek one-tenth part as well as the whole circle of her\nacquaintances understood the French language, it would not surprise us to\nfind her less pleasing from the consciousness of her superiority in the\npossession of an unusual advantage.  Sir Alexander Ball quoted the speech\nof an old admiral, one of whose two great wishes was to have a ship\u2019s\ncrew composed altogether of serious Scotchmen.  He spoke with great\nreprobation of the vulgar notion, the worse man the better sailor.\nCourage, he said, was the natural product of familiarity with danger,\nwhich thoughtlessness would oftentimes turn into fool-hardiness; and that\nhe always found the most usefully brave sailors the gravest and most\nrational of his crew.  The best sailor he had ever had, first attracted\nhis notice by the anxiety which he expressed concerning the means of\nremitting some money, which he had received in the West Indies, to his\nsister in England; and this man, without any tinge of Methodism, was\nnever heard to swear an oath, and was remarkable for the firmness with\nwhich he devoted a part of every Sunday to the reading of his Bible.  I\nrecord this with satisfaction as a testimony of great weight, and in all\nrespects unexceptionable; for Sir Alexander Ball\u2019s opinions throughout\nlife remained unwarped by zealotry, and were those of a mind seeking\nafter truth, in calmness and complete self-possession.  He was much\npleased with an unsuspicious testimony furnished by Dampier (vol. ii.\npart 2, page 89): \u201cI have particularly observed,\u201d writes this famous old\nnavigator, \u201cthere and in other places, that such as had been well-bred\nwere generally most careful to improve their time, and would be very\nindustrious and frugal where there was any probability of considerable\ngain; but on the contrary, such as had been bred up in ignorance and hard\nlabour, when they came to have plenty would extravagantly squander away\ntheir time and money in drinking and making a bluster.\u201d  Indeed it is a\nmelancholy proof how strangely power warps the minds of ordinary men,\nthat there can be a doubt on this subject among persons who have been\nthemselves educated.  It tempts a suspicion that, unknown to themselves,\nthey find a comfort in the thought, that their inferiors are something\nless than men; or that they have an uneasy half-consciousness that, if\nthis were not the case, they would themselves have no claim to be their\nsuperiors.  For a sober education naturally inspires self-respect.  But\nhe who respects himself will respect others; and he who respects both\nhimself and others, must of necessity be a brave man.  The great\nimportance of this subject, and the increasing interest which good men of\nall denominations feel in the bringing about of a national education,\nmust be my excuse for having entered so minutely into Sir Alexander\nBall\u2019s opinions on this head, in which, however, I am the more excusable,\nbeing now on that part of his life which I am obliged to leave almost a\nblank.\n\nDuring his lieutenancy, and after he had perfected himself in the\nknowledge and duties of a practical sailor, he was compelled by the state\nof his health to remain in England for a considerable length of time.  Of\nthis he industriously availed himself to the acquirement of substantial\nknowledge from books; and during his whole life afterwards, he considered\nthose as his happiest hours, which, without any neglect of official or\nprofessional duty, he could devote to reading.  He preferred, indeed he\nalmost confined himself to, history, political economy, voyages and\ntravels, natural history, and latterly agricultural works; in short, to\nsuch books as contain specific facts or practical principles capable of\nspecific application.  His active life, and the particular objects of\nimmediate utility, some one of which he had always in his view, precluded\na taste for works of pure speculation and abstract science, though he\nhighly honoured those who were eminent in these respects, and considered\nthem as the benefactors of mankind, no less than those who afterwards\ndiscovered the mode of applying their principles, or who realised them in\npractice.  Works of amusement, as novels, plays, etc., did not appear\neven to amuse him; and the only poetical composition of which I have ever\nheard him speak, was a manuscript poem written by one of my friends,\nwhich I read to his lady in his presence.  To my surprise he afterwards\nspoke of this with warm interest; but it was evident to me that it was\nnot so much the poetic merit of the composition that had interested him,\nas the truth and psychological insight with which it represented the\npracticability of reforming the most hardened minds, and the various\naccidents which may awaken the most brutalised person to a recognition of\nhis nobler being.  I will add one remark of his own knowledge acquired\nfrom books, which appears to me both just and valuable.  The prejudice\nagainst such knowledge, he said, and the custom of opposing it to that\nwhich is learnt by practice, originated in those times when books were\nalmost confined to theology, and to logical and metaphysical subtleties;\nbut that at present there is scarcely any practical knowledge which is\nnot to be found in books.  The press is the means by which intelligent\nmen now converse with each other, and persons of all classes and all\npursuits convey each the contribution of his individual experience.  It\nwas, therefore, he said, as absurd to hold book-knowledge at present in\ncontempt, as it would be for a man to avail himself only of his own eyes\nand ears, and to aim at nothing which could not be performed exclusively\nby his own arms.  The use and necessity of personal experience consisted\nin the power of choosing and applying what had been read, and of\ndiscriminating by the light of analogy the practicable from the\nimpracticable, and probability from mere plausibility.  Without a\njudgment matured and steadied by actual experience, a man would read to\nlittle or perhaps to bad purpose; but yet that experience, which in\nexclusion of all other knowledge has been derived from one man\u2019s life, is\nin the present day scarcely worthy of the name\u2014at least for those who are\nto act in the higher and wider spheres of duty.  An ignorant general, he\nsaid, inspired him with terror; for if he were too proud to take advice\nhe would ruin himself by his own blunders, and if he\u2014were not, by\nadopting the worst that was offered.  A great genius may indeed form an\nexception, but we do not lay down rules in expectation of wonders.  A\nsimilar remark I remember to have heard from a gallant officer, who to\neminence in professional science and the gallantry of a tried soldier,\nadds all the accomplishments of a sound scholar and the powers of a man\nof genius.\n\nOne incident, which happened at this period of Sir Alexander\u2019s life, is\nso illustrative of his character, and furnishes so strong a presumption,\nthat the thoughtful humanity by which he was distinguished was not wholly\nthe growth of his latter years, that, though it may appear to some\ntrifling in itself, I will insert it in this place with the occasion on\nwhich it was communicated to me.  In a large party at the Grand Master\u2019s\npalace, I had observed a naval officer of distinguished merit listening\nto Sir Alexander Ball, whenever he joined in the conversation, with so\nmarked a pleasure that it seemed as if his very voice, independent of\nwhat he said, had been delightful to him; and once, as he fixed his eyes\non Sir Alexander Ball, I could not but notice the mixed expressions of\nawe and affection, which gave a more than common interest to so manly a\ncountenance.  During his stay in the island, this officer honoured me not\nunfrequently with his visits; and at the conclusion of my last\nconversation with him, in which I had dwelt on the wisdom of the\nGovernor\u2019s conduct in a recent and difficult emergency, he told me that\nhe considered himself as indebted to the same excellent person for that\nwhich was dearer to him than his life.  \u201cSir Alexander Ball,\u201d said he,\n\u201chas, I dare say, forgotten the circumstance; but when he was Lieutenant\nBall, he was the officer whom I accompanied in my first boat expedition,\nbeing then a midshipman and only in my fourteenth year.  As we were\nrowing up to the vessel which we were to attack, amid a discharge of\nmusketry, I was overpowered by fear, my knees trembled under me, and I\nseemed on the point of fainting away.  Lieutenant Ball, who saw the\ncondition I was in, placed himself close beside me, and still keeping his\ncountenance directed toward the enemy, took hold of my hand, and pressing\nit in the most friendly manner, said in a low voice, \u2018Courage, my dear\nboy! don\u2019t be afraid of yourself! you will recover in a minute or so.  I\nwas just the same when I first went out in this way.\u2019  Sir,\u201d added the\nofficer to me, \u201cit was as if an angel had put a new soul into me.  With\nthe feeling that I was not yet dishonoured, the whole burden of agony was\nremoved, and from that moment I was as fearless and forward as the oldest\nof the boat\u2019s crew, and on our return the lieutenant spoke highly of me\nto our captain.  I am scarcely less convinced of my own being than that I\nshould have been what I tremble to think of, if, instead of his humane\nencouragement, he had at that moment scoffed, threatened, or reviled me.\nAnd this was the more kind in him, because, as I afterwards understood,\nhis own conduct in his first trial had evinced to all appearances the\ngreatest fearlessness, and that he said this, therefore, only to give me\nheart and restore me to my own good opinion.\u201d\n\nThis anecdote, I trust, will have some weight with those who may have\nlent an ear to any of those vague calumnies from which no naval commander\ncan secure his good name, who knowing the paramount necessity of\nregularity and strict discipline in a ship of war, adopts an appropriate\nplan for the attainment of these objects, and remains constant and\nimmutable in the execution.  To an Athenian, who, in praising a public\nfunctionary, had said, that every one either applauded him or left him\nwithout censure, a philosopher replied, \u201cHow seldom then must he have\ndone his duty!\u201d\n\nOf Sir Alexander Ball\u2019s character, as Captain Ball, of his measures as a\ndisciplinarian, and of the wise and dignified principle on which he\ngrounded those measures, I have already spoken in a former part of this\nwork, and must content myself therefore with entreating the reader to\nre-peruse that passage as belonging to this place, and as a part of the\npresent narration.  Ah! little did I expect at the time I wrote that\naccount, that the motives of delicacy, which then impelled me to withhold\nthe name, would so soon be exchanged for the higher duty which now\njustifies me in adding it!  At the thought of such events the language of\na tender superstition is the voice of nature itself, and those facts\nalone presenting themselves to our memory which had left an impression on\nour hearts, we assent to, and adopt the poet\u2019s pathetic complaint:\u2014\n\n             O sir! the good die first,\n    And those whose hearts are dry as summer dust\n    Burn to the socket.\n\n                                                               WORDSWORTH.\n\nThus the humane plan described in the pages now referred to, that a\nsystem in pursuance of which the captain of a man-of-war uniformly\nregarded his sentences not as dependent on his own will, or to be\naffected by the state of his feelings at the moment, but as the\npre-established determinations of known laws, and himself as the voice of\nthe law in pronouncing the sentence, and its delegate in enforcing the\nexecution, could not but furnish occasional food to the spirit of\ndetraction, must be evident to every reflecting mind.  It is indeed\nlittle less than impossible, that he, who in order to be effectively\nhumane determines to be inflexibly just, and who is inexorable to his own\nfeelings when they would interrupt the course of justice; who looks at\neach particular act by the light of all its consequences, and as the\nrepresentative of ultimate good or evil; should not sometimes be charged\nwith tyranny by weak minds.  And it is too certain that the calumny will\nbe willingly believed and eagerly propagated by all those who would shun\nthe presence of an eye keen in the detection of imposture, incapacity,\nand misconduct, and of a resolution as steady in their exposure.  We soon\nhate the man whose qualities we dread, and thus have a double interest,\nan interest of passion as well as of policy, in decrying and defaming\nhim.  But good men will rest satisfied with the promise made to them by\nthe Divine Comforter, that by her children shall Wisdom be justified.\n\n\n\nESSAY IV.\n\n\n    \u2014the generous spirit, who, when brought\n    Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought\n    Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought:\n    Whose high endeavours are an inward light\n    That makes the path before him always bright;\n    Who, doom\u2019d to go in company with pain,\n    And fear and bloodshed, miserable train!\n    Turns his necessity to glorious gain;\n    By objects, which might force the soul to abate\n    Her feeling, rendered more compassionate.\n\n                                                               WORDSWORTH.\n\nAT the close of the American war, Captain Ball was entrusted with the\nprotection and convoying of an immense mercantile fleet to America, and\nby his great prudence and unexampled attention to the interests of all\nand each, endeared his name to the American merchants, and laid the\nfoundation of that high respect and predilection which both the Americans\nand their government ever afterwards entertained for him.  My\nrecollection does not enable me to attempt any accuracy in the date or\ncircumstances, or to add the particulars of his services in the West\nIndies and on the coast of America, I now therefore merely allude to the\nfact with a prospective reference to opinions and circumstances, which I\nshall have to mention hereafter.  Shortly after the general peace was\nestablished, Captain Ball, who was now a married man, passed some time\nwith his lady in France, and, if I mistake not, at Nantes.  At the same\ntime, and in the same town, among the other English visitors, Lord (then\nCaptain) Nelson happened to be one.  In consequence of some punctilio, as\nto whose business it was to pay the compliment of the first call, they\nnever met, and this trifling affair occasioned a coldness between the two\nnaval commanders, or in truth a mutual prejudice against each other.\nSome years after, both their ships being together close off Minorca and\nnear Port Mahon, a violent storm nearly disabled Lord Nelson\u2019s vessel,\nand in addition to the fury of the wind, it was night time and the\nthickest darkness.  Captain Ball, however, brought his vessel at length\nto Nelson\u2019s assistance, took his ship in tow, and used his best\nendeavours to bring her and his own vessel into Port Mahon.  The\ndifficulties and the dangers increased.  Nelson considered the case of\nhis own ship as desperate, and that unless she was immediately left to\nher own fate, both vessels would inevitably be lost.  He, therefore, with\nthe generosity natural to him, repeatedly requested Captain Ball to let\nhim loose; and on Captain Ball\u2019s refusal, he became impetuous, and\nenforced his demand with passionate threats.  Captain Ball then himself\ntook the speaking-trumpet, which the fury of the wind and waves rendered\nnecessary, and with great solemnity and without the least disturbance of\ntemper, called out in reply, \u201cI feel confident that I can bring you in\nsafe; I therefore must not, and, by the help of Almighty God, I will not\nleave you!\u201d  What he promised he performed; and after they were safely\nanchored, Nelson came on board of Ball\u2019s ship, and embracing him with all\nthe ardour of acknowledgment, exclaimed, \u201cA friend in need is a friend\nindeed!\u201d  At this time and on this occasion commenced that firm and\nperfect friendship between these two great men, which was interrupted\nonly by the death of the former.  The pleasing task of dwelling on this\nmutual attachment I defer to that part of the present sketch which will\nrelate to Sir Alexander Ball\u2019s opinions of men and things.  It will be\nsufficient for the present to say, that the two men whom Lord Nelson\nespecially honoured, were Sir Thomas Troubridge and Sir Alexander Ball;\nand once, when they were both present, on some allusion made to the loss\nof his arm, he replied, \u201cWho shall dare tell me that I want an arm, when\nI have three right arms\u2014this (putting forward his own) and Ball and\nTroubridge?\u201d\n\nIn the plan of the battle of the Nile it was Lord Nelson\u2019s design, that\nCaptains Troubridge and Ball should have led up the attack.  The former\nwas stranded; and the latter, by accident of the wind, could not bring\nhis ship into the line of battle till some time after the engagement had\nbecome general.  With his characteristic forecast and activity of (which\nmay not improperly be called) practical imagination, he had made\narrangements to meet every probable contingency.  All the shrouds and\nsails of the ship not absolutely necessary for its immediate management,\nwere thoroughly wetted, and so rolled up that they were as hard and as\nlittle inflammable as so many solid cylinders of wood; every sailor had\nhis appropriate place and function, and a certain number were appointed\nas the fire-men, whose sole duty it was to be on the watch if any part of\nthe vessel should take fire; and to these men exclusively the charge of\nextinguishing it was committed.  It was already dark when he brought his\nship into action, and laid her alongside _L\u2019Orient_.  One particular only\nI shall add to the known account of the memorable engagement between\nthese ships, and this I received from Sir Alexander Ball himself.  He had\npreviously made a combustible preparation, but which, from the nature of\nthe engagement to be expected, he had purposed to reserve for the last\nemergency.  But just at the time when, from several symptoms, he had\nevery reason to believe that the enemy would soon strike to him, one of\nthe lieutenants, without his knowledge, threw in the combustible matter:\nand this it was that occasioned the tremendous explosion of that vessel,\nwhich, with the deep silence and interruption of the engagement which\nsucceeded to it, has been justly deemed the sublimest war incident\nrecorded in history.  Yet the incident which followed, and which has not,\nI believe, been publicly made known, is scarcely less impressive, though\nits sublimity is of a different character.  At the renewal of the battle,\nCaptain Ball, though his ship was then on fire in three different parts,\nlaid her alongside a French eighty-four; and a second longer obstinate\ncontest began.  The firing on the part of the French ship having at\nlength for some time slackened, and then altogether ceased, and yet no\nsign given of surrender, the senior lieutenant came to Captain Ball and\ninformed him, that the hearts of his men were as good as ever, but that\nthey were so completely exhausted that they were scarcely capable of\nlifting an arm.  He asked, therefore, whether, as the enemy had now\nceased firing, the men might be permitted to lie down by their guns for a\nshort time.  After some reflection, Sir Alexander acceded to the\nproposal, taking of course the proper precautions to rouse them again at\nthe moment he thought requisite.  Accordingly, with the exception of\nhimself, his officers, and the appointed watch, the ship\u2019s crew lay down,\neach in the place to which he was stationed, and slept for twenty\nminutes.  They were then roused; and started up, as Sir Alexander\nexpressed it, more like men out of an ambush than from sleep, so\nco-instantaneously did they all obey the summons!  They recommenced their\nfire, and in a few minutes the enemy surrendered; and it was soon after\ndiscovered that during that interval, and almost immediately after the\nFrench ship had first ceased firing, the crew had sunk down by their\nguns, and there slept, almost by the side, as it were, of their sleeping\nenemy.\n\n\n\nESSAY V.\n\n\n    \u2014Whose powers shed round him in the common strife,\n    Or mild concerns of ordinary life,\n    A constant influence, a peculiar grace;\n    But who, if he be call\u2019d upon to face\n    Same awful moment, to which Heaven has join\u2019d\n    Great issues, good or bad for human kind,\n    Is happy as a lover, is attired\n    With sudden brightness like a man inspired;\n    And through the heat of conflict keeps the law\n    In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.\n\n                                                               WORDSWORTH.\n\nAN accessibility to the sentiments of others on subjects of importance\noften accompanies feeble minds, yet it is not the less a true and\nconstituent part of practical greatness, when it exists wholly free from\nthat passiveness to impression which renders counsel itself injurious to\ncertain characters, and from that weakness of heart which, in the literal\nsense of the word, is always craving advice.  Exempt from all such\nimperfections, say rather in perfect harmony with the excellences that\npreclude them, this openness to the influxes of good sense and\ninformation, from whatever quarter they might come, equally characterised\nboth Lord Nelson and Sir Alexander Ball, though each displayed it in the\nway best suited to his natural temper.  The former with easy hand\ncollected, as it passed by him, whatever could add to his own stores,\nappropriated what he could assimilate, and levied subsidies of knowledge\nfrom all the accidents of social life and familiar intercourse.  Even at\nthe jovial board, and in the height of unrestrained merriment, a casual\nsuggestion, that flashed a new light on his mind, changed the boon\ncompanion into the hero and the man of genius; and with the most graceful\ntransition he would make his company as serious as himself.  When the\ntaper of his genius seemed extinguished, it was still surrounded by an\ninflammable atmosphere of its own, and rekindled at the first approach of\nlight, and not seldom at a distance which made it seem to flame up\nself-revived.  In Sir Alexander Ball, the same excellence was more an\naffair of system; and he would listen, even to weak men, with a patience,\nwhich, in so careful an economist of time, always demanded my admiration,\nand not seldom excited my wonder.  It was one of his maxims, that a man\nmay suggest what he cannot give; adding, that a wild or silly plan had\nmore than once, from the vivid sense or distinct perception of its folly,\noccasioned him to see what ought to be done in a new light, or with a\nclearer insight.  There is, indeed, a hopeless sterility, a mere negation\nof sense and thought, which, suggesting neither difference nor contrast,\ncannot even furnish hints for recollection.  But on the other hand, there\nare minds so whimsically constituted, that they may sometimes be\nprofitably interpreted by contraries, a process of which the great Tycho\nBrahe is said to have availed himself in the case of the little Lackwit,\nwho used to sit and mutter at his feet while he was studying.  A mind of\nthis sort we may compare to a magnetic needle, the poles of which have\nbeen suddenly reversed by a flash of lightning, or other more obscure\naccident of nature.  It may be safely concluded, that to those whose\njudgment or information he respected, Sir Alexander Ball did not content\nhimself with giving access and attention.  No! he seldom failed of\nconsulting them whenever the subject permitted any disclosure; and where\nsecrecy was necessary, he well knew how to acquire their opinion without\nexciting even a conjecture concerning his immediate object.\n\nYet, with all this readiness of attention, and with all this zeal in\ncollecting the sentiments of the well informed, never was a man more\ncompletely uninfluenced by authority than Sir Alexander Ball, never one\nwho sought less to tranquillise his own doubts by the mere suffrage and\ncoincidence of others.  The ablest suggestions had no conclusive weight\nwith him, till he had abstracted the opinion from its author, till he had\nreduced it into a part of his own mind.  The thoughts of others were\nalways acceptable, as affording him at least a chance of adding to his\nmaterials for reflection; but they never directed his judgment, much less\nsuperseded it.  He even made a point of guarding against additional\nconfidence in the suggestions of his own mind, from finding that a person\nof talents had formed the same conviction; unless the person, at the same\ntime, furnished some new argument, or had arrived at the same conclusion\nby a different road.  On the latter circumstance he set an especial\nvalue, and, I may almost say, courted the company and conversation of\nthose whose pursuits had least resembled his own, if he thought them men\nof clear and comprehensive faculties.  During the period of our intimacy,\nscarcely a week passed in which he did not desire me to think on some\nparticular subject, and to give him the result in writing.  Most\nfrequently, by the time I had fulfilled his request he would have written\ndown his own thoughts; and then, with the true simplicity of a great\nmind, as free from ostentation as it was above jealousy, he would collate\nthe two papers in my presence, and never expressed more pleasure than in\nthe few instances in which I had happened to light on all the arguments\nand points of view which had occurred to himself, with some additional\nreasons which had escaped him.  A single new argument delighted him more\nthan the most perfect coincidence, unless, as before stated, the train of\nthought had been very different from his own, and yet just and logical.\nHe had one quality of mind, which I have heard attributed to the late Mr.\nFox, that of deriving a keen pleasure from clear and powerful reasoning\nfor its own sake\u2014a quality in the intellect which is nearly connected\nwith veracity and a love of justice in the moral character.\n\nValuing in others merits which he himself possessed, Sir Alexander Ball\nfelt no jealous apprehension of great talent.  Unlike those vulgar\nfunctionaries, whose place is too big for them, a truth which they\nattempt to disguise from themselves, and yet feel, he was under no\nnecessity of arming himself against the natural superiority of genius by\nfactitious contempt and an industrious association of extravagance and\nimpracticability, with every deviation from the ordinary routine; as the\ngeographers in the middle ages used to designate on their meagre maps the\ngreater part of the world as deserts or wildernesses, inhabited by\ngriffins and chim\u00e6ras.  Competent to weigh each system or project by its\nown arguments, he did not need these preventive charms and cautionary\namulets against delusion.  He endeavoured to make talent instrumental to\nhis purposes in whatever shape it appeared, and with whatever\nimperfections it might be accompanied; but wherever talent was blended\nwith moral worth, he sought it out, loved and cherished it.  If it had\npleased Providence to preserve his life, and to place him on the same\ncourse on which Nelson ran his race of glory, there are two points in\nwhich Sir Alexander Ball would most closely have resembled his\nillustrious friend.  The first is, that in his enterprises and\nengagements he would have thought nothing done, till all had been done\nthat was possible:\u2014\n\n    Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum.\n\nThe second, that he would have called forth all the talent and virtue\nthat existed within his sphere of influence, and created a band of\nheroes, a gradation of officers, strong in head and strong in heart,\nworthy to have been his companions and his successors in fame and public\nusefulness.\n\nNever was greater discernment shown in the selection of a fit agent, than\nwhen Sir Alexander Ball was stationed off the coast of Malta to intercept\nthe supplies destined for the French garrison, and to watch the movements\nof the French commanders, and those of the inhabitants who had been so\nbasely betrayed into their power.  Encouraged by the well-timed promises\nof the English captain, the Maltese rose through all their casals (or\ncountry towns) and themselves commenced the work of their emancipation,\nby storming the citadel at Civita Vecchia, the ancient metropolis of\nMalta, and the central height of the island.  Without discipline, without\na military leader, and almost without arms, these brave peasants\nsucceeded, and destroyed the French garrison by throwing them over the\nbattlements into the trench of the citadel.  In the course of this\nblockade, and of the tedious siege of Valetta, Sir Alexander Ball\ndisplayed all that strength of character, that variety and versatility of\ntalent, and that sagacity, derived in part from habitual circumspection,\nbut which, when the occasion demanded it, appeared intuitive and like an\ninstinct; at the union of which, in the same man, one of our oldest naval\ncommanders once told me, \u201che could never exhaust his wonder.\u201d  The\ncitizens of Valetta were fond of relating their astonishment, and that of\nthe French, at Captain Ball\u2019s ship wintering at anchor out of the reach\nof the guns, in a depth of fathom unexampled, on the assured\nimpracticability of which the garrison had rested their main hope of\nregular supplies.  Nor can I forget, or remember without some portion of\nmy original feeling, the solemn enthusiasm with which a venerable old\nman, belonging to one of the distant casals, showed me the sea coombe,\nwhere their father Ball (for so they commonly called him) first landed,\nand afterwards pointed out the very place on which he first stepped on\ntheir island; while the countenances of his townsmen, who accompanied\nhim, gave lively proofs that the old man\u2019s enthusiasm was the\nrepresentative of the common feeling.\n\nThere is no reason to suppose that Sir Alexander Ball was at any time\nchargeable with that weakness so frequent in Englishmen, and so injurious\nto our interests abroad, of despising the inhabitants of other countries,\nof losing all their good qualities in their vices, of making no allowance\nfor those vices, from their religious or political impediments, and still\nmore of mistaking for vices a mere difference of manners and customs.\nBut if ever he had any of this erroneous feeling, he completely freed\nhimself from it by living among the Maltese during their arduous trials,\nas long as the French continued masters of their capital.  He witnessed\ntheir virtues, and learnt to understand in what various shapes and even\ndisguises the valuable parts of human nature may exist.  In many\nindividuals, whose littleness and meanness in the common intercourse of\nlife would have stamped them at once as contemptible and worthless, with\nordinary Englishmen, he had found such virtues of disinterested\npatriotism, fortitude, and self-denial, as would have done honour to an\nancient Roman.\n\nThere exists in England a gentlemanly character, a gentlemanly feeling,\nvery different even from that which is the most like it, the character of\na well-born Spaniard, and unexampled in the rest of Europe.  This feeling\nprobably originated in the fortunate circumstance, that the titles of our\nEnglish nobility follow the law of their property, and are inherited by\nthe eldest sons only.  From this source under the influences of our\nconstitution, and of our astonishing trade, it has diffused itself in\ndifferent modifications through the whole country.  The uniformity of our\ndress among all classes above that of the day labourer, while it has\nauthorised all classes to assume the appearance of gentlemen, has at the\nsame time inspired the wish to conform their manners, and still more\ntheir ordinary actions in social intercourse, to their notions of the\ngentlemanly, the most commonly received attribute of which character is a\ncertain generosity in trifles.  On the other hand, the encroachments of\nthe lower classes on the higher, occasioned, and favoured by this\nresemblance in exteriors, by this absence of any cognisable marks of\ndistinction, have rendered each class more reserved and jealous in their\ngeneral communion, and far more than our climate, or natural temper, have\ncaused that haughtiness and reserve in our outward demeanour, which is so\ngenerally complained of among foreigners.  Far be it from me to\ndepreciate the value of this gentlemanly feeling: I respect it under all\nits forms and varieties, from the House of Commons to the gentleman in\nthe shilling gallery.  It is always the ornament of virtue, and\noftentimes a support; but it is a wretched substitute for it.  Its worth,\nas a moral good, is by no means in proportion to its value, as a social\nadvantage.  These observations are not irrelevant; for to the want of\nreflection, that this diffusion of gentlemanly feeling among us is not\nthe growth of our moral excellence, but the effect of various accidental\nadvantages peculiar to England; to our not considering that it is\nunreasonable and uncharitable to expect the same consequences, where the\nsame causes have not existed to produce them; and, lastly, to our\nproneness to regard the absence of this character (which, as I have\nbefore said, does, for the greater part, and, in the common apprehension,\nconsist in a certain frankness and generosity in the detail of action) as\ndecisive against the sum total of personal or national worth; we must, I\nam convinced, attribute a large portion of that conduct, which in many\ninstances has left the inhabitants of countries conquered or appropriated\nby Great Britain, doubtful whether the various solid advantages which\nthey derived from our protection and just government, were not bought\ndearly by the wounds inflicted on their feelings and prejudices by the\ncontemptuous and insolent demeanour of the English as individuals.  The\nreader who bears this remark in mind, will meet, in the course of this\nnarration, more than one passage that will serve as its comment and\nillustration.\n\nIt was, I know, a general opinion among the English in the Mediterranean,\nthat Sir Alexander Ball thought too well of the Maltese, and did not\nshare in the enthusiasm of Britons concerning their own superiority.  To\nthe former part of the charge I shall only reply at present, that a more\nvenial, and almost desirable fault, can scarcely be attributed to a\ngovernor, than that of a strong attachment to the people whom he was sent\nto govern.  The latter part of the charge is false, if we are to\nunderstand by it, that he did not think his countrymen superior on the\nwhole to the other nations of Europe; but it is true, as far as relates\nto his belief, that the English thought themselves still better than they\nare; that they dwelt on and exaggerated their national virtues, and\nweighed them by the opposite vices of foreigners, instead of the virtues\nwhich those foreigners possessed and they themselves wanted.  Above all,\nas statesmen, we must consider qualities by their practical uses.  Thus,\nhe entertained no doubt that the English were superior to all others in\nthe kind and the degree of their courage, which is marked by far greater\nenthusiasm than the courage of the Germans and northern nations, and by a\nfar greater steadiness and self-subsistency than that of the French.  It\nis more closely connected with the character of the individual.  The\ncourage of an English army (he used to say) is the sum total of the\ncourage which the individual soldiers bring with them to it, rather than\nof that which they derive from it.  This remark of Sir Alexander\u2019s was\nforcibly recalled to my mind when I was at Naples.  A Russian and an\nEnglish regiment were drawn up together in the same square: \u201cSee,\u201d said a\nNeapolitan to me, who had mistaken me for one of his countrymen, \u201cthere\nis but one face in that whole regiment, while in that\u201d (pointing to the\nEnglish) \u201cevery soldier has a face of his own.\u201d  On the other hand, there\nare qualities scarcely less requisite to the completion of the military\ncharacter, in which Sir A. did not hesitate to think the English inferior\nto the continental nations; as for instance, both in the power and the\ndisposition to endure privations; in the friendly temper necessary, when\ntroops of different nations are to act in concert; in their obedience to\nthe regulations of their commanding officers, respecting their treatment\nof the inhabitants of the countries through which they are marching, as\nwell as in many other points, not immediately connected with their\nconduct in the field: and, above all, in sobriety and temperance.  During\nthe siege of Valetta, especially during the sore distress to which the\nbesiegers were for some time exposed from the failure of provision, Sir\nAlexander Ball had an ample opportunity of observing and weighing the\nseparate merits and demerits of the native and of the English troops; and\nsurely since the publication of Sir John Moore\u2019s campaign, there can be\nno just offence taken, though I should say, that before the walls of\nValetta, as well as in the plains of Galicia, an indignant commander\nmight, with too great propriety, have addressed the English soldiery in\nthe words of an old dramatist\u2014\n\n    Will you still owe your virtues to your bellies?\n    And only then think nobly when y\u2019are full?\n    Doth fodder keep you honest?  Are you bad\n    When out of flesh?  And think you\u2019t an excuse\n    Of vile and ignominious actions, that\n    Y\u2019 are lean and out of liking?\n\n                                            CARTWRIGHT\u2019S _Love\u2019s Convert_.\n\nFrom the first insurrectionary movement to the final departure of the\nFrench from the island, though the civil and military powers and the\nwhole of the island, save Valetta, were in the hands of the peasantry,\nnot a single act of excess can be charged against the Maltese, if we\nexcept the razing of one house at Civita Vecchia belonging to a notorious\nand abandoned traitor, the creature and hireling of the French.  In no\ninstance did they injure, insult, or plunder, any one of the native\nnobility, or employ even the appearance of force toward them, except in\nthe collection of the lead and iron from their houses and gardens, in\norder to supply themselves with bullets; and this very appearance was\nassumed from the generous wish to shelter the nobles from the resentment\nof the French, should the patriotic efforts of the peasantry prove\nunsuccessful.  At the dire command of famine the Maltese troops did\nindeed once force their way to the ovens in which the bread for the\nBritish soldiery was baked, and were clamorous that an equal division\nshould be made.  I mention this unpleasant circumstance, because it\nbrought into proof the firmness of Sir Alexander Ball\u2019s character, his\npresence of mind, and generous disregard of danger and personal\nresponsibility, where the slavery or emancipation, the misery or the\nhappiness, of an innocent and patriotic people were involved; and because\nhis conduct in this exigency evinced that his general habits of\ncircumspection and deliberation were the results of wisdom and complete\nself-possession, and not the easy virtues of a spirit constitutionally\ntimorous and hesitating.  He was sitting at table with the principal\nBritish officers, when a certain general addressed him in strong and\nviolent terms concerning this outrage of the Maltese, reminding him of\nthe necessity of exerting his commanding influence in the present case,\nor the consequences must be taken.  \u201cWhat,\u201d replied Sir Alexander Ball,\n\u201cwould you have us do?  Would you have us threaten death to men dying\nwith famine?  Can you suppose that the hazard of being shot will weigh\nwith whole regiments acting under a common necessity?  Does not the\nextremity of hunger take away all difference between men and animals? and\nis it not as absurd to appeal to the prudence of a body of men starving,\nas to a herd of famished wolves?  No, general, I will not degrade myself\nor outrage humanity by menacing famine with massacre!  More effectual\nmeans must be taken.\u201d  With these words he rose and left the room, and\nhaving first consulted with Sir Thomas Troubridge, he determined at his\nown risk on a step, which the extreme necessity warranted, and which the\nconduct of the Neapolitan court amply justified.  For this court, though\nterror-stricken by the French, was still actuated by hatred to the\nEnglish, and a jealousy of their power in the Mediterranean; and in this\nso strange and senseless a manner, that we must join the extremes of\nimbecility and treachery in the same cabinet, in order to find it\ncomprehensible.  Though the very existence of Naples and Sicily, as a\nnation, depended wholly and exclusively on British support; though the\nroyal family owed their personal safety to the British fleet; though not\nonly their dominions and their rank, but the liberty and even the lives\nof Ferdinand and his family, were interwoven with our success; yet with\nan infatuation scarcely credible, the most affecting representations of\nthe distress of the besiegers, and of the utter insecurity of Sicily if\nthe French remained possessors of Malta, were treated with neglect; and\nthe urgent remonstrances for the permission of importing corn from\nMessina, were answered only by sanguinary edicts precluding all supply.\nSir Alexander Ball sent for his senior lieutenant, and gave him orders to\nproceed immediately to the port of Messina, and there to seize and bring\nwith him to Malta the ships laden with corn, of the number of which Sir\nAlexander had received accurate information.  These orders were executed\nwithout delay, to the great delight and profit of the shipowners and\nproprietors; the necessity of raising the siege was removed; and the\nauthor of the measure waited in calmness for the consequences that might\nresult to himself personally.  But not a complaint, not a murmur,\nproceeded from the court of Naples.  The sole result was, that the\ngovernor of Malta became an especial object of its hatred, its fear, and\nits respect.\n\nThe whole of this tedious siege, from its commencement to the signing of\nthe capitulation, called forth into constant activity the rarest and most\ndifficult virtues of a commanding mind; virtues of no show or splendour\nin the vulgar apprehension, yet more infallible characteristics of true\ngreatness than the most unequivocal displays of enterprise and active\ndaring.  Scarcely a day passed in which Sir Alexander Ball\u2019s patience,\nforbearance, and inflexible constancy were not put to the severest trial.\nHe had not only to remove the misunderstandings that arose between the\nMaltese and their allies, to settle the differences among the Maltese\nthemselves, and to organise their efforts; he was likewise engaged in the\nmore difficult and unthankful task of counteracting the weariness,\ndiscontent, and despondency of his own countrymen\u2014a task, however, which\nhe accomplished by management and address, and an alternation of real\nfirmness with apparent yielding.  During many months he remained the only\nEnglishman who did not think the siege hopeless, and the object\nworthless.  He often spoke of the time in which he resided at the country\nseat of the grand master at St. Antonio, four miles from Valetta, as\nperhaps the most trying period of his life.  For some weeks Captain\nVivian was his sole English companion, of whom, as his partner in\nanxiety, he always expressed himself with affectionate esteem.  Sir\nAlexander Ball\u2019s presence was absolutely necessary to the Maltese, who,\naccustomed to be governed by him, became incapable of acting in concert\nwithout his immediate influence.  In the outburst of popular emotion, the\nimpulse which produces an insurrection, is for a brief while its\nsufficient pilot: the attraction constitutes the cohesion, and the common\nprovocation, supplying an immediate object, not only unites, but directs\nthe multitude.  But this first impulse had passed away, and Sir Alexander\nBall was the one individual who possessed the general confidence.  On him\nthey relied with implicit faith; and even after they had long enjoyed the\nblessings of British government and protection, it was still remarkable\nwith what child-like helplessness they were in the habit of applying to\nhim, even in their private concerns.  It seemed as if they thought him\nmade on purpose to think for them all.  Yet his situation at St. Antonio\nwas one of great peril; and he attributed his preservation to the\ndejection which had now begun to prey on the spirits of the French\ngarrison, and which rendered them unenterprising and almost passive,\naided by the dread which the nature of the country inspired.  For\nsubdivided as it was into small fields, scarcely larger than a cottage\ngarden, and each of these little squares of land inclosed with\nsubstantial stone walls; these too from the necessity of having the\nfields perfectly level, rising in tiers above each other; the whole of\nthe inhabited part of the island was an effective fortification for all\nthe purposes of annoyance and offensive warfare.  Sir Alexander Ball\nexerted himself successfully in procuring information respecting the\nstate and temper of the garrison, and, by the assistance of the clergy\nand the almost universal fidelity of the Maltese, contrived that the\nspies in the pay of the French should be in truth his own confidential\nagents.  He had already given splendid proofs that he could outfight\nthem; but here, and in his after diplomatic intercourse previous to the\nrecommencement of the war, he likewise outwitted them.  He once told me\nwith a smile, as we were conversing on the practice of laying wagers,\nthat he was sometimes inclined to think that the final perseverance in\nthe siege was not a little indebted to several valuable bets of his own,\nhe well knowing at the time, and from information which himself alone\npossessed, that he should certainly lose them.  Yet this artifice had a\nconsiderable effect in suspending the impatience of the officers, and in\nsupplying topics for dispute and conversation.  At length, however, the\ntwo French frigates, the sailing of which had been the subject of these\nwagers, left the great harbour on the 24th of August, 1800, with a part\nof the garrison: and one of them soon became a prize to the English.  Sir\nAlexander Ball related to me the circumstances which occasioned the\nescape of the other; but I do not recollect them with sufficient accuracy\nto dare repeat them in this place.  On the 15th of September following,\nthe capitulation was signed, and after a blockade of two years the\nEnglish obtained possession of Valetta, and remained masters of the whole\nisland and its dependencies.\n\nAnxious not to give offence, but more anxious to communicate the truth,\nit is not without pain that I find myself under the moral obligation of\nremonstrating against the silence concerning Sir Alexander Ball\u2019s\nservices or the transfer of them to others.  More than once has the\nlatter aroused my indignation in the reported speeches of the House of\nCommons: and as to the former, I need only state that in Rees\u2019s\nEncyclop\u00e6dia there is an historical article of considerable length under\nthe word Malta, in which Sir Alexander\u2019s name does not once occur!\nDuring a residence of eighteen months in that island, I possessed and\navailed myself of the best possible means of information, not only from\neye-witnesses, but likewise from the principal agents themselves.  And I\nnow thus publicly and unequivocally assert, that to Sir A. Ball\npre-eminently\u2014and if I had said, to Sir A. Ball alone, the ordinary use\nof the word under such circumstances would bear me out\u2014the capture and\nthe preservation of Malta were owing, with every blessing that a powerful\nmind and a wise heart could confer on its docile and grateful\ninhabitants.  With a similar pain I proceed to avow my sentiments on this\ncapitulation, by which Malta was delivered up to his Britannic Majesty\nand his allies, without the least mention made of the Maltese.  With a\nwarmth honourable both to his head and his heart, Sir Alexander Ball\npleaded, as not less a point of sound policy than of plain justice, that\nthe Maltese, by some representative, should be made a party in the\ncapitulation, and a joint subscriber in the signature.  They had never\nbeen the slaves or the property of the Knights of St. John, but freemen\nand the true landed proprietors of the country, the civil and military\ngovernment of which, under certain restrictions, had been vested in that\nOrder; yet checked by the rights and influences of the clergy and the\nnative nobility, and by the customs and ancient laws of the island.  This\ntrust the Knights had, with the blackest treason and the most profligate\nperjury, betrayed and abandoned.  The right of government of course\nreverted to the landed proprietors and the clergy.  Animated by a just\nsense of this right, the Maltese had risen of their own accord, had\ncontended for it in defiance of death and danger, had fought bravely, and\nendured patiently.  Without undervaluing the military assistance\nafterwards furnished by Great Britain (though how scanty this was before\nthe arrival of General Pigot is well known), it remains undeniable, that\nthe Maltese had taken the greatest share both in the fatigues and in the\nprivations consequent on the siege; and that had not the greatest virtues\nand the most exemplary fidelity been uniformly displayed by them, the\nEnglish troops (they not being more numerous than they had been for the\ngreater part of the two years) could not possibly have remained before\nthe fortifications of Valetta, defended as that city was by a French\ngarrison that greatly outnumbered the British besiegers.  Still less\ncould there have been the least hope of ultimate success; as if any part\nof the Maltese peasantry had been friendly to the French, or even\nindifferent, if they had not all indeed been most zealous and persevering\nin their hostility towards them, it would have been impracticable so to\nblockade that island as to have precluded the arrival of supplies.  If\nthe siege had proved unsuccessful, the Maltese were well aware that they\nshould be exposed to all the horrors which revenge and wounded pride\ncould dictate to an unprincipled, rapacious, and sanguinary soldiery; and\nnow that success has crowned their efforts, is this to be their reward,\nthat their own allies are to bargain for them with the French as for a\nherd of slaves, whom the French had before purchased from a former\nproprietor?  If it be urged, that there is no established government in\nMalta, is it not equally true that through the whole population of the\nisland there is not a single dissentient? and thus that the chief\ninconvenience which an established authority is to obviate is virtually\nremoved by the admitted fact of their unanimity?  And have they not a\nbishop, and a dignified clergy, their judges and municipal magistrates,\nwho were at all times sharers in the power of the government, and now,\nsupported by the unanimous suffrage of the inhabitants, have a rightful\nclaim to be considered as its representatives?  Will it not be oftener\nsaid than answered, that the main difference between French and English\ninjustice rests in this point alone, that the French seized on the\nMaltese without any previous pretences of friendship, while the English\nprocured possession of the island by means of their friendly promises,\nand by the co-operation of the natives afforded in confident reliance on\nthese promises?  The impolicy of refusing the signature on the part of\nthe Maltese was equally evident; since such refusal could answer no one\npurpose but that of alienating their affections by a wanton insult to\ntheir feelings.  For the Maltese were not only ready but desirous and\neager to place themselves at the same time under British protection, to\ntake the oaths of loyalty as subjects of the British Crown, and to\nacknowledge their island to belong to it.  These representations,\nhowever, were overruled; and I dare affirm from my own experience in the\nMediterranean, that our conduct in this instance, added to the impression\nwhich had been made at Corsica, Minorca, and elsewhere, and was often\nreferred to by men of reflection in Sicily, who have more than once said\nto me, \u201cA connection with Great Britain, with the consequent extension\nand security of our commerce, are indeed great blessings: but who can\nrely on their permanence? or that we shall not be made to pay bitterly\nfor our zeal as partisans of England, whenever it shall suit its plans to\ndeliver us back to our old oppressors?\u201d\n\n\n\nESSAY VI.\n\n\n    \u201cThe way of ancient ordinance, though it winds,\n    Is yet no devious way.  Straight forward goes\n    The lightning\u2019s path; and straight the fearful path\n    Of the cannon-ball.  Direct it flies and rapid,\n    Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches.\n    My son! the road the human being travels,\n    That, on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow\n    The river\u2019s course, the valley\u2019s playful windings,\n    Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines,\n    Honouring the holy bounds of property!\n                There exists\n    A higher than the warrior\u2019s excellence.\u201d\n\n                                                              WALLENSTEIN.\n\nCAPTAIN BALL\u2019S services in Malta were honoured with his sovereign\u2019s\napprobation, transmitted in a letter from the Secretary Dundas, and with\na baronetcy.  A thousand pounds were at the same time directed to be paid\nhim from the Maltese treasury.  The best and most appropriate addition to\nthe applause of his king and his country, Sir Alexander Ball found in the\nfeelings and faithful affection of the Maltese.  The enthusiasm\nmanifested in reverential gestures and shouts of triumph whenever their\nfriend and deliverer appeared in public, was the utterance of a deep\nfeeling, and in nowise the mere ebullition of animal sensibility; which\nis not indeed a part of the Maltese character.  The truth of this\nobservation will not be doubted by any person who has witnessed the\nreligious processions in honour of the favourite saints, both at Valetta\nand at Messina or Palermo, and who must have been struck with the\ncontrast between the apparent apathy, or at least the perfect sobriety of\nthe Maltese, and the fanatical agitations of the Sicilian populace.\nAmong the latter each man\u2019s soul seems hardly containable in his body,\nlike a prisoner whose gaol is on fire, flying madly from one barred\noutlet to another; while the former might suggest the suspicion that\ntheir bodies were on the point of sinking into the same slumber with\ntheir understandings.  But their political deliverance was a thing that\ncame home to their hearts, and intertwined with their most impassioned\nrecollections, personal and patriotic.  To Sir Alexander Ball exclusively\nthe Maltese themselves attributed their emancipation; on him too they\nrested their hopes of the future.  Whenever he appeared in Valetta, the\npassengers on each side, through the whole length of the street, stopped,\nand remained uncovered till he had passed; the very clamours of the\nmarket-place were hushed at his entrance, and then exchanged for shouts\nof joy and welcome.  Even after the lapse of years he never appeared in\nany one of their casals, which did not lie in the direct road between\nValetta and St. Antonio, his summer residence, but the women and\nchildren, with such of the men who were not at labour in their fields,\nfell into ranks and followed or preceded him, singing the Maltese song\nwhich had been made in his honour, and which was scarcely less familiar\nto the inhabitants of Malta and Gozo than \u201cGod save the King\u201d to Britons.\nWhen he went to the gate through the city, the young men refrained\ntalking, and the aged arose and stood up.  When the ear heard then it\nblessed him, and when the eye saw him it gave witness to him, because he\ndelivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and those that had\nnone to help them.  The blessing of them that were ready to perish came\nupon him, and he caused the widow\u2019s heart to sing for joy.\n\nThese feelings were afterwards amply justified by his administration of\nthe government; and the very excesses of their gratitude on their first\ndeliverance proved, in the end, only to be acknowledgments antedated.\nFor some time after the departure of the French, the distress was so\ngeneral and so severe, that a large proportion of the lower classes\nbecame mendicants, and one of the greatest thoroughfares of Valetta still\nretains the name of the \u201c_Nix mangiare stairs_,\u201d from the crowd who used\nthere to assail the ears of the passengers with cries of \u201c_nix\nmangiare_,\u201d or \u201cnothing to eat,\u201d the former word _nix_ being the low\nGerman pronunciation of _nichts_, nothing.  By what means it was\nintroduced into Malta, I know not; but it became the common vehicle both\nof solicitation and refusal, the Maltese thinking it an English word, and\nthe English supposing it to be Maltese.  I often felt it as a pleasing\nremembrancer of the evil day gone by, when a tribe of little children,\nquite naked, as is the custom of that climate, and each with a pair of\ngold earrings in its ears, and all fat and beautifully proportioned,\nwould suddenly leave their play, and, looking round to see that their\nparents were not in sight, change their shouts of merriment for \u201c_nix\nmangiare_,\u201d awkwardly imitating the plaintive tones of mendicancy; while\nthe white teeth in their little swarthy faces gave a splendour to the\nhappy and confessing laugh with which they received the good-humoured\nrebuke or refusal, and ran back to their former sport.\n\nIn the interim between the capitulation of the French garrison and Sir\nAlexander Ball\u2019s appointment as His Majesty\u2019s civil commissioner for\nMalta, his zeal for the Maltese was neither suspended nor unproductive of\nimportant benefits.  He was enabled to remove many prejudices and\nmisunderstandings, and to persons of no inconsiderable influence gave\njuster notions of the true importance of the island to Great Britain.  He\ndisplayed the magnitude of the trade of the Mediterranean in its existing\nstate; showed the immense extent to which it might be carried, and the\nhollowness of the opinion that this trade was attached to the south of\nFrance by any natural or indissoluble bond of connection.  I have some\nreason for likewise believing that his wise and patriotic representations\nprevented Malta from being made the seat of and pretext for a numerous\ncivil establishment, in hapless imitation of Corsica, Ceylon, and the\nCape of Good Hope.  It was at least generally rumoured that it had been\nin the contemplation of the Ministry to appoint Sir Ralph Abercrombie as\ngovernor, with a salary of \u00a310,000 a year, and to reside in England,\nwhile one of his countrymen was to be the lieutenant-governor at \u00a35,000 a\nyear, to which were to be added a long _etcetera_ of other offices and\nplaces of proportional emolument.  This threatened appendix to the State\nCalendar may have existed only in the imaginations of the reporters, yet\ninspired some uneasy apprehensions in the minds of many well-wishers to\nthe Maltese, who knew that\u2014for a foreign settlement at least, and one,\ntoo, possessing in all the ranks and functions of society an ample\npopulation of its own\u2014such a stately and wide-branching tree of\npatronage, though delightful to the individuals who are to pluck its\ngolden apples, sheds, like the manchineel, unwholesome and corrosive dews\non the multitude who are to rest beneath its shade.  It need not,\nhowever, be doubted, that Sir Alexander Ball would exert himself to\npreclude any such intention, by stating and evincing the extreme impolicy\nand injustice of the plan, as well as its utter inutility in the case of\nMalta.  With the exception of the governor and of the public secretary,\nboth of whom undoubtedly should be natives of Great Britain and appointed\nby the British Government, there was no civil office that could be of the\nremotest advantage to the island which was not already filled by the\nnatives, and the functions of which none could perform so well as they.\nThe number of inhabitants (he would state) was prodigious compared with\nthe extent of the island, though from the fear of the Moors one-fourth of\nits surface remained unpeopled and uncultivated.  To deprive, therefore,\nthe middle and lower classes of such places as they had been accustomed\nto hold, would be cruel; while the places held by the nobility were, for\nthe greater part such as none but natives could perform the duties of.\nBy any innovation we should affront the higher classes and alienate the\naffections of all, not only without any imaginable advantage but with the\ncertainty of great loss.  Were Englishmen to be employed, the salaries\nmust be increased fourfold, and would yet be scarcely worth acceptance;\nand in higher offices, such as those of the civil and criminal judges,\nthe salaries must be augmented more than tenfold.  For, greatly to the\ncredit of their patriotism and moral character, the Maltese gentry sought\nthese places as honourable distinctions, which endeared them to their\nfellow-countrymen, and at the same time rendered the yoke of the Order\nsomewhat less grievous and galling.  With the exception of the Maltese\nsecretary, whose situation was one of incessant labour, and who at the\nsame time performed the duties of law counsellor to the Government, the\nhighest salaries scarcely exceeded \u00a3100 a year, and were barely\nsufficient to defray the increased expenses of the functionaries for an\nadditional equipage, or one of more imposing appearance.  Besides, it was\nof importance that the person placed at the head of that Government\nshould be looked up to by the natives, and possess the means of\ndistinguishing and rewarding those who had been most faithful and zealous\nin their attachment to Great Britain, and hostile to their former\ntyrants.  The number of the employments to be conferred would give\nconsiderable influence to His Majesty\u2019s civil representative, while the\ntrifling amount of the emolument attached to each precluded all\ntemptation of abusing it.\n\nSir Alexander Ball would likewise, it is probable, urge, that the\ncommercial advantages of Malta, which were most intelligible to the\nEnglish public, and best fitted to render our retention of the island\npopular, must necessarily be of very slow growth, though finally they\nwould become great, and of an extent not to be calculated.  For this\nreason, therefore, it was highly desirable that the possession should be,\nand appear to be, at least inexpensive.  After the British Government had\nmade one advance for a stock of corn sufficient to place the island a\nyear beforehand, the sum total drawn from Great Britain need not exceed\n\u00a325,000, or at most \u00a330,000 annually: excluding of course the expenditure\nconnected with our own military and navy, and the repair of the\nfortifications, which latter expense ought to be much less than at\nGibraltar, from the multitude and low wages of the labourers in Malta,\nand from the softness and admirable quality of the stone.  Indeed much\nmore might safely be promised on the assumption that a wise and generous\nsystem of policy were adopted and persevered in.  The monopoly of the\nMaltese corn-trade by the Government formed an exception to a general\nrule, and by a strange, yet valid anomaly in the operations of political\neconomy, was not more necessary than advantageous to the inhabitants.\nThe chief reason is, that the produce of the island itself barely\nsuffices for one-fourth of its inhabitants, although fruits and\nvegetables form so large a part of their nourishment.  Meantime the\nharbours of Malta, and its equidistance from Europe, Asia, and Africa,\ngave it a vast and unnatural importance in the present relations of the\ngreat European powers, and imposed on its government, whether native or\ndependent, the necessity of considering the whole island as a single\ngarrison, the provisioning of which could not be trusted to the\ncasualties of ordinary commerce.  What is actually necessary is seldom\ninjurious.  Thus in Malta bread is better and cheaper on an average than\nin Italy or the coast of Barbary; while a similar interference with the\ncorn-trade in Sicily impoverishes the inhabitants, and keeps the\nagriculture in a state of barbarism.  But the point in question is the\nexpense to Great Britain.  Whether the monopoly be good or evil in\nitself, it remains true, that in this established usage, and in the\ngradual enclosure of the uncultivated district, such resources exist as\nwithout the least oppression might render the civil government in Valetta\nindependent of the Treasury at home, finally taking upon itself even the\nrepair of the fortifications, and thus realise one instance of an\nimportant possession that cost the country nothing.\n\nBut now the time arrived which threatened to frustrate the patriotism of\nthe Maltese themselves, and all the zealous efforts of their\ndisinterested friend.  Soon after the war had for the first time become\nindisputably just and necessary, the people at large and a majority of\nindependent senators, incapable, as it might seem, of translating their\nfanatical anti-Jacobinism into a well-grounded, yet equally impassioned,\nanti-Gallicanism, grew impatient for peace, or rather for a name, under\nwhich the most terrific of all wars would be incessantly waged against\nus.  Our conduct was not much wiser than that of the weary traveller, who\nhaving proceeded half way on his journey, procured a short rest for\nhimself by getting up behind a chaise which was going the contrary road.\nIn the strange treaty of Amiens, in which we neither recognised our\nformer relations with France nor with the other European powers, nor\nformed any new ones, the compromise concerning Malta formed the prominent\nfeature; and its nominal re-delivery to the Order of St. John was\nauthorised, in the minds of the people, by Lord Nelson\u2019s opinion of its\nworthlessness to Great Britain in a political or naval view.  It is a\nmelancholy fact, and one that must often sadden a reflective and\nphilanthropic mind, how little moral considerations weigh even with the\nnoblest nations, how vain are the strongest appeals to justice, humanity,\nand national honour, unless when the public mind is under the immediate\ninfluence of the cheerful or vehement passions, indignation or avaricious\nhope.  In the whole class of human infirmities there is none that make\nsuch loud appeals to prudence, and yet so frequently outrages its\nplainest dictates, as the spirit of fear.  The worst cause conducted in\nhope is an overmatch for the noblest managed by despondency; in both\ncases, an unnatural conjunction that recalls the old fable of Love and\nDeath, taking each the arrows of the other by mistake.  When islands that\nhad courted British protection in reliance upon British honour, are with\ntheir inhabitants and proprietors abandoned to the resentment which we\nhad tempted them to provoke, what wonder, if the opinion becomes general,\nthat alike to England as to France, the fates and fortunes of other\nnations are but the counters, with which the bloody game of war is\nplayed; and that notwithstanding the great and acknowledged difference\nbetween the two Governments during possession, yet the protection of\nFrance is more desirable because it is more likely to endure? for what\nthe French take, they keep.  Often both in Sicily and Malta have I heard\nthe case of Minorca referred to, where a considerable portion of the most\nrespectable gentry and merchants (no provision having been made for their\nprotection on the re-delivery of that island to Spain) expiated in\ndungeons the warmth and forwardness of their predilection for Great\nBritain.\n\nIt has been by some persons imagined, that Lord Nelson was considerably\ninfluenced, in his public declaration concerning the value of Malta, by\nministerial flattery, and his own sense of the great serviceableness of\nthat opinion to the persons in office.  This supposition is, however,\nwholly false and groundless.  His lordship\u2019s opinion was indeed greatly\nshaken afterwards, if not changed; but at that time he spoke in strictest\ncorrespondence with his existing convictions.  He said no more than he\nhad often previously declared to his private friends: it was the point on\nwhich, after some amicable controversy, his lordship and Sir Alexander\nBall had \u201cagreed to differ.\u201d  Though the opinion itself may have lost the\ngreatest part of its interest, and except for the historian is, as it\nwere, superannuated; yet the grounds and causes of it, as far as they\narose out of Lord Nelson\u2019s particular character, and may perhaps tend to\nre-enliven our recollection of a hero so deeply and justly beloved, will\nfor ever possess an interest of their own.  In an essay, too, which\npurports to be no more than a series of sketches and fragments, the\nreader, it is hoped, will readily excuse an occasional digression, and a\nmore desultory style of narration than could be tolerated in a work of\nregular biography.\n\nLord Nelson was an admiral every inch of him.  He looked at everything,\nnot merely in its possible relations to the naval service in general, but\nin its immediate bearings on his own squadron; to his officers, his men,\nto the particular ships themselves, his affections were as strong and\nardent as those of a lover.  Hence, though his temper was\nconstitutionally irritable and uneven, yet never was a commander so\nenthusiastically loved by men of all ranks, from the captain of the fleet\nto the youngest ship-boy.  Hence, too, the unexampled harmony which\nreigned in his fleet, year after year, under circumstances that might\nwell have undermined the patience of the best-balanced dispositions, much\nmore of men with the impetuous character of British sailors.  Year after\nyear, the same dull duties of a wearisome blockade, of doubtful\npolicy\u2014little, if any, opportunity of making prizes; and the few prizes,\nwhich accident might throw in the way, of little or no value; and when at\nlast the occasion presented itself which would have compensated for all,\nthen a disappointment as sudden and unexpected as it was unjust and\ncruel, and the cup dashed from their lips!  Add to these trials the sense\nof enterprises checked by feebleness and timidity elsewhere, not omitting\nthe tiresomeness of the Mediterranean sea, sky, and climate; and the\nunjarring and cheerful spirit of affectionate brotherhood, which linked\ntogether the hearts of that whole squadron, will appear not less\nwonderful to us than admirable and affecting.  When the resolution was\ntaken of commencing hostilities against Spain, before any intelligence\nwas sent to Lord Nelson, another admiral, with two or three ships of the\nline, was sent into the Mediterranean, and stationed before Cadiz, for\nthe express purpose of intercepting the Spanish prizes.  The admiral\ndespatched on this lucrative service gave no information to Lord Nelson\nof his arrival in the same sea, and five weeks elapsed before his\nlordship became acquainted with the circumstance.  The prizes thus taken\nwere immense.  A month or two sufficed to enrich the commander and\nofficers of this small and highly-favoured squadron; while to Nelson and\nhis fleet the sense of having done their duty, and the consciousness of\nthe glorious services which they had performed, were considered, it must\nbe presumed, as an abundant remuneration for all their toils and long\nsuffering!  It was, indeed, an unexampled circumstance, that a small\nsquadron should be sent to the station which had been long occupied by a\nlarge fleet, commanded by the darling of the navy, and the glory of the\nBritish empire, to the station where this fleet had for years been\nwearing away in the most barren, repulsive, and spirit-trying service, in\nwhich the navy can be employed! and that this minor squadron should be\nsent independently of, and without any communication with the commander\nof the former fleet, for the express and solitary purpose of stepping\nbetween it and the Spanish prizes, and as soon as this short and pleasant\nservice was performed, of bringing home the unshared booty with all\npossible caution and despatch.  The substantial advantages of naval\nservice were, perhaps, deemed of too gross a nature for men already\nrewarded with the grateful affections of their own countrymen, and the\nadmiration of the whole world!  They were to be awarded, therefore, on a\nprinciple of compensation to a commander less rich in fame, and whose\nlaurels, though not scanty, were not yet sufficiently luxuriant to hide\nthe golden crown which is the appropriate ornament of victory in the\nbloodless war of commercial capture!  Of all the wounds which were ever\ninflicted on Nelson\u2019s feelings (and there were not a few), this was the\ndeepest\u2014this rankled most!  \u201cI had thought\u201d (said the gallant man, in a\nletter written on the first feelings of the affront), \u201cI fancied\u2014but nay,\nit must have been a dream, an idle dream\u2014yet, I confess it, I did fancy,\nthat I had done my country service\u2014and thus they use me.  It was not\nenough to have robbed me once before of my West India harvest\u2014now they\nhave taken away the Spanish\u2014and under what circumstances, and with what\npointed aggravations?  Yet, if I know my own thoughts, it is not for\nmyself, or on my own account chiefly, that I feel the sting, and the\ndisappointment; no! it is for my brave officers; for my noble-minded\nfriends and comrades\u2014such a gallant set of fellows! such a hand of\nbrothers!  My heart swells at the thought of them!\u201d\n\nThis strong attachment of the heroic admiral to his fleet, faithfully\nrepaid by an equal attachment on their part to their admiral, had no\nlittle influence in attuning their hearts to each other; and when he\ndied, it seemed as if no man was a stranger to another; for all were made\nacquaintances by the rights of a common anguish.  In the fleet itself,\nmany a private quarrel was forgotten, no more to be remembered; many, who\nhad been alienated, became once more good friends; yea, many a one was\nreconciled to his very enemy, and loved and (as it were) thanked him for\nthe bitterness of his grief, as if it had been an act of consolation to\nhimself in an intercourse of private sympathy.  The tidings arrived at\nNaples on the day that I returned to that city from Calabria; and never\ncan I forget the sorrow and consternation that lay on every countenance.\nEven to this day there are times when I seem to see, as in a vision,\nseparate groups and individual faces of the picture.  Numbers stopped and\nshook hands with me because they had seen the tears on my cheek, and\nconjectured that I was an Englishman; and several, as they held my hand,\nburst themselves into tears.  And though it may awake a smile, yet it\npleased and affected me, as a proof of the goodness of the human heart\nstruggling to exercise its kindness in spite of prejudices the most\nobstinate, and eager to carry on its love and honour into the life beyond\nlife, that it was whispered about Naples, that Lord Nelson had become a\ngood Catholic before his death.  The absurdity of the fiction is a sort\nof measurement of the fond and affectionate esteem which had ripened the\npious wish of some kind individual, through all the gradations of\npossibility and probability, into a confident assertion, believed and\naffirmed by hundreds.  The feelings of Great Britain on this awful event\nhave been described well and worthily by a living poet, who has happily\nblended the passion and wild transitions of lyric song with the swell and\nsolemnity of epic narration.\n\n    \u201c\u2014Thou art fall\u2019n! fall\u2019n, in the lap\n    Of victory.  To thy country thou cam\u2019st back,\n    Thou, conqueror, to triumphal Albion cam\u2019st\n    A corse!  I saw before thy hearse pass on\n    The comrades of thy perils and renown.\n    The frequent tear upon their dauntless breasts\n    Fell.  I beheld the pomp thick gathered round\n    The trophied car that bore thy graced remains\n    Through armed ranks, and a nation gazing on.\n    Bright glowed the sun, and not a cloud distained\n    Heaven\u2019s arch of gold, but all was gloom beneath.\n    A holy and unutterable pang\n    Thrilled on the soul.  Awe and mute anguish fell\n    On all.\u2014Yet high the public bosom throbbed\n    With triumph.  And if one, \u2019mid that vast pomp,\n    If but the voice of one had shouted forth\n    The name of NELSON, thou hadst past along,\n    Thou in thy hearse to burial past, as oft\n    Before the van of battle, proudly rode\n    Thy prow, down Britain\u2019s line, shout after shout\n    Rending the air with triumph, ere thy hand\n    Had lanced the bolt of victory.\u201d\n\n                                                  SOTHEBY (_Saul_, p. 80).\n\nI introduced this digression with an apology, yet have extended it so\nmuch further than I had designed, that I must once more request my reader\nto excuse me.  It was to be expected (I have said) that Lord Nelson would\nappreciate the isle of Malta from its relations to the British fleet on\nthe Mediterranean station.  It was the fashion of the day to style Egypt\nthe key of India, and Malta the key of Egypt.  Nelson saw the hollowness\nof this metaphor; or if he only doubted its applicability in the former\ninstance, he was sure that it was false in the latter.  Egypt might or\nmight not be the key of India, but Malta was certainly not the key of\nEgypt.  It was not intended to keep constantly two distinct fleets in\nthat sea; and the largest naval force at Malta would not supersede the\nnecessity of a squadron off Toulon.  Malta does not lie in the direct\ncourse from Toulon to Alexandria; and from the nature of the winds\n(taking one time with another) the comparative length of the voyage to\nthe latter port will be found far less than a view of the map would\nsuggest, and in truth of little practical importance.  If it were the\nobject of the French fleet to avoid Malta in its passage to Egypt, the\nport-admiral at Valetta would in all probability receive his first\nintelligence of its course from Minorca or the squadron off Toulon,\ninstead of communicating it.  In what regards the refitting and\nprovisioning of the fleet, either on ordinary or extraordinary occasions,\nMalta was as inconvenient as Minorca was advantageous, not only from its\ndistance (which yet was sufficient to render it almost useless in cases\nof the most pressing necessity, as after a severe action or injuries of\ntempest), but likewise from the extreme difficulty, if not\nimpracticability of leaving the harbour of Valetta with a NW. wind, which\noften lasts for weeks together.  In all these points his lordship\u2019s\nobservations were perfectly just; and it must be conceded by all persons\nacquainted with the situation and circumstances of Malta, that its\nimportance, as a British possession, if not exaggerated on the whole, was\nunduly magnified in several important particulars.  Thus Lord Minto, in a\nspeech delivered at a county meeting, and afterwards published, affirms,\nthat supposing (what no one could consider as unlikely to take place)\nthat the court of Naples should be compelled to act under the influence\nof France, and that the Barbary powers were unfriendly to us, either in\nconsequence of French intrigues or from their own caprice and insolence,\nthere would not be a single port, harbour, bay, creek, or roadstead in\nthe whole Mediterranean, from which our men-of-war could obtain a single\nox or a hogshead of fresh water, unless Great Britain retained possession\nof Malta.  The noble speaker seems not to have been aware, that under the\ncircumstances supposed by him, Odessa too being closed against us by a\nRussian war, the island of Malta itself would be no better than a vast\nalmshouse of 75,000 persons, exclusive of the British soldiery, all of\nwhom must be regularly supplied with corn and salt meat from Great\nBritain or Ireland.  The population of Malta and Gozo exceeds 100,000,\nwhile the food of all kinds produced on the two islands would barely\nsuffice for one-fourth of that number.  The deficit is procured by the\ngrowth and spinning of cotton, for which corn could not be substituted\nfrom the nature of the soil, or, were it attempted, would produce but a\nsmall proportion of the quantity which the cotton raised on the same\nfields and spun into thread, enables the Maltese to purchase, not to\nmention that the substitution of grain for cotton would leave half of the\ninhabitants without employment.  As to live stock, it is quite out of the\nquestion, if we except the pigs and goats, which perform the office of\nscavengers in the streets of Valetta and the towns on the other side of\nthe Porto Grande.\n\nAgainst these arguments Sir A. Ball placed the following considerations.\nIt had been long his conviction that the Mediterranean squadron should be\nsupplied by regular store-ships, the sole business of which should be\nthat of carriers for the fleet.  This he recommended as by far the most\neconomic plan in the first instance.  Secondly, beyond any other it would\nsecure a system and regularity in the arrival of supplies.  And, lastly,\nit would conduce to the discipline of the navy, and prevent both ships\nand officers from being out of the way on any sudden emergency.  If this\nsystem were introduced, the objections to Malta, from its great distance,\n&c., would have little force.  On the other hand, the objections to\nMinorca he deemed irremovable.  The same disadvantages which attended the\ngetting out of the harbour of Valetta, applied to vessels getting into\nPort Mahon; but while fifteen hundred or two thousand British troops\nmight be safely entrusted with the preservation of Malta, the troops for\nthe defence of Minorca must ever be in proportion to those which the\nenemy may be supposed likely to send against it.  It is so little\nfavoured by nature or by art, that the possessors stood merely on the\nlevel with the invaders.  _C\u00e6teris paribus_, if there 12,000 of the enemy\nlanded, there must be an equal number to repel them; nor could the\ngarrison, or any part of it, be spared for any sudden emergency without\nrisk of losing the island.  Previously to the battle of Marengo, the most\nearnest representations were made to the governor and commander at\nMinorca by the British admiral, who offered to take on himself the whole\nresponsibility of the measure, if he would permit the troops at Minorca\nto join our allies.  The governor felt himself compelled to refuse his\nassent.  Doubtless, he acted wisely, for responsibility is not\ntransferable.  The fact is introduced in proof of the defenceless state\nof Minorca, and its constant liability to attack.  If the Austrian army\nhad stood in the same relation to eight or nine thousand British soldiers\nat Malta, a single regiment would have precluded all alarms as to the\nisland itself, and the remainder have perhaps changed the destiny of\nEurope.  What might not, almost I would say, what must not eight thousand\nBritons have accomplished at the battle of Marengo, nicely poised as the\nfortunes of the two armies are now known to have been?  Minorca, too, is\nalone useful or desirable during a war, and on the supposition of a fleet\noff Toulon.  The advantages of Malta are permanent and national.  As a\nsecond Gibraltar it must tend to secure Gibraltar itself; for if by the\nloss of that one place we could be excluded from the Mediterranean, it is\ndifficult to say what sacrifices of blood and treasure the enemy would\ndeem too high a price for its conquest.  Whatever Malta may or may not be\nrespecting Egypt, its high importance to the independence of Sicily\ncannot be doubted, or its advantages as a central station, for any\nportion of our disposable force.  Neither is the influence which it will\nenable us to exert on the Barbary powers to be wholly neglected.  I shall\nonly add, that during the plague at Gibraltar, Lord Nelson himself\nacknowledged that he began to see the possession of Malta in a different\nlight.\n\nSir Alexander Ball looked forward to future contingencies as likely to\nincrease the value of Malta to Great Britain.  He foresaw that the whole\nof Italy would become a French province, and he knew that the French\nGovernment had been long intriguing on the coast of Barbary.  The Dey of\nAlgiers was believed to have accumulated a treasure of fifteen millions\nsterling, and Buonaparte had actually duped him into a treaty, by which\nthe French were to be permitted to erect a fort on the very spot where\nthe ancient Hippo stood, the choice between which and the Hellespont, as\nthe site of New Rome, is said to have perplexed the judgment of\nConstantine.  To this he added an additional point of connection with\nRussia, by means of Odessa, and on the supposition of a war in the\nBaltic, a still more interesting relation to Turkey, and the Mores, and\nthe Greek islands.  It had been repeatedly signified to the British\nGovernment, that from the Morea and the countries adjacent, a\nconsiderable supply of ship timber and naval stores might be obtained,\nsuch as would at least greatly lessen the pressure of a Russian war.  The\nagents of France were in full activity in the Morea and the Greek\nislands, the possession of which, by that Government, would augment the\nnaval resources of the French to a degree of which few are aware who have\nnot made the present state of commerce of the Greeks an object of\nparticular attention.  In short, if the possession of Malta were\nadvantageous to England solely as a convenient watch-tower, as a centre\nof intelligence, its importance would be undeniable.\n\nAlthough these suggestions did not prevent the signing away of Malta at\nthe peace of Amiens, they doubtless were not without effect, when the\nambition of Buonaparte had given a full and final answer to the grand\nquestion: can we remain at peace with France?  I have likewise reason to\nbelieve that Sir Alexander Ball, baffled, by exposing an insidious\nproposal of the French Government, during the negotiations that preceded\nthe recommencement of the war\u2014that the fortifications of Malta should be\nentirely dismantled, and the island left to its inhabitants.  Without\ndwelling on the obvious inhumanity and flagitious injustice of exposing\nthe Maltese to certain pillage and slavery from their old and inveterate\nenemies, the Moors, he showed that the plan would promote the interests\nof Buonaparte even more than his actual possession of the island, which\nFrance had no possible interest in desiring, except as the means of\nkeeping it out of the hands of Great Britain.\n\nBut Sir Alexander Ball is no more.  The writer still clings to the hope\nthat he may yet be able to record his good deeds more fully and\nregularly; that then, with a sense of comfort, not without a subdued\nexultation, he may raise heavenward from his honoured tomb the glistening\neye of an humble, but ever grateful Friend.","title":"Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit and Some Miscellaneous Pieces","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":43465}