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fore must be false. Revelation and Infallibility have been, and are, universally connected, for upon this connection, and the supposition that to be right on certain points is for Salvation, depends the force of the popular Argument. Now, is it possible that God should leave Mankind without a final, immoveable ground to stand upon? This is the drift of my Argument. On the other hand, I believe in more Revelation than most Divines. I believe in the internal presence of God in the sanctuary of the Soul. I take-nay, I know-that Presence to be active and real. That Oracle is the source of every Truth, of every Virtue in Man. Seneca has expressed this fact with more force and clearness than any Christian writer :-Sacer intra nos spiritus sedet, malorum bonorumque nostrorum observator et custos; hic, prout a nobis tractatus est, ita nos ipse tractat. I could quote still finer passages from the Emperor Marcus Antoninus, but my strength fails me.

You allude to a passage in my Letter on Anti-Religious Libel which opposes the view of Revelation, which you conceive I gave in my Letter to Mr. Ripley. Alas! my dear Sir, considering the mental wilderness through which I have travelled, it is to me surprising that the bearings of my Map are still tolerably consistent. The History of my doubts on the Theory of Revelation is in my MS. Memoirs. That subject was the occasion of my first anxiety and disappointment on my joining the Church of England. Incapable of yielding where conviction does not take me by the hand, yet it is impossible to conceive how my Heart has always yearned after conformity with those whom I loved and valued. Hence the bursts which now and then appear in my writings, bearing the stamp and tone of certain religious views, which at that moment I thought I had reconciled with right Reason. The one you allude to was among the last. The substance, indeed, of that

view remains within me; but not the form. I live and move, and have my being in God. Supported by this ulti

mate conviction, this result of my life, I await approaching Death with tranquillity, insensible to the clamour of Divines, who prescribe a Method of Salvation. God is my Saviour: in Him I fully trust.

There is almost a moral certainty that this will be my last to you, and that it will not be followed by many to others. I beg you, therefore, to bear me witness that I die a Christian, because I am convinced that God has granted me the SPIRIT of Christianity: that I die a Unitarian, because I consider the spirit of our Body nearer to the spirit of Christianity, than that of any other Denomination. I trust that the Unitarians, especially in America, are destined by Providence to give the final blow to the superstition which still clings to, and degrades the Gospel.

May God preserve your strength many years to be a Leader in this great Work.

I am, with most sincere Esteem and Friendship,
My dear Sir, faithfully yours,

J. BLANCO WHITE.

To Mrs.

June 15th, 1838.

My dear

You will not say that I do not treat you with all the confidence in your affection which a Father might have. Your linen cap pleases me so much, that I enclose it for the purpose that you will make me another like it. I will not apologise; for you have spoilt me.

Have the goodness to give the two enclosed Letters to your husband, and desire him in my name, when he has read them, to seal mine, and forward it. I quite forgot them yesterday, though I had them before me; but the musical (now unmusical) Box had put every thing else out

of my head, and the Dublin business was, as indeed it is still, eating into my heart.

May Heaven preserve your feeling soul from such trials. Yours most affectionately,

J. BLANCO WHITE.

From Professor Norton.

My dear Friend,

Cambridge, June 15th, 1838.

A Letter which I received yesterday from Miss Park makes me fear that this may never reach you. I write it with deep feeling, as a solemn and affectionate farewell to one whose life has been devoted to a constant struggle in the cause of truth and goodness, and whose spirit is now passing to a higher sphere to receive its exceeding reward. The benefit of your labours and sufferings will not be lost upon earth. Your example and your writings will continually bear more and more fruit.

I will not write many words. Farewell! but not for ever. I now claim your friendship when we shall meet, for the first time, hereafter. It will not be many years hence, perhaps not many months.

May the blessing of God be with you here and through eternity. Once again, Farewell!

Your friend,

ANDREWS NORTON.

To Professor Norton.

Liverpool, July 17th, 1838.

My dear and respected Friend,

Yours of the 15th June has reached me this morning. Its contents have affected me deeply, and I thank God that

I have enjoyed, what to me is always one of the most sublime and convincing proofs of God and Immortality, the effusions of sincere friendship from a person like yourself. I prepare this answer without delay, lest the tormenting disease should take a sudden turn and carry me off, without my having made a full acknowledgment of your kindness. I linger in a most distressing state, deprived of the use of my lower limbs, and incapable of getting out of my chair by my own efforts. Easily exhausted by talking, and much more by thinking, I am, with very few exceptions, quite alone, and unable to follow up any reading which requires attention. My physicians have long declared to me their opinion that I cannot recover-a declaration which filled me with joy, and the accomplishment of which, like hope delayed, now makes my heart wither. I feel no enthusiastic raptures, nor does my Imagination, trained, as it is, not to take the lead, venture to suggest any of her material pictures. But I have the most calm assurance within me, that the God whom at all times I have loved, and whose will I have always most sincerely wished to obey, will provide for me that happiness for which I may be best fitted. Free from all theological fears, no terrors surround me while waiting for the long-desired dismissal from this life. I heartily thank God, who has so disposed the events of my mental course that I do not find in myself even a trace of the Superstition in which I was most anxiously educated. This indeed more than repays all my sufferings.

My

May God's blessing be upon you and Mrs. Norton, and may your efforts in the pursuit of truth be successful. acquaintance with the tone and character of your mind makes me sure that, wherever that mind may be in communication with my own, the tie of friendship will unite them. Farewell, my dear friend.—

With gratitude and esteem, I am yours,
J. BLANCO WHITE.

July 11th.

My sixty-third Birth-day. I would it were my Birth-day into another state of existence !

My dear Sir,

From Dr. Channing.

Boston, July 11th, 1838.

say

In a letter from Miss Dix, I have just received very unfavourable accounts of your health; more so than you have yourself given. I cannot but hope that you will be strengthened again, for I feel that you must have much to which you have not yet communicated to the world, and in usefulness you would find much to enjoy. But a higher will disposes of us. In this we will rejoice. Were this world our only sphere of action, we might be depressed at the thought of our unfinished plans, and of going,-before half of our work was done. But the very power which grasps at so much more than we can accomplish, is prophetic of a higher life. You and I have been conscious of a spiritual activity, which physical debility has prevented our bringing out. Is this to perish? Is the thirst for higher truth and holiness an illusion? The Fountain from which our spiritual life has flowed is inexhaustible. Will our aspirations after larger communications fail?

I have been a little troubled on account of a letter I sent you, after reading yours to Mr. Ripley. I had scarcely sent it when I felt that it was very crude, and I could not but fear that you might set down the free suggestions of a letter as deliberate conclusions. I now regret sending it,—from the apprehension that it may have stirred you up to efforts of thought injurious in your debilitated state. I beg you not to think of answering it,-nor to think of it farther.

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