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décorez du nom de liberté (this is an assumption; nobody in his senses can say so) cependant il médite de commettre de nouveaux forfaits N'est

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il donc pas encore coupable? S'il est coupable, il est donc libre, même dans les fers."-Vol. i. p. 62. What thinking man ever did deny it? "Il est coupable" means, he is not what he ought to be. Why is he so? Ans. Because he will not be better. Why again, will he not be better? Ans. Because he is free so that a man is good because he is free, and is wicked because he is free: a strange cause which produces two opposite effects.-No man, I believe, did ever experience the absence of all motives, except his freedom. In all such arguments there is a confusion of Will-free-Will, and Desire-blind-Will. I think the best definition of Will is this: FreeWill is the faculty which can control Desire. Is this Will equally powerful in all men? This is what no speculation can ascertain. The Will is equally free from compulsion in all men; but is it equally unseducible by Desire? Well, then, it will be urged again : "Men sin necessarily." I answer, they sin wilfully; they do that which they ought not to do, and are guilty, i. e. they must bear the consequences. The moral worth of men depends on the degree of control which their Will has over their desires. This is perfectly true. I believe that the Free Will of Man is in accordance with his Conscience or Reason-" to will is present with me; but to perform that which is good I find not (says St. Paul, from

his own experience), for I delight in the law of God after the inward man." The inward man is the Free Will; the flesh are the blind desires. The inward man does not perform his natural office unless he subdues the outward to his control: in whatever degree he either fails to conquer or is conquered, in that degree he is not what he should be: he is not good, i.e. he is wicked. But as to his deserts, whether for reward or punishment, only God can judge, who knows the relative strength of the Controller and the Rebel in each individual.

The same day.

Gieseler, Part II., pp. 22, 23, has some interesting quotations relating to the holy fool St. Boniface, the apostle, as he is called, of the Germans. His narrowness of mind is equal to his persecuting spirit. His subjection to the Church of Rome is quite puerile. The precepts of that church are equally absurd and childish. The Pope Gregory III. writes to the Bishop that he is shocked at hearing that some of the Germans had feasted upon a wild horse: immundum enim est et execrabile. Boniface wished to know what kinds of food were lawful, and what kinds unlawful. The Pope answers that neither crows, nor rooks, nor storks, were lawful for Christians; "much more should badgers, and hares, and wild horses be avoided. But you are well aware about (these things?) from the Scriptures. (That is, he refers

to Leviticus.) You also ask how long must bacon be kept before it is eaten. The Fathers have left us no directions about it. But as you ask advice, we will give it you, namely, it should not be eaten till it is dried by smoke, or dressed by fire. But if people like to eat it raw, let them wait till after Easter!"

The next passage is from a letter of Boniface to Pope Zachary, a most violent accusation against two Heretics, as he calls them. In this letter he charges one of them with introducing Judaism by allowing a man to marry his wife's sister-in-law. Yet this blockhead and his Pope did not think of the Judaism of the difference of food which they enforced according to Leviticus.

Aug. 31st.

Finished reading the first four volumes of Michelet's Hist. de France, an admirable work. I hope the continuation will soon be out.

Sept. 2nd, 1839.

A miserable night. My mind full of the project of having one, or two, of my nieces Beck here. Tried crutches, with no success whatever: the effort made me almost faint. Wrote to Captain Curtain, asking what is to be done if I obtain a promise of the purchase-money.*

[ For his son's Captaincy.]

4th.

For several days I have read Lucian in bed, early in the morning. No one who reads extracts only can know the merits of that admirable writer.

12th.

As usual, suffering miserably, and remaining, to all appearances, stationary in point of life.

I have read Lucian's Treatise de Hist. Conscribendâ; it is a very able piece of criticism. Two passages have particularly fixed my attention. One of these I might make my motto; he applies it to historians in general :

μόνῃ θυτίον τῇ ἀληθείᾳ.

The other is an illustration, of which he avails himself, to urge the writers of history to forget their contemporaries and look to posterity. He says that the architect of the Alexandrian Pharos covered a part of the building with stucco, on which he inscribed the name of the reigning sovereign. Under this coat of plaster, however, he engraved on the rock the following inscription:

Σώστρατος Δεξιφάνους Κνίδιος

Θεοῖς Σωτῆρσιν

ὑπὲρ τῶν πλωιζομένων.

I think it most beautiful.

I am also reading the Vera Historia; and feel convinced that Swift took from it the hint for his Gulliver's Travels. But how far superior is here the modern to the ancient! Romance of all kinds belongs to modern literature; the ancients had very little talent for it.

13th.

I dreamed I was playing the violin. The impression remained upon my mind, and I have just now been putting a few strings on the violin and tenor, and playing a little on both,-with pain indeed, but it is surprising how little I have lost, except in strength.

Letter from Dr. Channing.

My dear Sir,

Sept. 18th, 1839.

It was a great pleasure to me to hear from you again— to see your handwriting once more. Perhaps it may hardly seem a kindness to wish you to continue longer on earth, suffering as much as you do; but as long as the powers are spared, the great end of life may be answered, and much good done. I sometimes think of visiting England, now that steam has done so much towards placing the Continents side by side, and in that case how great should I feel my loss, were your voice of welcome to be wanting! How happy should I be to talk with you of your history, and to get your views (among other subjects) of the late popish explosion at Oxford! Not that this is matter of surprise. I am prepared for such bursts of Romanism. This system could not have lasted so long, or spread so far, without

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