H-'s, a family with whom we had very pleasant relations in Paris in 1837 and 1838. What changes are wrought by only a few years! Mrs. H was my fellow-voyager in 1837 to Havre, a young mother with a babe some three months old. That boy is now a boy nearly ready to enter college, having four brothers, and a sister now eighteen months old. The mother is still youthful, and little changed in her appearance. The family seem religious, and wealth and the world have done little to mar a delightful simplicity and kindliness which from my first acquaintance attracted me strongly to them. I always find many agreeable acquaintances in Boston, and, upon the whole, like it very much, bating the east wind, which has had the grace to hold its pestiferous breath since I came to town, leaving us to very cold but pleasant weather, which I enjoy as I do my overpowering shower-bath, as much as the nature of the case admits of. The Sleepers are kind, if possible, beyond their wont, and often reiterate the wish that you were here, to which I could respond a hearty amen. I am just now invited to dine tomorrow with Mr. Crowell; so you see the hospitality of these good people engrosses every day of this week to Saturday. Give my love to the family. Many kisses to dear Henry and Lynch. Be good, my dear Henry; make your mamma happy when I am away, and that will make your papa happy. Remember that our Savior loves good boys. Always think that he is looking at you, and hears what you say, and sees what you do. Try to please him in all things; that is your duty. Nothing is so good as to obey and love the Savior. You ought to feel very bad when you offend him, and you will be happy if you please God. Say your prayers always. Ask God to make you a good boy. Set a good example for Lynch, who will do as he sees you do. If you are good, he will be good; if you are naughty, he will be so too, I am afraid. Tell the truth. Mind your mamma always,

and then God will love and bless you.

CCVIII. TO THE REV. ABEL STEVENS.

Middletown, January 31st, 1851. I look back with pleasure to my late visit to Boston, and to my delightful intercourse with you and my brethren there. I was not allowed to feel the slightest suspicion that I was less liked or confided in by those from whom I may have some slight differences of opinion on questions of confessed difficulty. How pleasant it is to open one's heart in a confiding circle of liberal-minded, true-hearted Christians, where there is scope for little discords of opinion in the mightier concords of a large charity! I felt that, as I always do with my Boston brethren. May God prosper you and them in all your manifold endeavors to promote the cause of Christ. This, this is our great work, and though the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things, the labor which is thus directed can not be lost. This is my consolation for myself and my brethren. Our errors and extravagances will come to naught, but our zeal and toil for God will

not.

CCIX. TO THE REV. DR. OLIN.

Richmond, January 20th, 1851. MY DEAR BROTHER,-Late on last night I sat down to the perusal of your article in the Quarterly Review, and finished it before retiring to bed. I do not recollect ever to have been more enchained with a subject. In reflecting on it, I could but regret that such powers are not more freely and frequently employed to do good in the earth. I consoled myself with the hope that you must be engaged in the preparation of some greater work for the instruction and guidance of the Church. I hope the thought is not a mistaken one. At any rate, I determined to express to you, without delay, my sincere thanks for your address to the young men of the Church. That resolution was strengthened this morning on receiving

your sermon on the death of Mrs. Garrettson. I have already gone through it, with increasing admiration for your powers of speech, and, I trust, not without spiritual benefit. In the name of my wife, who prizes the remembrance it expresses very highly, I return sincere thanks for this benefit also. Mrs. Lee will treasure the sermon as a token of friendship, and will read it with a pleasure for its doctrines, enhanced by the great confidence she has in its author.

In a recent examination of the "Life of S. Drew," I was struck with the correspondence between himself and the Rev. T. Jacks as to the necessity of a standard doctrinal exposition of Methodism, something like the "Philosophy of Methodism," on a scale comprehending the entire system of doctrine, and its harmony with the character and will of God, as revealed in the Bible. Is not such a work still needed? It seems to me to be a lack in our theological literature; and who among living men so competent to such a work as your self? I mean no empty compliment, but am in earnest. I know nothing of your engagements. I know not that, in the multitude of your thoughts, such an one ever entered your mind; but the suggestion is before it, and I sincerely hope it may remain and work out a favorable conclusion.

You will see from our Quarterly Review that I have thrown my line into troubled waters. If you should find leisure to read the article, and to write me a line, I should like to know if you think I have made out my case. In the article "Destiny of the Educated" you will find views not wholly dissimilar from yours, above referred to.

I have a craving to do something, help to do something, or to see others do something, for the improvement of our ministry. Your concluding paragraph is a splendid specimen of hissing-hot rebuke. It is an oiled cimeter, that Truth drives to the vitals of the lazy and indifferent. Hit them again, and harder every chance you have, and do it heartily, in the name of the Lord and for the sake of souls. Did you not

once write something on a call to the ministry? I have some recollection of it, and would like very much to see it, if my recollection is right. I am writing a series of editorial articles on the subject, but, written hurriedly, they are imperfect, and, I fear, unimpressive. Still, I hope they will serve to awaken attention to the subject, and do some little good. Mrs. Lee and I often revisit your dwelling in our conversations of past pleasures. It would add a new pleasure to life to have you and Mrs. Olin to sojourn, for a while at least, with us. LEROY M. LEE.

CCX. TO THE REV. DR. LEE.

Middletown, January 31st, 1851. Rev. and dear BROTHER,-I received your letter of the 20th instant a day or two since, having been absent from home for several weeks previously to the present. I receive a letter from a Southern friend with special emotions of pleasure, esteeming such favors as so much saved from the wreck of my early, cherished friendships. For several years I mourned over the division of our Church as a public calamity. Latterly I feel more deeply the personal, social losses I have been called to suffer, more, perhaps, than any other individual, in the disruption of ties at once harder to form and more necessary to us as we grow old. I was deeply, and, as I thought, lastingly attached to many early Christian friends, all of whom, with one or two exceptions, were of the South, where I became disciplined and entered on life as a man. The tempest that has passed over us, which has not yet spent its fury, has left few of all those with whom I had hoped to take sweet counsel to my latest day. It is the misfortune, and, as I think, the crime also, of such controversies as divide brethren, that charity is the first virtue to disappear, and the last to return. I have a horror of such strife. I distrust my own self-possession and piety too much to enter an arena where so many learn to distrust old friends and permit un

kindly sentiments to supplant Christian affection. I have sometimes thought that you suffer less than some others in the strife; for though it is not to be concealed that you, too, often deal blows that make even the spectator recoil, not to speak of the victim, you seem to retain, more than some less exposed persons, your kindly tendencies to good fellowship. Be this your lot evermore, and your distinction so long as you feel constrained to be a man of war.

I have read with care and much satisfaction your article on Calvin and Servetus. I wish I had some better ground than you have left to doubt the justness of the conclusion to which your forcible argument conducts the unprejudiced reader. It is painful, and not very complimentary to the Reformation and to the Gospel itself, to be compelled to admit that one of its greatest lights was a persecutor unto death by fire of a mistaken, though, for aught that appears, sincere Christian. You must allow us to charge the dreadful sin to the times no less than to the stern, tyrannical spirit of the despot, who must be confessed, as you justly say, to have been behind his times rather than in advance of them. I am much pleased with this number of your Review, the first I have for some time seen, and an improvement on all I have seen, especially in the style of several of the articles. Dr. Doggett will do good service to the Church, which I deem fortunate in the selection. If he is properly supported by the Southern ministry, who are almost all distinguished by the possession of a great deal of writing ability, which hardly any thing can bring into action, he will furnish a Quarterly which will bear a favorable comparison with any in the land.

I feel gratified by the favorable opinion which your letter expresses of my two little productions. When you propose to me some large work that might hope for more than an ephemeral influence, the suggestion tallies well with my own fervent desires, but betrays an imperfect knowledge both of my mental and physical abilities. I am deeply impressed