Paley in the first sentence of his "Evidences," where he pleads for an immediate entry on the strongest credentials of revelation, and that anterior to any consideration of its necessity. But this question of arrangement is too unwieldy for discussion in a single letter; and I think the chief objection to the usual arrangement is done away when the prefatory views which you exhibit are held forth more in the light of presumptions than as the initial steps of a logical process, which last method has the effect of placing the less obvious probabilities at the basis of the argument, and so of making the whole weak throughout, because weak radically.

On the whole, I feel quite assured, and the assurance will gather in strength as I advance in my reading of your work, that it forms a most sound and valuable contribution to our professional literature. With best regards to Mrs. Symington and your family, I am, my dear sir, yours most respectfully and truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCLXVI.-LETTER TO REV. THOMAS BARTLETT.

Edinburgh, 25th January, 1839. MY DEAR SIR-Your "Life of Butler" came to me about a week ago, and I suspended all other reading till I should achieve the perusal of it. My engagements leave me very little time for this indulgence; but I have now finished the Narrative, and can not forbear writing you now, though I have not yet entered on the Abridgment which you make of the " Analogy." I mean, however, to look over this also; and should any thing occur to me, in respect of its execution, I will send you a second letter.

But recurring to the Memoir, I have perused it with great eagerness, and a very intense feeling of satisfaction and interest. My veneration for Butler gives a magnitude even to the minutest traits which are recorded of him, insomuch that I feel as if I had made a real acquisition by knowing of his fast riding on a black horse, and his habit of stopping and turning to his companion with whom he was engaged in talk,

Allow me to say that I look on what is peculiarly your own part as done with great taste and great talent; and it is not with the spirit of flattery, but of justice, that I tell you, laboring as you did under the disadvantage of scanty materials, that the work is greatly indebted to your own reflections, that you have imparted to it a strong literary interest, and have managed to infuse into it as great a biographical charm as the fewness of the known incidents would allow.

Page 222.-I shall here transcribe an extract from my class-book on Butler's "Analogy." Dr. Ryland, in his edition of "Andrew Fuller's Works," says in a note, "I heard Mr. Venn, of Yelling, give an account, however, to Mr. Beveridge, who related his conversation with one of his chaplains, to whom the bishop remarked, that it was an awful thing to appear before the Moral Governor of the world;' when the chaplain, whose views were more clearly evangelical, referred him to the obedience of Christ, by which many are made righteous; and the dying bishop exclaimed, O, this is comfortable,' and so expired." What I now give brings Butler's expression still nearer to that at page 226.

Even if you had done no more than collect the scattered remains of such references as were made to Butler by various authors during his life and after his death, that of itself would have justified the volume; for though these references are taken from printed books or pamphlets, they, even at this time of day, are as little known as if they had been extracted by you from manuscripts and letters.

I shall only add, that nothing can be more agreeable than your kind notice of myself. Pages 335, 336, brought back to me a very vivid and most interesting recollection.* With my best regards to Mrs. Bartlett, believe me ever, my dear sir, yours most respectfully and cordially,

THOMAS CHALMERS.

* See Memoirs, vol. iii., p. 388, 389.

[PRINCETON, 10th March, 1848.-REVEREND AND DEAR SIR-Having learned from the public journals that you were engaged in preparing a Memoir of the late great and good Dr. Chalmers, and that you desired to have letters which he had written transmitted to you, it occurred to me to doubt whether I had not a duty to discharge in reference to this request.

Though I enjoyed the precious privilege of corresponding with him, yet but few letters passed between us. We were both too busy, and especially he, in the great concerns in which he was called to act, to devote much time to letter-writing. I think the letters which I received from him were not more than three. Of one of them, and the longest, I inclose herewith a copy. The others have, I scarcely know how, passed out of my possession; for, as the handwriting of such a man could not fail of being the object of intense curiosity and of deep interest with the multitudes on this side of the Atlantic, who admired his talents and venerated his name, I found it difficult to retain in my possession any scrap that bore the impress of his hand.

In one of my letters to this beloved and illustrious man, I begged him, with an importunity never addressed by me to any other person, to favor the American Churches with a visit. I know not that I ever had so ardent a desire to behold the face and to hear the voice of any other human being; and now, painfully aware, of course, that I can never enjoy this privilege, I feel a kind of solicitude that I never felt before for the accomplishment of the great biographical trust committed to your hands.

I rejoice to have seen all the works of this venerable servant of Christ that have been placed within my reach; but I must say that those from which I have received the deepest impression of the real glory of his character have been his posthumous writings. Of the vigor and elevation of his mind I had enjoyed proof enough from the many volumes which had long since fallen under my notice. But from some of his most unstudied writings which have lately met my eye, I have received impressions of his moral and heavenly grandeur of soul greatly beyond those which I had received from the multiplied and rich productions of his genius. I thank his God and my God that I have been permitted to see those last effusions of his heart and his pen. They have much enlarged my views of his Christian greatness, and, I hope, have not been without benefit to my own soul.

But among all those who will take such a deep and tender interest in your work, there are, perhaps, few less likely than myself to enjoy the pleasure of seeing it completed. Being far advanced in my seventy-ninth year, and daily admonished by many infirmities that I must soon "put off this tabernacle," it is not very probable that I shall survive the publication of your precious Memoir. But be it so this will be of small importance to any one. Many in both hemispheres will

:

read it, enjoy it, and be, I trust, the better for it; and in the mean while, I shall be, I hope, so happy as to join the great and beloved man himself, whom all have for a time lost, and to see him face to face in a more enlightened and happy world, and to unite with him in the endless praise and enjoyment of that precious Savior, whose atoning sacrifice and perfect righteousness are all my salvation and all my desire." I am, reverend and dear sir, most respectfully your friend and brother in Christian bonds. SAMUEL MIller.

To the Rev. Wm. Hanna.]

No. CCLXVII.-TO REV. DR. SAMUEL MILLER.

EDINBURGH, 28th December, 1840. MY DEAR SIR-I owe you many apologies for not having replied sooner to your letter of the 28th of January of last year. The truth is, that my whole attention has been absorbed by the questions and the difficulties of our own Church; and I positively have had no remaining strength or time for the American controversy, of which you have sent me so full and interesting an account in your kind communication. It is well, however, that there was no immediate practical necessity for giving one's mind to the subject, seeing that, so far as I know, there was no application made by your seceding party for a recognition of their views by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

I hope you received a former letter of mine on the subject of your book respecting the "Eldership," which I have ever recommended to my classes as the best I know on its own especial topic, besides being an admirable general vindication of the Presbyterian polity. I am much interested by your argument for the separation of the two orders of elders and deacons, the conjunction of which I have ever deprecated as the most incongruous of all pluralities.

With earnest prayer for your continued public usefulness and personal comfort, and in humble hope that we shall meet in heaven, I entreat you to believe me, my dear sir, yours most respectfully and cordially, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCLXVIII.-TO REV. THOMAS GRINFIELD, CLIFTON. BURNTISLAND, 28th April, 1841. MY DEAR SIR-It is impossible not to be highly gratified by your letter of the 20th, in which you speak so favorably of my Treatise on Natural Theology." I labor under the discountenance of one principal Review, and the positive hostility of another. First, the "Edinburgh," chiefly (I believe) from a difference in our politics: secondly, the "Quarterly," whose editor, a Scotchman, has been my unrelenting adversary for more than twenty years. It is, therefore, all the more pleasing when a literary and professional man like yourself gives his attention to my various theses, and records a favorable impression of them. Believe me ever, my dear sir, yours very truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCLXIX.-TO REV. THOMAS GRINFIELD, CLIFTON. BURNTISLAND, 16th June, 1841.

MY DEAR SIR-I should have much sooner acknowledged your last of May 1st; but I have been in feeble health, and much and painfully engrossed with the troubles of our Church.

I got an interdict served on me this day, which I mean to disregard; and on the identical principle which would decide. an English bishop to disregard the mandate of a civil court, either to admit or exclude a man from holy orders.

I read your pamphlet* with great interest a few days after its arrival, and can not but augur great good from the establishment in your important city of such an association as that before which it was read. I was much pleased with the 'Lecture;" and while I thank you most cordially for your most kind mention of myself, I must also express my satisfaction at the 'testimony you give, and which you have so well established, to the harmony of the two faculties of reason and imagination-an important principle truly, and sadly overlooked by those heartless Statists and Utilitarians who think

* “Lecture on Imagination and Poetry, with a Special Reference to the Poetry of the Bible," delivered before the Bristol Book Association.