the great and ultimate results of all our converse here be a common mansion in that country of perfect blessedness, where there is no sorrow and no separation. Yours most affectionately, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. XXI.-MR. THOMAS SMITH TO DR. CHALMERS.

GLASGOW, 23d January, 1816. MY DEAR SIR-I shall still delay entering upon any thing which immediately concerns the question of the effect of a dancing assembly upon a Christian character.

In your note you mention you are quite assured that if I saw it to be against my Christian interests I would not go ; and even go so far as to say that, were they to place these interests even in a hazardous situation, I would be obedient to this second call of duty. This is saying a good deal, and to acquiesce complacently in it would be going farther than, from the limited knowledge I have of the true state of my mind, would be allowable.

To bring my mind to this subject totally free of any bias to the one side or other, it would require some little time to consider the value of the recompense which I place at stake by acting in such a way as my long-established feelings on the subject would induce me. Surrounded by all the amusements and gayeties of life, I have considered them more in relation to the delight they afforded, than their consistency with the laws of Heaven and my own permanent happiness. But, though surrounded on every side by a God and the objects of His creation, I had almost forgotten the Mighty Being from whose presence there is no escaping; and the objects of His creation, long looked upon merely in reference to themselves, have failed to suggest the remembrance of their invisible Creator. In such a situation and circumstances, I can not bring my judgment to an impartial determination on the subject. But this need not prevent a determination being adopted, which, if it is a just one, must lean to the side against which my prejudices have hitherto been directed. I see the

necessity of this; and perhaps, were I to act prudently, I would renounce the whole business from this moment. This would be right in the mean time; but the great obstacle to this, which, I think, however much to be dreaded, should always be kept in view, is the danger of a relapse into such a frame of mind as may dispose the person who made his resolutions of doing good to reject the grounds on which they are founded. It is of great importance in this event that these grounds be multiplied and embraced into a general and comprehensive rule of action. And that, however trivial any objection may be considered at present, it is of consequence that they should all be brought forward, that there may be no lurking seed of corruption which may spring up in the hour of temptation.

In the course of our correspondence upon this subject, whenever you discover in me an inordinate desire to question any thing you advance, I beg you will look upon it as arising from the reasons I have above alluded to. From these reasons I really believe that any objections which I shall make will arise, and not from a desire to mix in any company dangerous to the principles which I am so desirous, for the most weighty reasons, to encourage the growth of, and to preserve them in a state of increasing strength and beauty, till death shall deprive the mind in which they exist of its earthly habitation.

My dear sir, in this matter we have entered upon there is much reason to pray to Him whose honor it concerns, that He would give us a distinct view of the case, that the judgment we form may be such as we shall have cause never to be ashamed of. I remain, my dear sir, yours very sincerely, THOMAS SMITH.

No. XXII.-DR. CHALMERS TO MR. THOMAS SMITH.

CHARLOTTE STREET, 24th January, 1816. MY DEAREST SIR-I would hurry at once into the subject did I not feel that our system of correspondence admitted of

that free and excursive method which can stop, and deviate, and be arrested by any one point that happens to be started in the course either of our writing or our talking communications; and you will not, I trust, feel impatient though I should still be lingering among the preliminaries of our argument. May God keep you in health and prolong our stay here, if it so please Him, that our notes may swell out to thousands and thousands more; and praying, as I do, that He may give each of us a single eye to His glory, and fill our understandings with the light of His blessed Spirit. I trust that much interesting matter and much consoling and edifying remark may pass through each of our hands. You tell me it is saying a good deal to say that you would not willfully do a thing which put your religious interests to hazard. It were surely not saying too much of a man, whose ruling principle it was to keep entire the property of his word, to say of him that he would not willfully put that property to hazard. It is not saying too much of a mother, whose honest anxiety is for the health of her child, to say that she would not willfully put that health to any hazard. It is not saying too much for your friend, whose earnest aspiring is after the purity and integrity of your religious character, to say that he would not willfully put you into a situation which hazarded that character. And if for your friend you just substitute yourself, be it your earnest aspiring to keep entire and to advance the reign of Christian principle within you, then, I say, what is not less evident than in the three first examples, that you would not willfully put to hazard your Christian interests.

you

I suspect, my dear sir, when hesitate about pronouncing on yourself in this matter, you complicate the matter by the doubtfulness which still exists in you about the particular question that is between us. But, conceive that doubtfulness done away-conceive it clearly made out that the act of spending some hours at an assembly for dancing carried along with it the chance of one to two, or one to ten, or one to a hundred, that you come away a worse man and a worse

Christian than when you went, then I mistake my dear friend altogether if I conceive that, upon such a hazard being attached to such a big and momentous interest, he would not resolve to shun the temptation altogether, and class this enjoyment among the all things which, in the act of taking to the path of his eternal interests, a disciple of Jesus is bound to forsake.

I do not look on this note as lost to the question. I mean to sift it thoroughly, and am sure that it will open up some deeply interesting traits of Christian speculation. But still it will be the power, not so much of argument as of simple principle acting on a single, and affectionate, and impressed heart, that will carry the question to its practical conclusion. It is the darkness of our depraved wills and of our entangled affections that makes it so difficult to pull down the strongholds of obstinacy within us. I speak of the general nature of man -for of you I have nothing to say but all that is kind, and tender, and respectful; and I have to crave of you, my dearest sir, that you will look again at this matter, and tell me whether you ought to run your Christianity in the way of a clearly made out hazard; and if you say you ought not, would you willfully, and knowingly, and by a self-originating and deliberative step, do that which you ought not to do?

I hope I shall be able to advance some way into the argument next week-but much is to be done for a clear outset and, in the mean time, I am highly gratified by the conclusion of your much valued and most interesting note. Oh, that we were more in the habit of carrying all our doubts, and of committing all our ways, and of subordinating all our wishes to that Father who is in heaven, and whose yoke is easynot because He permits any relaxation, which is merely of an earthly nature, but because He gives a peace which passeth understanding, and sheds an animating glory over the whole life of him who is devoted to the will of God in all His works and in all His ways.

Yours with the utmost regard,

THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. XXIII.—Dr. Chalmers TO MR. THOMas Smith.

CHARLOTTE STREET, 28th January, 1816.

MY DEAR SIR-I know well that it is a less trial of delicacy to talk on religious opinions than to talk on religious feelings, and the same is true of writing. I have not heard whether my last Sabbath's attempt was approved of by my dearest friend ;* but I shall make a second similar attempt this evening, and shall only add at present that, though I should not be surprised at your not answering me in kind, yet I would be highly pleased if you did so answer me; and I trust that the day is coming when not one barrier shall stand in the way of that full communion of soul, which I long to be more and more established between us in what remains of our earthly intercourse.

My prayer, then, for you in particular is, that your health may be firmly restored-that you may, for many years, see much of the goodness of the Lord in the land of the livingthat you may get as much prosperity as you will feel inclined to employ to the entire honor of Him who gives it—and may meet with as much adversity as is necessary to refine and exalt your affections away from the vanities of a treacherous world. I pray particularly that God might purge away from your bosom every one reservation you might be disposed to make upon the integrity of His right to all your substance and to all your services-that not one taint of that conformity to the world, which He bids you abstain from, might remain upon your character-that, with a noble consistency of principle, you might be enabled to make one entire surrender of all you have and all you are to His entire claim of authority over you that all that friendship of the world, which is enmity against God, may be renounced by you as a fair but ruinous temptation-and all that love of the world, which is opposite to the love of the Father, may be extirpated in its very least degrees and remainders from your soul.

*See Dr. Chalmers's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 34, 35.