My name has really [214] no business on the
first page; in fact, I never thought of its standing there as a fixture.
I supposed you would say for once in your opening that such and such
persons would help you. With my habits of writing, I am better able to
write long articles than short ones; and the "Christian Examiner" pays
more than you, and I am obliged to regard that consideration. I must
have three or four hundred dollars a year beyond my income, or sell
stock,--a terrible alternative. In the fourth place, every man is right
in his own eyes; I am a man: therefore I am right in my eyes. I am very
unprofessional; that is, in regard to the etiquette and custom of the
profession. I am; and in regard to the professional mannerism and spirit
of routine, I am very much afraid of it. But I do not think that many
persons have ever enjoyed the religious services of our profession more
than I have; the spiritual communion, which is its special function,
and that, not through sermons alone, but in sacraments, in baptisms, in
fireside conference with darkened and troubled minds, has long been to
me a matter of the profoundest interest and satisfaction. It is the
one reigning thought of my life now to see and to show how the Infinite
Wisdom and Loveliness shine through this universe of forms. To this will
I devote myself; nay, am devoted, whether I will or not. This will I
pursue, and will preach it. I will preach it in the Lowell Lectures.
Shall I be wrong if I give up other preaching for the time? You
think so. Perhaps you are right. Any way, it is not a matter of much
importance, I suppose. There is a great deal too much of preaching, such
as it is. The world is in danger of being preached out of all hearty and
spontaneous religion. What would you think, if the love of parents and
chil-[215] dren were made the subject of a weekly lecture in the
family, and of such lecture as the ordinary preaching is? Oh if a Saint
Chrysostom, or even a Saint Cesarius, or a Robert Hall could come along
and speak to us once in half a year, they would leave, perhaps, a
deeper imprint than this perpetual and petrifying drop-dropping of the
sanctuary.

By the bye, read those extracts from the sermons of Saint Cesarius, in
the sixteenth lecture of Guizot on French civilization, and see if they
are not worth inserting in the "Inquirer." The picture which Guizot
gives in that and the following lecture, of Christianity struggling in
the bosom of all