hunders. I believe that
mighty voice has not been poured out in vain; that there are hearts that
have received into their inmost depths all its varying tones; and that
even now, there are many to whom the name of Wordsworth calls up the
recollection of their weakness and the consciousness of their strength.

To give to the reason and eloquence of one man this complete control
over the minds of others, it is necessary, I think, that he should be
born in their own times. For thus whatever false opinion of pre-eminence
is attached to the age becomes at once a title of reverence to him: and
when with distinguished powers he sets himself apart from the age, and
above it, as the teacher of high but ill-understood truths, he will
appear at once to a generous imagination in the dignity of one whose
superior mind outsteps the rapid progress of society, and will derive
from illusion itself the power to disperse illusions. It is probable
too, that he who labours under the errors I have described, might feel
the power of truth in a writer of another age, yet fail in applying the
full force of his principles to his own times: but when he receives them
from a living teacher, there is no room for doubt or misapplication. It
is the errors of his own generation that are denounced; and whatever
authority he may acknowledge in the instructions of his master, strikes,
with inevitable force, at his veneration for the opinions and characters
of his own times. And finally there will be gathered round a living
teacher, who speaks to the deeper soul, many feelings of human love that
will place the infirmities of the heart peculiarly under his control; at
the same time that they blend with and animate the attachment to his
cause. So that there will flow from him something of the peculiar
influence of a friend: while his doctrines will be embraced and asserted
and vindicated with the ardent zeal of a disciple, such as can scarcely
be carried back to distant times, or connected with voices that speak
only from the grave.

I have done what I proposed. I have related to you as much as I have had
opportunities of knowing of the difficulties from within and from
without, which may oppose the natural development of true feeling and
right opinion in a mind formed with some capacity for good; and the
resources which such a mind may derive from an enlightened contemporary
writer. If what I have said be just, it is certain that this influence
will be felt