more particularly in a work, adapted by its mode of
publication to address the feelings of the time, and to bring to its
readers repeated admonition and repeated consolation.

I have perhaps presumed too far in trespassing on your attention, and in
giving way to my own thoughts; but I was unwilling to leave any thing
unsaid which might induce you to consider with favour the request I was
anxious to make, in the name of all whose state of mind I have
described, that you would at times regard us more particularly in your
instructions. I cannot judge to what degree it may be in your power to
give the truth you teach a control over understandings that have matured
their strength in error; but in our class I am sure you will have docile
learners.

MATHETES.

(_b_) ANSWER TO THE LETTER OF MATHETES.

The Friend might rest satisfied that his exertions thus far have not
been wholly unprofitable, if no other proof had been given of their
influence, than that of having called forth the foregoing letter, with
which he has been so much interested, that he could not deny himself the
pleasure of communicating it to his readers. In answer to his
correspondent, it need scarcely here be repeated, that one of the main
purposes of his work is to weigh, honestly and thoughtfully, the moral
worth and intellectual power of the age in which we live; to ascertain
our gain and our loss; to determine what we are in ourselves positively,
and what we are compared with our ancestors; and thus, and by every
other means within his power, to discover what may be hoped for future
times, what and how lamentable are the evils to be feared, and how far
there is cause for fear. If this attempt should not be made wholly in
vain, my ingenious correspondent, and all who are in a state of mind
resembling that of which he gives so lively a picture, will be enabled
more readily and surely to distinguish false from legitimate objects of
admiration: and thus may the personal errors which he would guard
against be more effectually prevented or removed by the development of
general truth for a general purpose, than by instructions specifically
adapted to himself or to the class of which he is the able
representative. There is a life and spirit in knowledge which we extract
from truths scattered for the benefit of all, and which the mind, by its
own activity, has appropriated to itself,--a life and spirit, which is
seldom found in knowledge communicated by formal