g manner! I will not call upon you to undertake
the awkward task of rebuilding that part of the edifice which ---- has
destroyed, but let what remains be preserved; and if a little could be
added, there would be no harm. I must request you to transmit the money
to me, with the names of the persons to whom we are obliged.

* * * * *

With regard to the more important part of your letter, I am under many
difficulties. I am writing from a window which gives me a view of a
little boat, gliding quietly about upon the surface of our basin of a
lake. I should like to be in it, but what could I do with such a vessel
in the heart of the Atlantic Ocean? As this boat would be to that
navigation, so is my letter to the subject upon which you would set me
afloat. Let me, however, say, that I have read your sermon (which I
lately received from Longman) with much pleasure; I only gave it a
cursory perusal, for since it arrived our family has been in great
confusion, we having removed to another house, in which we are not yet
half settled. The Appendix I had received before in a frank, and of that
I feel myself more entitled to speak, because I had read it more at
leisure. I am entirely of accord with you in chiefly recommending
religious books for the poor; but of many of those which you recommend I
can neither speak in praise nor blame, as I have never read them. Yet,
as far as my own observation goes, which has been mostly employed upon
agricultural persons in thinly-peopled districts, I cannot find that
there is much disposition to read among the labouring classes, or much
occasion for it. Among manufacturers and persons engaged in sedentary
employments, it is, I know, very different. The labouring man in
agriculture generally carries on his work either in solitude or with his
own family--with persons whose minds he is thoroughly acquainted with,
and with whom he is under no temptation to enter into discussions, or to
compare opinions. He goes home from the field, or the barn, and within
and about his own house he finds a hundred little jobs which furnish him
with a change of employment which is grateful and profitable; then comes
supper, and bed. This for week-days. For sabbaths, he goes to church
with us often or mostly twice a day; on coming home, some one turns to
the Bible, finds the text, and probably reads the chapter whence it is
taken, or perhaps some other; and in the afternoon the master or