ome fair criterion and
presumption of the inclination which my mind was likely to adopt in
reference to the _final_ decision. At the same time it would also have
been undutiful, and most repugnant to my feelings, to permit the
prolongation of that intervening period to such an extent, as to give
the shadow of a reason to suppose that anything approaching to reserve
had been the cause of my silence. The present time seems to lie between
these two extremes, and therefore to render it incumbent on me to
apprise you of the state of my own views.

I trust it is hardly necessary to specify my knowledge that when I speak
of 'the state of my own views' on this question, I do so not of right
but by sufferance, by invitation from you, by that more than parental
kindness and indulgence with which I have ever met at my parents' hands,
which it would be as absurd to make a matter of _formal_ acknowledgment
as it would be impossible to repay, and for which I can only say, and I
say it from the bottom of my heart, may God reward them with his best
and choicest gifts, eternal, unfading in the heavens.

If then I am to advert to the disposition of my own mind as regards
this matter, I cannot avoid perceiving that it has inclined to the
ministerial office, for what has now become a considerable period, with
a bias at first uncertain and intermittent, but which has regularly and
rapidly increased in force and permanence. It has not been owing as far
as I can myself discern, to the operation of any external cause
whatever; nor of internal ones to any others than those which work their
effects in the most gradual and imperceptible manner. Day after day it
has grown upon and into my habit of feeling and desire. It has been
gradually strengthened by those small accessions of power, each of which
singly it would be utterly impossible to trace, but which collectively
have not only produced a desire of a certain description, but have led
me by reasonings often weighed and sifted and re-sifted to the best of
my ability, to the deliberate conclusion which I have stated above. I do
not indeed mean to say that there has been _no_ time within this period
at which I have felt a longing for other pursuits; but such feelings
have been unstable and temporary; that which I now speak of is the
permanent and habitual inclination of my mind. And such too, I think, it
is likely to continue; as far at least as I can venture to think I see
anything belonging t