h the breeze in their
white sails; we think of the fine qualities of seamanship that were
fostered in our _Agamemnons_, and _Victories_, and _Temeraires_. Will
the navies of the future ever so clothe their dreadful powers with
beauty, as did the ordered columns of Nelson, when they came with a fair
wind and all sails set, at eleven o'clock in the morning into Trafalgar
Bay? We see the smoke of their broadsides rising up to their sails like
mists to the snowy Alps, and high above, against heaven's blue, the
unconquered flag of England! Nor do we perceive now for the first time
that there was poetry in those fleets of old; our forefathers felt it
then, and expressed it in a thousand songs.[7]

LETTER III.

TO A LADY WHO LAMENTED THAT HER SON HAD INTELLECTUAL DOUBTS CONCERNING
THE DOGMAS OF THE CHURCH.

The situation of mother and son a very common one--Painful only when
the parties are in earnest--The knowledge of the difference evidence
of a deeper unity--Value of honesty--Evil of a splendid official
religion not believed by men of culture--Diversity of belief an
evidence of religious vitality--Criticism not to be ignored--Desire
for the highest attainable truth--Letter from Lady Westmorland about
her son, Julian Fane.

The difference which you describe as having arisen between your son and
you on the most grave and important subject which can occupy the
thoughts of men, gives the outline of a situation painful to both the
parties concerned, and which lays on each of them new and delicate
obligations. You do not know how common this situation is, and how sadly
it interferes with the happiness of the very best and most pure-minded
souls alive. For such a situation produces pain only where both parties
are earnest and sincere; and the more earnest both are, the more painful
does the situation become. If you and your son thought of religion
merely from the conventional point of view, as the world does only too
easily, you would meet on a common ground, and might pass through life
without ever becoming aware of any gulf of separation, even though the
hollowness of your several professions were of widely different kinds.
But as it happens, unfortunately for your peace (yet would you have it
otherwise?), that you are both in earnest, both anxious to believe what
is true and do what you believe to be right, you are likely to cause
each other much suffering of a kind altogether unknown to less honorable
and