ing this as a cowardly desertion of the
post of duty, he had thoughts of setting up a school for children, and
becoming himself a teacher in it. This plan, too, he laid aside, as
savoring of enthusiasm. Meanwhile, this amiable and honest gentleman,
whose every error was fairly attributable to the natural limitations
of his mind or to the diseases that racked his body, was tormented by
remorse, which would have been excessive if he had been a pirate. He
says that, after three years of continual striving, he still dared not
partake of the Communion, feeling himself "unworthy." "I was present,"
he writes, "when Mr. Hoge invited to the table, and I would have given
all I was worth to have been able to approach it." Some inkling of his
condition, it appears, became known to the public, and excited great
good-will towards him on the part of many persons of similar belief.

Some of his letters written during this period contain an almost
ludicrous mixture of truth and extravagance. He says in one of them,
that his heart has been softened, and he "_thinks_ he has _succeeded_
in forgiving all his enemies"; then he adds, "There is not a human
being that I would hurt if it were in my power,--not even Bonaparte."
In another place he remarks that the world is a vast mad-house, and,
"if what is to come be anything like what has passed, it would be wise
to abandon the bulk to the underwriters,--the worms." In the whole of
his intercourse with mankind, he says he never met with but three
persons whom he did not, on getting close to their hearts, discover to
be unhappy; and they were the only three he had ever known who had a
religion. He expresses this truth in language which limits it to one
form or kind of religion, the kind which he heard expounded in the
churches of Virginia in 1819. Give it broader expression, and every
observer of human life will assent to it. It is indeed most true, that
no human creature gets much out of life who has no religion, no sacred
object, to the furtherance of which his powers are dedicated.

He obtained some relief at length, and became a regular communicant of
the Episcopal Church. But although he ever after manifested an extreme
regard for religious things and persons, and would never permit either
to be spoken against in his presence without rebuke, he was very far
from edifying his brethren by a consistent walk. At Washington, in the
debates, he was as incisive and uncharitable as before. His
den