iness of judgment towards the common world of men, who do not
show any religious development. It was pleasant to me to look on
an ordinary face, and see it light up into a smile, and think with
myself: "_there_ is one heart that will judge of me by what I am, and
not by a Procrustean dogma." Nor only so, but I saw that the saints,
without the world, would make a very bad world of it; and that as
ballast is wanted to a ship, so the common and rather low interests
and the homely principles, rules, and ways of feeling, keep the church
from foundering by the intensity of her own gusts.

Some of the above thoughts took a still more definite shape, as
follows. It is clear that A. B. and X. Y. would have behaved towards
me more kindly, more justly, and more wisely, if they had consulted
their excellent strong sense and amiable natures, instead of following
(what they suppose to be) the commands of the word of God. They have
misinterpreted that word: true: but this very thing shows, that one
may go wrong by trusting one's power of interpreting the book,
rather than trusting one's common sense to judge without the book.
It startled me to find, that I had exactly alighted on the Romish
objection to Protestants, that an infallible book is useless, unless
we have an infallible interpreter. But it was not for some time, that,
after twisting the subject in all directions to avoid it, I brought
out the conclusion, that "to go against one's common sense in
obedience to Scripture is a most hazardous proceeding:" for the
"rule of Scripture" means to each of us nothing but his own fallible
interpretation; and to sacrifice common sense to this, is to mutilate
one side of our mind at the command of another side. In the Nicene
age, the Bible was in people's hands, and the Spirit of God surely
was not withheld: yet I had read, in one of the Councils an insane
anathema was passed: "If any one call Jesus God-man, instead of God
and man, let him be accursed." Surely want of common sense, and dread
of natural reason, will be confessed by our highest orthodoxy to have
been the distemper of that day.

* * * * *

In all this I still remained theoretically convinced, that the
contents of the Scriptures, rightly interpreted, were supreme and
perfect truth; indeed, I had for several years accustomed myself to
speak and think as if the Bible were our sole source of all moral
knowledge: nevertheless, there were practical