that while that
weight of sagacity, which is the iron to the dart of genius,
is needful to satisfy me, the undertone of another and a
deeper knowledge does not please, does not command me? Even in
Handel's Messiah, I am half incredulous, half impatient,
when the sadness of the second part comes to check, before
it interprets, the promise of the first; and the strain, "Was
ever sorrow like to his sorrow," is not for me, as I have
been, as I am. Yet Handel was worthy to speak of Christ. The
great chorus, "Since by man came death, by man came also the
resurrection of the dead; for as in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive," if understood in the
large sense of every man his own Saviour, and Jesus only
representative of the way all must walk to accomplish our
destiny, is indeed a worthy gospel.'

* * * * *

'Ever since ---- told me how his feelings had changed towards
Jesus, I have wished much to write some sort of a Credo, out
of my present state, but have had no time till last night. I
have not satisfied myself in the least, and have written
very hastily, yet, though not full enough to be true, this
statement is nowhere false to me.

* * * 'Whatever has been permitted by the law of being, must
be for good, and only in time not good. We trust, and are led
forward by experience. Light gives experience of outward life,
faith of inward life, and then we discern, however faintly,
the necessary harmony of the two. The moment we have broken
through an obstruction, not accidentally, but by the aid of
faith, we begin to interpret the Universe, and to apprehend
why evil is permitted. Evil is obstruction; Good is
accomplishment.

'It would seem that the Divine Being designs through man
to express distinctly what the other forms of nature only
intimate, and that wherever man remains imbedded in nature,
whether from sensuality, or because he is not yet awakened to
consciousness, the purpose of the whole remains unfulfilled.
Hence our displeasure when Man is not in a sense above
Nature. Yet, when he is not so closely bound with all other
manifestations, as duly to express their Spirit, we are also
displeased. He must be at once the highest form of Nature, and
conscious of the meaning she has been striving successively to