ersonal
appearance has been sketched in a few lines by Hutchinson:--"He was of a
most reverend aspect; his face thin and pale; but there was a divine
placidness which inspired veneration, and expressed the most benevolent
mind. His white hair hung gracefully on his shoulders, and his whole figure
was patriarchal."

Butler was an earnest and deep-thinking Christian, melancholy by
temperament, and grieved by what seemed to him the hopelessly irreligious
condition of his age. In his view not only the religious life of the
nation, but (what he regarded as synonymous) the church itself, was in an
almost hopeless state of decay, as we see from his first and only charge to
the diocese of Durham and [v.04 p.0883] from many passages in the
_Analogy_. And though there was a complete remedy just coming into notice,
in the Evangelical revival, it was not of a kind that commended itself to
Butler, whose type of mind was opposed to everything that savoured of
enthusiasm. He even asked John Wesley, in 1739, to desist from preaching in
his diocese of Bristol, and in a memorable interview with the great
preacher remarked that any claim to the extraordinary gifts of the Holy
Spirit was "a horrid thing, a very horrid thing, sir." Yet Butler was
keenly interested in those very miners of Kingswood among whom Wesley
preached, and left L500 towards building a church for them. It is a great
mistake to suppose that because he took no great part in politics he had no
interest in the practical questions of his time, or that he was so immersed
in metaphysics as to live in the clouds. His intellect was profound and
comprehensive, thoroughly qualified to grapple with the deepest problems of
metaphysics, but by natural preference occupying itself mainly with the
practical and moral. Man's conduct in life, not his theory of the universe,
was what interested him. The _Analogy_ was written to counteract the
practical mischief which he considered wrought by deists and other
freethinkers, and the _Sermons_ lay a good deal of stress on everyday
Christian duties. His style has frequently been blamed for its obscurity
and difficulty, but this is due to two causes: his habit of compressing his
arguments into narrow compass, and of always writing with the opposite side
of the case in view, so that it has been said of the _Analogy_ that it
raises more doubts than it solves. One is also often tempted away from the
main course of the argument by the care and preci