table fact. Similarly, Joshua might command the
sun to stand still, under the impression that it moved round the earth;
but he could not possibly have inverted the relations of the earth and
the sun, whatever his impressions were. Again, it is contended that the
science of geology is quite as much a revelation to man, as books of an
immense age and of (at the best) doubtful origin, and that your
consideration of the latter must reasonably be influenced by the former.
As I understand the importance of timely suggestions such as these, it
is, that the Church should not gradually shock and lose the more
thoughtful and logical of human minds; but should be so gently and
considerately yielding as to retain them, and, through them, hundreds
of thousands. This seems to me, as I understand the temper and tendency
of the time, whether for good or evil, to be a very wise and necessary
position. And as I understand the danger, it is not chargeable on those
who take this ground, but on those who in reply call names and argue
nothing. What these bishops and such-like say about revelation, in
assuming it to be finished and done with, I can't in the least understand.
Nothing is discovered without God's intention and assistance, and I
suppose every new knowledge of His works that is conceded to man to be
distinctly a revelation by which men are to guide themselves. Lastly,
in the mere matter of religious doctrine and dogmas, these men
(Protestants--protestors--successors of the men who protested against
human judgment being set aside) talk and write as if they were all
settled by the direct act of Heaven; not as if they had been, as we know
they were, a matter of temporary accommodation and adjustment among
disputing mortals as fallible as you or I.

Coming nearer home, I hope that Georgina is almost quite well. She has
no attack of pain or flurry now, and is in all respects immensely
better. Mary is neither married nor (that I know of) going to be. She
and Katie and a lot of them have been playing croquet outside my window
here for these last four days, to a mad and maddening extent. My
sailor-boy's ship, the _Orlando_, is fortunately in Chatham Dockyard--so
he is pretty constantly at home--while the shipwrights are repairing a
leak in her. I am reading in London every Friday just now. Great crams
and great enthusiasm. Townshend I suppose to have left Lausanne
somewhere about this day. His house in the park is hermetically sealed,
rea