ed.

_March 16, 1865._ During the last two years the circulars have continued.
It is hinted that funds are low: and two gentlemen who are represented as
gone "to Bethlehem asylum in despair" say that Mrs. Cottle "will spend all
that she hath, while Her Majesty's Ministers are flourishing on the wages
of sin." The following is perhaps one of the most remarkable passages in
the whole:

"_Extol and magnify Him_ (Jehovah, the Everlasting God, see the Magnificat
and Luke i. 45, 46--68--73--79), _that rideth_ (by rail and steam over land
and sea, from his holy habitation at Kirkstall Lodge, Psa. lxxvii. 19, 20),
_upon the_ (Cottle) _heavens, as it were_ (Sept. 9, 1864, see pages 21,
170), _upon an_ (exercising, Psa. cxxxi. 1), _horse_-(chair, bought of Mr.
John Ward, Leicester-square)." {101}

I have pretty good evidence that there is a clergyman who thinks Mrs.
Cottle a very sensible woman.

[_The Cottle Church._ Had I chanced to light upon it at the time of
writing, I should certainly have given the following. A printed letter to
the _Western Times_, by Mr. Robert Cottle, was accompanied by a manuscript
letter from Mrs. Cottle, apparently a circular. The date was Nov^{r}. 1853,
and the subject was the procedure against Mr. Maurice[199] at King's
College for doubting that God would punish human sins by an existence of
torture lasting through years numbered by millions of millions of millions
of millions (repeat the word _millions_ without end,) etc. The memory of
Mr. Cottle has, I think, a right to the quotation: he seems to have been no
participator in the notions of his wife:

"The clergy of the Established Church, taken at the round number of 20,000,
may, in their first estate, be likened to 20,000 gold blanks, destined to
become sovereigns, in succession,--they are placed between the matrix of
the Mint, when, by the pressure of the screw, they receive the impress that
fits them to become part of the current coin of the realm. In a way
somewhat analogous this great body of the clergy have each passed through
the crucibles of Oxford and Cambridge,--have been assayed by the Bishop's
chaplain, touching the health of their souls, and the validity of their
call by the Divine Spirit, and then the gentle pressure of a prelate's hand
upon their heads; and the words--'Receive the Holy Ghost,' have, in a brief
space of time, wrought a {102} change in them, much akin to the miracle of
transubstantiation--the priests are complete