er state of things? I am sure I
should prefer it, if I were a parishioner. When, indeed, the minister of
religion wishes to turn to wise account the suffering of sickness or
of bereavement, let him choose the proper time: reflection best comes
after; it is not in the midst of groans and agonies, of sobs and
lamentations, that deep religious impressions are usually made.

I have a suspicion withal, that there is something semi-barbaric in
these immediate and urgent ministrations to affliction, something of the
Indian or Oriental fashion, or something derived from the elder time,
when the priest was wise and the people rude. For ignorant people, who
have no resources nor reflections of their own, such ministrations may
be proper and needful now. I may be in the wrong about all this. Perhaps
I ought to suspect it. There is more that is hereditary in us all, I
suppose, than we know. My father never could bear the sight of sickness
or distress: it made him faint. There is a firmness, doubtless, that is
better than this; but I have it not. Very likely I am wrong. My friend
Putnam [FN: Rev. George Putnam, D. D., of Roxbury, Mass.--M. E. D.]
lately tried to convince me of it, in a conversation we had; maintaining
that the [106] parochial relation ought not to be, and need not be, that
burden upon the mind which I found it. And I really feel bound on such a
point, rather than myself, to trust him, one of the most finely balanced
natures I ever knew. Why, then, do I say all these things? Because, in
giving an account of myself, I suppose I ought to say and confess what a
jumble of pros and cons I am.

Heaven knows I have tried hard to keep right; and if I am not as full as
I can hold of one-sided and erratic opinions, I think it some praise.
. . . I do strive to keep in my mind a whole rounded circle of truth
and opinion. It would be pleasant to let every mental tendency run its
length; but I could not do so. It may be pride or narrowness; but I must
keep on some terms with myself. I cannot find my understanding falling
into contradiction with the judgments it formed last month or last year,
without suspecting not only that there was something wrong then, but
that there is something wrong now, to be resisted. That "there is a mean
in things" is held, I believe, to be but a mean apothegm now-a-days;
but I do not hold it to be such. All my life I have endeavored to hold a
balance against the swayings of my mind to the one side and