xed with pride and ingratitude, as
seeming to neglect their old friends, when they only associate with them
with that reserve, and under those restraints, which their sacred
profession enjoins. If, on the other hand, they fall into unrestrained
familiarity with the associates of their earlier life and boyish days,
how injurious to their ministry such intercourse would be, must flash
upon every man's mind whose thoughts have turned for a moment to the
subject. Allow me to add a word upon the all-important matter of
testimonials. The case of the Rector of ---- and of ---- presses it
closely upon my mind. Had the individuals who signed those documents
been fitly impressed with the awfullness of the act they were about to
engage in, they could not have undertaken it.... Would it not be a good
plan for bishops to exclude testimonials from relatives and near
connections? It is painful to notice what a tendency there is in men's
minds to allow even a slight call of private regard to outweigh a very
strong claim of duty to the public, and not less in sacred concerns than
in civil.

Your hands, my dear friend, have failed, as well as my eyes, so that we
are neither of us in very flourishing trim for active correspondence: be
assured, however, I participate the feelings you express. Last year has
robbed me of Coleridge, of Charles Lamb, James Losh, Rudd, of Trinity,
Fleming, just gone, and other schoolfellows and contemporaries. I cannot
forget that Shakspeare, who scarcely survived fifty (I am now near the
close of my sixty-fifth year), wrote,

'In me that time of life thou dost behold,
When yellow leaves, or few, or none, do hang
Upon the bough.'

How much more reason have we to break out into such a strain! Let me
hear from you from time to time; I shall feel a lively interest in all
that concerns you. I remain faithfully yours,

W.W.[150]

[150] _Memoirs_, ii. 292-4.

96. _Of 'The Omnipresence of the Deity,' &c._

LETTER TO THE REV. ROBERT MONTGOMERY.

Feb. 1835.

MY DEAR SIR,

On my return home, after an absence of some length, I have had the
pleasure of receiving your two volumes.

* * * * *

With your 'Omnipresence of the Deity'[151] I was acquainted long ago,
having read it and other parts of your writings with much pleasure,
though with some abatement, such as you yourself seem sufficiently aware
of, and