God's world they are in ours. I ask no
other consolation.

'Mrs. W---'s recovery has astonished me, and her husband's prospects
give me great satisfaction. They have achieved a benefit to their
coloured people. She had a mission which her burning soul has worked
out, almost in defiance of death. But who is "called" without being
"crucified," man or woman? I know of none.

'I fear that H. Martineau was too sanguine in her persuasion that the
slave power had received a serious check from the ruin of so many of
your Mammon-worshippers. With the return of commercial facilities,
that article of commerce will again find purchasers enough to raise
its value. Not that way is the iniquity to be overthrown. A deeper
moral earthquake is needed. {148} We English had ours in India; and
though the cases are far from being alike, yet a consciousness of what
we ought to have been and ought to be toward the natives could not
have been awakened by less than the reddened waters of the Ganges. So
I fear you will have to look on a day of judgment worse than has been
painted.

'As to all the frauds and impositions which have been disclosed by the
failures, what a want of the sense of personal responsibility they
show. It seems to be thought that "association" will "cover a
multitude of sins;" as if "and Co." could enter heaven. A firm may be
described as a partnership for lowering the standard of morals. Even
ecclesiastical bodies are not free from the "and Co.;" very different
from "the goodly fellowship of the apostles."

'The better class of young gentlemen in England are seized with a
mediaeval mania, to which Ruskin has contributed much. The chief
reason for regretting it is that taste is made to supersede
benevolence. The money that would save thousands from perishing or
suffering must be applied to raise the Gothic edifice where their last
prayer may be uttered. Charity may be dead, while Art has glorified
her. This is worse than Catholicism, which cultivates heart and eye
together. The first cathedral was Truth, at the beginning of the
fourth century, just as Christianity was exchanging a heavenly for an
earthly crown. True religion may have to cast away the symbol for the
spirit before "the kingdom" can come.

'While I am speculating to little purpose, perhaps you are doing--what?
Might not a biogra