of his which I always thought had more true Christianity in its
title than there is in a good many whole volumes. I am going to take the
book down, or up,--for it is not a little one,--and write out the title,
which, I dare say, you remember, and very likely you have the book.
"Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying, showing the Unreasonableness
of prescribing to other Men's Faith, and the Iniquity of persecuting
Different Opinions."

Now, my dear sir, I am sure you believe that I want to be liberal and
reasonable, and not to act like those weak alarmists who, whenever the
silly sheep begin to skip as if something was after them, and huddle
together in their fright, are sure there must be a bear or a lion coming
to eat them up. But for all that, I want to beg you to handle some
of these points, which are so involved in the creed of a good many
well-intentioned persons that you cannot separate them from it without
picking their whole belief to pieces, with more thought for them than
you might think at first they were entitled to. I have no doubt you
gentlemen are as wise as serpents, and I want you to be as harmless as
doves.

The Young Girl who sits by me has, I know, strong religious instincts.
Instead of setting her out to ask all sorts of questions, I would
rather, if I had my way, encourage her to form a habit of attending to
religious duties, and make the most of the simple faith in which she was
bred. I think there are a good many questions young persons may safely
postpone to a more convenient season; and as this young creature is
overworked, I hate to have her excited by the fever of doubt which it
cannot be denied is largely prevailing in our time.

I know you must have looked on our other young friend, who has devoted
himself to the sublimest of the sciences, with as much interest as I do.
When I was a little girl I used to write out a line of Young's as a copy
in my writing-book,

"An undevout astronomer is mad";

but I do not now feel quite so sure that the contemplation of all
the multitude of remote worlds does not tend to weaken the idea of a
personal Deity. It is not so much that nebular theory which worries me,
when I think about this subject, as a kind of bewilderment when I try to
conceive of a consciousness filling all those frightful blanks of space
they talk about. I sometimes doubt whether that young man worships
anything but the stars. They tell me that many young students of science