say; or else wrath will rise.)

'When you came to us in the summer, the heavy blow fell full upon
me; and I discovered how very far you had departed from God. It
was not that you had yielded to the strong tide of youthful
blood, and had fallen a victim to fleshly lusts; in that case,
however sad, your enlightened conscience would have spoken
loudly, and you would have found your way back to the blood which
cleanseth us from all sin, to humble confession and self-
abasement, to forgiveness and to recommunion with God. It was not
this; it was worse. It was that horrid, insidious infidelity,
which had already worked in your mind and heart with terrible
energy. Far worse, I say, because this was sapping the very
foundations of faith, on which all true godliness, all real
religion, must rest.

'Nothing seemed left to which I could appeal. We had, I found, no
common ground. The Holy Scriptures had no longer any authority:
you had taught yourself to evade their inspiration. Any
particular Oracle of God which pressed you, you could easily
explain away; even the very character of God you weighed in your
balance of fallen reason, and fashioned it accordingly. You were
thus sailing down the rapid tide of time towards Eternity,
without a single authoritative guide (having cast your chart
overboard), except what you might fashion and forge on your own
anvil,--except what you might _guess_, in fact.

'Do not think I am speaking in passion, and using unwarrantable
strength of words. If the written Word is not absolutely
authoritative, what do we know of God? What more than we can
infer, that is, guess,--as the thoughtful heathens guessed,--
Plato, Socrates, Cicero,--from dim and mute surrounding
phenomena? What do we know of Eternity? Of our relations to God?
Especially of the relations of a sinner to God? What of
reconciliation? What of the capital question--How can a God of
perfect spotless rectitude deal with me, a corrupt sinner, who
have trampled on those of His laws which were even written on my
conscience?...

'This dreadful conduct of yours I had intended, after much prayer,
to pass by in entire silence; but your apparently sincere
inquiries after the cause of my sorrow have led me to go to the
root of the matter, and I could not stop short of the development
contained in this letter. It is with pain, not in anger, that I
send it; hoping that you may be induced to review the whole
course, of which this is only a stage