ly assents to a proposition in which he is totally
uninterested; whereupon conscience becomes outrageous and--personal.

I can easily imagine what you tell me, that you hardly know the
difference between the missionaries of different denominations, and
are very much troubled to remember, at times, which is which. It
is a natural consequence of the relations in which you stand to
heathenism. I fancy the sight of men worshipping an idol with four
heads and twice as many hands must considerably abate impressions of
the importance some of the controversies nearer home. Do you remember
the passage in "Woodstock," in which our old favorite represents the
Episcopalian Rochecliffe and the Presbyterian Holdenough meeting
unexpectedly in prison, after many years of separation, during which
one had thought the other dead? How sincerely glad they were, and
how pleasantly they talked; when lo! an unhappy reference to the
"bishopric of Titus" gradually abated the fervor of their charity,
and inflamed that of their zeal, even till they at last separated in
mutual dudgeon, and sat glowering at each other in their distant
corners with looks in which the "Episcopalian" and "Presbyterian"
were much more evident than the "Christian";--and so they persevered
till the sudden summons to them and their fellow-prisoners, to
prepare for instant execution, dissolved as with a charm the anger
they had felt, and "Forgive me, O my brother," and "I have sinned
against thee, my brother," broke from their lips as they took what
they thought would be a last farewell.

I imagine that a feeling a little resembling this, though from a
different cause, makes it impossible for you to remember, in the
presence of such spiritual horrors as heathenism presents, the immense
importance of many of the controversies so hotly waged at home, I
can conceive (as some of our zealots would say) that you are tempted
to a certain degree of insensibility and defection of heart; that
you no longer discern the momentous superiority of "sprinkling" over
"immersion," or of "immersion" over "sprinkling"; that the "wax
candles," "lighted" and "unlighted," appear to you alike insignificant;
that even the jus divinum of any system of ecclesiastical government
is sometimes not discerned with absolute precision; and, in short, that
you look with contemptuous wonder on half our "great controversies."
If I mistake not, things are coming to that pass amongst us, that we
shall soon thi