cially
remarkable. They have one fatal mistake, which is a canker at the foot
of their ever being widely useful. Half the misery and hypocrisy of the
Christian world arises (as I take it) from a stubborn determination to
refuse the New Testament as a sufficient guide in itself, and to force
the Old Testament into alliance with it--whereof comes all manner of
camel-swallowing and of gnat-straining. But so to resent this miserable
error, or to (by any implication) depreciate the divine goodness and
beauty of the New Testament, is to commit even a worse error. And to
class Jesus Christ with Mahomet is simply audacity and folly. I might as
well hoist myself on to a high platform, to inform my disciples that the
lives of King George the Fourth and of King Alfred the Great belonged to
one and the same category.

Ever affectionately.

[Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Dec. 18th, 1858._

MY DEAR PROCTER,

A thousand thanks for the little song. I am charmed with it, and shall
be delighted to brighten "Household Words" with such a wise and genial
light. I no more believe that your poetical faculty has gone by, than I
believe that you have yourself passed to the better land. You and it
will travel thither in company, rely upon it. So I still hope to hear
more of the trade-songs, and to learn that the blacksmith has hammered
out no end of iron into good fashion of verse, like a cunning workman,
as I know him of old to be.

Very faithfully yours, my dear Procter.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Niece to the Rev. W. Harness.

[4] The birthplace of Mr. Forster.

1859.

NARRATIVE.

During the winter, Charles Dickens was living at Tavistock House,
removing to Gad's Hill for the summer early in June, and returning to
London in November. At this time a change was made in his weekly
journal. "Household Words" became absolutely his own--Mr. Wills being
his partner and editor, as before--and was "incorporated with 'All the
Year Round,'" under which title it was known thenceforth. The office was
still in Wellington Street, but in a different house. The first number
with the new name appeared on the 30th April, and it contained the
opening of "A Tale of Two Cities."

The first letter which follows shows that a proposal for a series of
readings in America had already been made to him. It was carefully