ns'
land for nought. Providence is not to be made a
protector of injustice, of which arms are the fitting
shield. Oh that consistency, earnestness of character,
were more valued!

_8th Mo. 23d_. Some true wish, may I say prayer,
that Christ may now, _now_, blot out as a cloud my
sins, even on his own terms, which, I am more convinced,
do not consist of things required of us to
give in exchange for his mercy, but are a part of
that mercy, a part of that redemption. Yes, when
sin becomes thoroughly a burden, as sin, then we see
that grace would be indeed imperfect, if it was not
to be a deliverance from the _power_, as well as the
punishment, of sin; and if we ask for grace, and yet
cherish sin, truly we know not what spirit we are
of, we wish not for complete salvation while we are
asking for it. Mercy is a broader thing than our
most earnest prayers suppose; yea, it is "above all
that we can ask or think."

_8th Mo_. Letter to M.B.

* * * How little it avails to know the theory of
wisdom and folly, right and wrong, etc., just so as to
occupy only the perceptive and reasoning faculties!
What we want, what the world wants, I think, is the
_Christian_ version of the present so fashionable idea of
_earnestness_, or, as I have thought it may imply, _consistency_
of character. We get ideas and opinions in a _dead_
way, and then they do not _pervade_ our characters; we
have but half learned them; they have influenced not
our feeling, but only our knowing faculties, and then
perhaps it had been better not to have known the way
of truth. A full response is in my heart to the difficulty
of keeping things in their right places, neither can I at
all agree to the idea "that where the love of the world
perverts one, the fear of it perverts ten;" at least, understanding
the world to mean "whatever passes as I
cloud between the mental eye of faith and things unseen."
Many a time has the book-shelf and the writing-desk
been made a substitute for the oratory. As to
friendship taking this place, surely the whole idea of a
_Church_ is based on that of Christian fellowship in its
strict sense. Be it ours to know what _that_ means, and
then, if our love to Christ is the main bond of union,
while that continues, we shall love him the more rather
than the less on that account. But I know that friendship
includes various other elements, and m