g a change as you have
produced in him; to tell you the truth, I felt a little chagrined and
jealous about it; but as he owes us a kind of divided allegiance, I must
rest contented.

"Believe me to be, my dear M'Slime,
"Yours affectionately and faithfully,
"Val M'Clutchy, J.P."

To this, while Darby was tooth and nail at the Bible, Solomon wrote the
following reply--

"My Dear M'Clutchy:

"I have just read your letter of this date, and agree with you in the
necessity and propriety of my sending you a written proposal which you
can show at a future time, in order to justify yourself should it be
necessary so to do. I also need not say that your conduct in destroying
the proposals of M'Loughlin and Harman was equally creditable to your
head and heart. Prudence and discretion, my dear Val, are not virtues
of every day occurrence, and as to giving the preference to a Christian
friend, I do not see how a man as you are, with a strong sense of
religion, could without injuring your conscience avoid it. What is it
after all, my dear friend, but a spoiling of the Egyptians, as holy
Moses did, when about to lead the children of Israel from bondage. In
that case it was what may be termed in these our days a description of
justifiable theft, such as many professors of the word do, in matters of
business, feel themselves warranted even now in imitating. It requires,
however, to be done carefully, and within the freedom of the perfect
law; but, by no means, with a worldly or secular spirit, otherwise
it will be deprived of that unction which renders the act a gracious
exemplification of our Christian privileges, instead of a departure from
rectitude, which it would be if committed by an ungodly person. These
are distinctions, my dear friend, which I grant you is not permitted to
many to make--only, indeed, I may humbly and fearfully say to such as
have by long wrestling with the spirit been able to see truth, when the
inward eye has been purged from the grossness of passion, for which
to Him be praise and power. Amen! I herewith enclose you the proposal
formally made, and will be ready to hand over the two hundred Christian
manifestations of my gratitude at the proper season. As to Lord Cumber
being a loser by the transaction, such a loss must have been, we are
bound to hope, shaped out for him as a punishment inflicted for gracious
purposes. It is true he is ignorant of it, and I trust he shall remain
so; but then we know th