WILLIAM SMELLIE. 21 



MR SMELLIE to the REV. DR CHARTERS. 



1763. 



" DEAR SIR, To study physic to the bottom, 

 as I would wish, is perfectly impracticable. 

 A penury of precious metal is indeed the prin- 

 cipal cause of this impracticability. I formerly 

 expressed my difficulties as to divinity. Were 

 I to prosecute that study, I could not with a 

 clear conscience declare, as I am told every 

 minister at his ordination is obliged to do, that 

 my sole motive for assuming the sacred office 

 was purely to advance the glory of GOD, and to 

 promote the eternal interests of mankind. How 

 amiable the principle ! But, alas ! the highest 

 stretch of vanity, and the most enthusiastic self- 

 approbation, will never be able to make me 

 dream that I am possessed of such a God-like 

 heart. The converse of this idea is shocking and 

 nauseous ; therefore let me speedily banish it. 

 Besides, bating all scruples of this nature, sup- 

 posing I had got a charge, read Pictet, com- 

 menced preacher, held forth in all the pulpits in 

 Edinburgh, and ten miles round ; at last shut up 

 in a country cloister with L.60 or L.70 a-year, 

 excluded from all rational converse with man- 

 kind I mean the ingenious part of the species 

 afraid to speak my genuine sentiments of men 

 and things, and, to crown all, perhaps hated by 

 nine-tenths of the parish I put the case to your- 

 self, What satisfaction, what pleasure, what 



