518 FRAGMENTS Off SCIENCE. 
And again: 
" We have been to a grand conversazione in the town 
hall, and I have now returned to my room to talk with you, 
as the pleasantest and happiest thing that I can do. Noth- 
ing rests rne so much as communion with you. I feel it 
even now as I write, and catch myself saying the words 
aloud as I write them." Take this, moreover, as indicative 
of his love for Nature: 
"After writing, I walk out in the evening hand in hand 
with my dear wife to enjoy the sunset; for to me who love 
scenery, of all that I have seen or can see, there is none 
surpasses that of heaven. A glorious sunset brings with it 
a thousand thoughts that delight me." 
Of the numberless lights thrown upon him by the " Life 
and Letters " some fall upon his religion. In a letter to 
Lady Lovelace, he describes himself as belonging to "a 
very small and despised sect of Christians, known, if 
known at all, as Sandemanians, and our hope is founded 
on the faith that is in Christ." He adds: " I do not think 
it at all necessary to tie the study of the natural sciences and 
religion together, and in my intercourse with my fellow- 
creatures, that which is religious, and that which is phi- 
losophical, have ever been two distinct things." He saw 
clearly the danger of quitting his moorings, and his science 
acted indirectly as the safeguard of his faith. For his in- 
vestigations so filled his mind as to leave no room for 
skeptical questionings, thus shielding from the assaults of 
philosophy the creed of his youth. His religion was 
constitutional and hereditary. It was implied in the eddies 
of his blood and in the tremors of his brain; and, however its 
outward and visible form might have changed, Faraday 
would still have possessed its elemental constituents awe, 
reverence, truth, and love. 
It is worth inquiring how so profoundly religious a 
mind, and so great a teacher, would be likely to regard our 
present discussions on the subject of education. Faraday 
would be a " secularist " were he now alive. He had no 
sympathy with those who contemn knowledge unless it be 
accompanied by dogma. A lecture delivered before the 
City Philosophical Society in 1818, when he was twenty- 
six years of age, expresses the views regarding education 
which he entertained to the end of his life. " First, then," 
he says, "all theological considerations are banished from 
