186 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



hope that you will one day be one with me in Him. I 

 wait but for your confession to recognize you as a 

 brother. . . . My dear Hugh, my metaphysical specula- 

 tions are entirely exploded (oh, let me never cease to 

 pray that I may be preserved from again setting up 

 blind reason as a God to worship thousands have 

 perished at his shrine, why was I not left ?), and, since 

 exploded, I have learnt to take the word of God simply 

 as I find it, and the consequence is peace and joy. I 

 long much to see you. Oh, will you not accept of 

 Christ? You believe the truth of God. See then the 

 freeness and fulness of the gospel offer made to you. 

 Believe the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, 

 and this life in His Son believe this and all shall be well/ 

 On the 2nd of September, almost as soon, there- 

 fore, as he can have received Swanson's letter, Miller 

 replies to it. He declares himself ' exhausted, dull, 

 lazy, sick, melancholy/ and quite unable to write an in- 

 teresting letter. Tor his reluctance to write there is, he 

 confesses, another cause. ' I feel that after your earnest 

 and affectionate exhortation, it would be something worse 

 than unfriendly of me not to unbosom myself before 

 you yet what have I to confess ? Were I an unbeliever, 

 though I would assuredly lose my friend by confessing 

 myself one, still that confession would be made. I 

 would scorn to hold the affections of any one by appear- 

 ing what I am not. Or if, on the other hand, I were a 

 Christian in the true sense of the word, I hope I would 

 have courage enough to avow my profession, not only to 

 you or to those from whom I could expect nothing except 

 kindness, but even to the proudest and boldest scorner. 

 But what profession can the lukewarm Laodicean make ? 

 the man who, one moment, is as assured of the truth of 

 the gospel of Christ as he is of his own existence, and 



