LETTERS TO MISS ERASER. 301 



with Church establishments and a beneficed clergy ; 

 but it is not with circumstances or situations that it is 

 connected, it is with inferior natures, it is with bad 

 men. The proud heart-swollen Churchman who con- 

 demns heretics to the flames of this world, and the ran- 

 corous heresiarch, his opponent, who can only threaten 

 them with the flames of the next, possess it in an equal 

 degree. Nay, it may rage in the breast of the Dissenter 

 and find no place in that of the Churchman. I saw as 

 much of it in M to-night (and yet no man could 

 denounce it more earnestly) as might serve a Grand 

 Inquisitor. I had no dispute with him, as I saw it would 

 be an easier task to find him argument than comprehen- 

 sion ; besides, I wished to see the fellow, horns and all ; 

 and had I touched him he might have drawn in the latter. 

 Good-night, my Lydia; these are common-place remarks, 

 but they have an important bearing on the present 

 time. A persecuting, intolerant spirit directed against 

 our national Church animates the great body of our 

 Dissenters, and there cannot be a fairer specimen of the 

 more active of the class than M . Good-night : fine 

 thing to be able to write to one's friends. 



' Thursday morning, Inverness. 



' I have been walking about the streets for an hour, 

 looking at people's heads and faces, and at the book- 

 sellers' windows. I wish I knew the house you were 

 born in ; I would pay my respects to it with a great 

 deal more devotional sincerity than some pilgrims feel 

 when kneeling before the Virgin's house at Loretto. I 

 have been walking in the suburbs ; it is still too early 

 to call on any of my acquaintance. You little know, my 

 lassie, how covetous I have become. I have hardly in 

 the course of my walk seen a snug little house with 



