296 HET^RT KIRKE WHITE'S REMAINS. 



of religious trust, and in the calm seas of religious peace. 

 These concerns are apt at times to escape me ; "but they 

 now press much upon my heart, and I think it is my 

 first duty to see that my family are safe in the most im- 

 portant of all aifairs. 



« « « « 



TO THE REV. J. PLUMBTRE. 



St John's, 12th March 1806. 

 Dear Sir, 



I hope you will excuse the long delay which I have 

 made in sending the song. I am afraid I have trespassed 

 on your patience, if indeed so unimportant a subject can 

 have given you any thought at all. If you think it worth 

 while to send the song to your publisher, I should prefer 

 the omission of the writer's name, as the insertion of it 

 would only be a piece of idle ostentation, and answer no 

 end. My name will neither give credit to the verses, 

 nor the verses confer honour on my name. 



It will give me great pleasure to hear that your la- 

 bours have been successful in the town of , where, I 



fear, much is to be done. I am one of those who thiak 

 that the love of virtue is not sufficient to make a virtuous 

 man ;- for the love of virtue is a mere mental preference 

 of the beautiful to the deformed ; and we see but too 

 often that immediate gratification outweighs the dictates 

 of our judgment. If men could always perform their 

 duty as well as they can discern it, or if they could attend 

 to their real interests as well as they can see them, there 

 would be little occasion for moral instruction. Sir 

 Richard Steele, who wrote like a saint, and who, in his 

 " Christian Hero," shows the strongest mark of a re- 

 ligious and devout heart, lived, notwithstanding all this, 

 a drunkard and a debauchee. And what can be the 

 cause of this apparent contradiction ? Was it that he 

 had not strength of mind to act up to his views? Then 

 a man's salvation may depend on the strength of intel- 

 lect ! Or does not this rather show that superior mo- 



