220 MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



tion of feelings, how can reason presume to dictate any one para- 

 mount rule to be observed ? No. But when by various causes in 

 any nation one tendency runs the one way, then the heart of that 

 nation runs in that channel ; all its most holy aspirations join there, 

 and there the sanctity of walls consecrated by the bishops of God, 

 and the sanctity of walls consecrated by no set forms of words, but 

 by the dedication of the place to regular and severe piety, — as in 

 England, the one ; in Scotland, the other.* In Scotland, people on 

 week-days walk hatted into churches. Is that, to your mind, an 

 allowable thing? I have seen it done by very religious old men, 

 and not harsh or sullen. To take off their hats would, I think, be 

 reckoned by many a wrong action. This, I conceive, is allowing 

 the inferior motive to prevail over the superior. For they remem- 

 ber the idolatrous practices of the papists whom John Knox over- 

 threw, and rather than resemble them in any degree, they violate 

 the religio loci, which is, in the case, this over belief in God. This 

 may seem a trifling concern to you, but it hurts me. 



" In the above you will probably see what I want, and perhaps 

 other points may occur to yourself. With respect to metaphysics, 

 do not fear on any subject to write, provided a conclusion is ar- 

 rived at. No letter of yours, if filled, can be otherwise than most 

 useful to me. That metaphysical point to which you referred in 

 one of your letters lately, namely, the pure and awful idea of sanc- 

 tity and reverence to God, which is probably only an extension of 

 a human feeling, is exactly fit for a letter. There is a book called 

 the Divine Ancdogy, by a Bishop Brown, that I do not understand, 

 on this subject. I think you have seen it ; and Copleston, I think, 

 touches on it. I intend to put such pieces of the lectures on the 

 Duties to God, as are good, into this part, so that any metaphysical 

 or otherwise important thoughts on our religious emotions or 

 thoughts will be useful. All human emotion towards human beings 

 is fluctuating, and made up of opposite ingredients, even towards 

 our earthly father : towards God, unmingled and one, and this un- 

 mingledness and oneness is in truth a new emotion ; it exists no- 

 where else. Men's conduct seldom shows this ; but it is in the soul 

 of many, most men. I once saw, in a dream, a most beautiful 

 flower, in a wide bed of flowers, all of which were beautiful. But 

 this one flower was especially before my soul for a while, as I ad- 



* This subject is beautifully treated by him in the first number of the " Dies Boreales." 



