318 FRAGMENTS OF 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 me 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 rnind 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 



