1879 LETTERS 273 



In the meanwhile keep quiet and do nothing. I feel 

 the force of what you say very strongly so strongly, in 

 fact, that I must morally ice myself and get my judgment 

 clear and cool before I advise you what is to be done. 



I am very sorry to hear you have .been so ill For 

 the present dismiss the matter from your thoughts and 

 give your mind to getting better. Leave it all to be 

 turned over in the mind of that cold-blooded, worldly, 

 cynical old fellow, who signs himself Your affectionate 



PATER. 



The last is to Mr. Edward Clodd, on receiving his 

 book Jesus of Nazareth. 



4 MAELBOROUGH PLACE, ABBEY ROAD, N.W., 

 Dec. 21, 1879. 



MY DEAR MR. CLODD I have been spending all this 

 Sunday afternoon over the book you have been kind 

 enough to send me, and being a swift reader, I have 

 travelled honestly from cover to cover. 



It is the book I have been longing to see ; in spirit, 

 matter and form it appears to me to be exactly what 

 people like myself have been wanting. For though for 

 the last quarter of a century I have done all that lay in 

 my power to oppose and destroy the idolatrous accretions 

 of Judaism and Christianity, I have never had the 

 slightest sympathy with those who, as the Germans say, 

 would " throw the child away along with the bath " 

 and when I was a member of the London School Board 

 I fought for the retention of the Bible, to the great 

 scandal of some of my Liberal friends who can't make 

 out to this day whether I was a hypocrite, or simply a 

 fool on that occasion. 



But my meaning was that the mass of the people 

 should not be deprived of the one great literature which 

 is open to them not shut out from the perception of 

 their relations with the whole past history of civilised 



VOL. II T 



