STOKE NEWINGTON. 21 



contempt for observance which his early training had 1827. 

 caused, and that his consciousness of the care and father- 

 hood of the Almighty was a sacred thing belonging to 

 himself alone, not to be profaned by contact with human 

 forms or inventions. My father, who, like people who 

 have made their own belief, was a little impatient in argu- 

 ment, at first thought him an unbeliever ; and so, in a 

 certain sense, he was ; but it was only in such things as 

 he could not find a reason for believing. I mention re- 

 ligious questions because they entered much into our 

 thoughts and conversation at that time. As to the Gospels, 

 he waited for a better and more critical understanding of 

 them than could be gained from his first instructors, and 

 this a rather extensive reading of theology enabled him to 

 acquire before he left this world. When I first knew him, 

 I was puzzled by such books as Volney's * Ruins of Em- Antiqua- 



ri;ui science. 



pires,' Sir. W. Drummond's writings, and other works of 

 antiquarian research, to which a great interest in our 

 friend Godfrey Higgins's investigations had led me. Mr. 

 De Morgan showed me the scientific errors of some of 

 these writers, and the insufficiency of their theories to 

 account for all that they have tried to explain. He was 

 well informed in Eastern astronomy and mythology, and 

 saw that much of modern doctrine has gained something 

 of its form, at least, from ancient symbolism. 1 Lieut.- 

 Col. Briggs, his uncle by marriage, had begun his 

 * Ferishta,' and his nephew's interest in the work had 

 brought him much into the society of Oriental scholars. 

 The ancient grandeur and simplicity of the East at once 

 excited and satisfied his imagination. He sometimes 

 said that India with its skies and mountains 'might 

 be really worth looking at,' whereas he never saw any 



1 All scholars must see that the time is approaching when a better 

 knowledge of ancient religions will show that they have been misunder- 

 stood, and that they are not entirely fictitious or entirely astronomical. 

 If this were the place it would not be difficult to show the connection 

 of all. 



