142 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1836. Church of Rome contains as much honesty as that of England, 

 and a vast deal more knowledge. It would not take one quarter 

 as much evidence to make me a Catholic as to make me a 

 Church of England man. 



I should have no objection to be better acquainted with Mr. 

 Baptist Noel, but you are grievously mistaken if you think any 

 discussion with him could have any effect on me. 



1. Because he has never studied either side of any contro- 

 versy, or at least of those on which such a discussion would 

 turn, as he himself avowed to me, though he must have been at 

 that very time meditating a controversial work, or one meant 

 for such, which he shortly afterwards published, and which took 

 the point in dispute for granted on his own side in the title-page. 



2. Because he would be better employed in meditating how to 

 reply to the complete and conclusive reply which he received 

 from a Unitarian minister, whom I blame very much for replying 

 to so weak an attack. Your letter, my dear mother, was quite 

 as good logic as the Rev. B. Noel's book, and indeed would 

 make a pretty abstract of it. And yet you could see that you 

 did not profess to be able to argue the question ; but the Rev. 

 B. Noel was not able to see so much. He is, nevertheless, a 

 liberal and amiable man, but he mistook his ground altogether 

 when he thought he was a fit match for the head of a body so 

 learned (compared with Church of England clergy) in the 

 history of his own creed as the Unitarian ministers. If you 

 want an opponent for me, take some one, if you can find him, 

 who has studied both sides of the question. But even then I 

 should object to discuss with him 



1. Because I never saw or heard of any one who was made to 

 change his opinions by discussion. 2. Because such subjects are 

 best discussed between a man and himself in retirement, and 

 with the real original accounts before him. 3. Because I see in 

 all that is orthodox a lack of that charity which Paul considers 

 as more essential than everything else, coupled with what 

 virtually amounts to a claim of infallibility. 4. Because number- 

 less unanswered arguments lie before me, which the Established 

 clergy have left off attempting to answer. Instead of attempting 

 to drive me, an individual with little time on his hands, to go 

 through the oft-repeated job of cutting the flimsy web of an 

 Athanasian Christian, move your own clergy to print their 

 assertions, and leave those who have leisure for answering to 

 deal with what they shall advance. I shall then be able with 



