544 LETTERS rO DARWIN AND OTHERS. [1866, 



friends. Such a production is timely, and will be 

 very useful. I hope the unknown writer will go on, 

 and as he goes on bring out, in the same fresh and 

 unteclmical way, all the essentials of Christian belief. 

 Even if he does not, it will have great value as it is ; 

 and one will be curious to see how he can fail to raise 

 the superstructure which this foundation seems to be 

 designed to bear. I have long thought it very im- 

 portant that these subjects and the whole range of 

 connected questions need to be treated by a layman 

 from an unjjrofessional point of view, and quite apart 

 from theological language or conventional modes of 

 thought, say by a lawyer of a judicial turn of mind, 

 or by a physicist or naturalist, who understands and 

 feels the scientific difficulties, and the prevalent state 

 of mind, especially among scientific people, which 

 most divines persist in ignoring. 



As soon as I get this book, and have attentively 

 read it, I shall probably wish to speak of it again to 

 you. If I find that it does not receive notice in this 

 country, I will see that attention is in some way 

 called to it. But I should think it likely to attract 

 attention in this country at once. 



I have never thanked you for your letter of Decem- 

 ber 6, and for the hope, faint though it be, that you 

 may come over and see us some day. Pray don't give 

 over the thought, and some day you may chance to 

 bring it about. Cambridge is not a bad point from 

 which to sally forth in little explorations of American 

 life. . . . 



We have much anxiety as to what we can do with 

 the South now we have got it ; and our President 

 Johnson is not a Lincoln. The breach which has just 

 occurred, and which may cause great trouble, has 



