132 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



christian squabbles that have so long disgraced the name of re- 

 ligion will cease — that " all may be one." I think the times are 

 drawing on, and they may be nearer than the present ap- 

 pearance of the world warrants our supposing, when some- 

 thing like what Knox looks for — at least its dawning — will arise 

 on the world. His letter is written in 1818, and has not the 

 world made rapid steps since then ? If we could see clearly 

 through the multitude of irrelevant matters that surround us, I 

 hope we should find that it has. But it seems as if it were a 

 law of Providence, that great changes, such as this would be, 

 proceed by little and little, so as to be hardly perceptibly 

 advanced up to a certain fixed time, and that then they blaze 

 forth with an unexpected light. If we look back at the 

 advances which the human race have made in anything, whether 

 in religion or civil liberty, or even in science, w r e are struck with 

 the jumps mankind appear to make at certain epochs of their 

 career ; but I fancy the jump is much more in appearance than in 

 reality. A truer simile would be found in the attraction that 

 takes place between the several drops of water oozing through a 

 bed of sand, beneath which they find at first a comfortable bed 

 and reservoir, till drop after drop gradually added from the 

 neighbouring beds, at length the stream finds its exit in the 

 shape of a vigorous spring. To any one ignorant of the long 

 previous process, the appearance of the spring would seem 

 sudden and miraculous, whilst it was merely the result of the 

 regular course of Nature. Now, I think with the writer, that 

 the present state of the Christian world is like the gathering in 

 of the drops. They are coming in and tending to one centre of 

 attraction ; but unfortunately there are inequalities in the 

 ground, and the consequence is, the formation of separate 

 reservoirs, resting, indeed, on the same Rock, but divided by 

 dykes and ridges of greater or less size. Let the waters but rise 

 till they prevail over these, and then we shall have once more 

 the vigorous undivided stream. But into which of the present 

 channels shall it flow ? That is a question I am by no means 

 clear about. I was strongly inclined, like our worthy friend the 

 Doctor, to mingle my drop in the stream of the English 

 Church, and yet the more closely I look at it the less inclined 

 do I feel to take any such step. Not but what I think she is a 

 very good Lady, and one that stands very high indeed in the 



