134 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



the age lie lived in, when every one believed in witches, and so 

 forth ; and it is perhaps impossible to fix the exact limits 

 between zeal and — I will not say insanity — but that species of 

 excited fervour in which the judgment trembles on the tapering 

 point of the imagination. While she can be kept there, the 

 human mind is, I conceive, at about its highest elevation of 

 " inspiration." But we may compare the poised judgment to the 

 equally quivering needle — at least, we must allow the ease with 

 which it is displaced, and inspiration yields to insanity. Witness 

 J. Nay lor. Fox was preserved from this, but there were times 

 when he appeared to go fearfully near it. Other Friends, too, 

 in those days, of whom Fox fully approved, did strange things ; 

 for instance, one who, for three years before the Restoration, 

 went through towns and villages naked, " declaring the truth," 

 as a sign that they should be stripped as he was. But enough 

 of these things ; this is the sum — my attachment to the peculiar 

 characteristics of Quakerism is neither lessened, nor increased 

 by what I have yet read. I have but little sectarian attach- 

 ment, and to most classes of Christians have no sectarian 

 aversion; but I believe our duty, in the present age of the 

 Church at least, will be to mind our own individual affairs, and 

 to remain as free as possible from party feeling. 



I have heard of frequently through H. H. T., and have 



often thought of through what, I fear, has been a winter 



of sorrow. After these repeated attacks of that insatiable 

 disorder, to what can we look forward? It is vain to disguise 

 the probability. "Friend after friend departs." If. there were 

 nothing to look forward to beyond the grave, it were a world for 

 children only. For after the pleasant days of childhood are 

 gone by, what is our life but one continuous series of losses, 

 broken at short intervals by gleams of happiness — stronger, 

 indeed, than those of childhood, but more rudely torn away, and 



leaving a deeper wound ? Poor J ! But he has learned to 



know in whose hands his breath is, and that in the darkest hour 

 of sorrow — if the lamp be kept burning — there is an altar where 

 he may find rest. There is a text in Lamentations, on which I 

 once heard a very beautiful Good Friday sermon, that often 

 occurs to me — "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? 

 Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, 

 which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in 



