86 



MINISTRY AT STAND. 



[Chap. III. 



eloquence of thought and diction that I expected, and his 

 constant 4 You knows/ when the people did not know at all, 

 were somewhat disagreeable. His manner also was rather 

 tame. But I was extremely interested in his views, which 

 seemed to be exactly what I was trying to think myself, but 

 couldn't : as though he could, clothe in words my half-defined 

 ideas, and dress them in purple and fine linen besides. I 

 mean this of parts ; when he got on the Kantian philosophy, 

 he was too deep for me. I believe I am intended to be one 

 of the mental hewers of wood and drawers of water. I shall 

 never think out new things ; but see clearly certain things, and 

 explain them clearly. He gave Paley a well-merited castiga- 

 tion, and came out with glorious heresies, which evidently 

 were responded to by the audience. Some young men near 

 me seemed intoxicated with delight, as though they were thirst- 

 ing for something more noble and true than their cut-and-dried 

 theology." 



About this time there was a party in the United States that 

 seemed disposed to go to war with England, and the friends 

 of peace were induced to send addresses on the subject to 

 America. Philip wrote as follows to the editor of an American 

 paper (April 15, 1846): "The Peace Addresses which have 

 been forwarded to your country will show you the general 

 feeling of our people. There are some who do not like their 

 being sent, because they say that all our peaceful overtures 

 only make the war-party think we are afraid, and wax more 

 violent. But I should think that those who measure courage 

 by brute force would have no mean idea of the valour of the 

 English troops, after the late wholesale murders in India. It is 

 wonderful to trace the rapid advances of the peace principle. 

 You will, I hope, before this, have received in your country 

 Mr. Wellbeloved's " Memoir of Captain Thrush."* He was the 



* Thomas Thrush (bom 1761, died 1843), when a retired post captain 

 in the navy, devoted himself to religious inquiries, and published some 

 Unitarian works. His study of the Gospels led him to embrace the 

 principles of peace, and in January, 1825, he resigned his commission 

 (with its half-pay) in a Letter to the King. He felt that "it required more 

 courage to write that letter than to fight a battle." Some of his later 



