what to say or do about the other parts of your letter, relative to the present uneasy situation of yourself and your opinions. I would go on as well as I could for a little longer, and wait the event of getting safely home, and then seeing how matters stand. I can feel exactly what you express. It is safe with me, and nothing shall be wanting in my power to aid and help you." On the 25th of July, 1782, he writes again, probably in reference to this letter,-"I cannot accuse myself of neglecting to answer any questions you put to me as to matters concerning yourself. There was indeed a mention, in an old letter, that your situation and feelings as to religious points were uneasy to you. It is as much out of my power to mend your situation, as it is to advise you on the latter point. I can easily guess what you feel, and I dare say your feelings are the dictates of an honourable and upright heart."

None who knew Dr. Wharton could doubt this for a moment. A simpler and more guileless spirit seldom can be found. To know the truth and not to follow it,-to have a glimpse of its fair beauty, and not to seek, even with utmost agony of effort, the full and open vision, was not in his frank and honest nature. How judicious he was in his discrimination of the good from the evil, in parties or in persons, and how perfectly sincere and candid he was in calling the good good, and the evil evil, has been seen in the testimony which, even to the last, he continued to bear to the merits and services of the Society of Jesuits. It was in truth a moral phenomenon,

which many could not comprehend, and some could scarcely credit. Yet it was truly so; and it seems to have been the working of this honest love of the truth and hearty determination to follow it whithersoever it might lead, which set him first to a candid Scriptural examination of the Church of his fathers, at whose altars he had been admitted toserve. At Worcester, he was brought into association with many excellent families. He found in them what he could not doubt were the genuine "fruits of the Spirit." They were Christians in deed and in truth. Yet they were Protestants, and, by the doctrine of his Church, heretics. They were without the pale of that fold, within which alone there is salvation.* The question of his meek and honest heart was, How can these things be? Further intercourse and more intimate observation increased the perplexity of his mind. Even to doubt the authority of the Church to decide infallibly in this and in all other cases was sin. Yet to resist the strong convictions of his conscience, guided by Scripture-to reject the clear, shining of the light within-that, surely, must be also sin. He was afraid to inquire, and yet afraid not to inquire. To disregard the dictum of the Church was to deny the faith ;† and yet to receive it, was to resist the first

* See the Creed of Pope Pius IV.

"There is a doctrine concerning the Sacraments," says Bishop White, "that they impress physical characters on the souls of the recipients. It is known by the name of ‘Opus Operatum.' This, as it relates to baptism, may be seen in a controversy between Bishop Bossuet and Mons. Claude, a protestant divine of France, as edited by the late Charles Butler, Esq. a Roman

and strongest impulses of that charity which is greater, even, than faith. He has told me that the mental suffering which he then underwent was keen and severe, beyond the power of description or conception. It preyed upon a frame enfeebled and exhausted by vigils and by study, with a spiritual excruciation, of which the rack of the inquisitor was but a feeble emblem. It

Catholic gentleman of the English bar, high in esteem with the people of his communion. On every point of the debate the Bishop holds up the authority of the Church, as not to be questioned in any particular by the private judgment of any member of the communion. Mons. Claude pleads, that at the least, an inquirer after truth may seek to satisfy himself that the Church has been vested with the prerogative assumed on the one hand and contradicted on the other. This the Bishop will not consent to; because, as he says, baptism has impressed the essentials of the Christian Creed, and the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, so that the admission of doubt is incipient apostacy." "It is evident that the dogma in question must be powerfully operative in retarding the adherence of young persons advancing to maturity. Should doubt occur to any of them, the thought of the tremendous danger in prospect, cannot but be unfavourable to compliance with the counsel-be ready always to give a reason of the hope that is in you. The difference may be illustrated in the case of the late Rev. Dr. Wharton.According to the account given of this estimable divine, in the sermon of Bishop Doane, commemorative of him, and agreeable to information received from him in his last illness; when in the course of his studies, the errors of the Roman Catholic Church began to open on him, it was attended by much agitation of mind: the effect, we must suppose, of a cherished apprehension of the consequences of the least grade of doubt. This hindrance of information is removed by the dismission of the said pretence of a physical operation, which is neither provable from Scripture, nor consistent with our observation of human nature.”—Appendix to an argument in favour of Revelation. The controversy above alluded to is found in the life of Bossuet, by Charles Butler, Esq.

may be doubted whether his nervous system ever recovered from the shock. In such a struggle, nature, unassisted, must have failed and fallen. But Wharton's was a religious spirit. Meek, humble, docile,-it is to such as he was that God reveals his truth. 66 "The secret of the Lord, is with them that fear him." He was willing to do God's will, and the promise was fulfilled in him that he should know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." He searched the Scriptures whether these things were so. He invoked upon the search the guidance of that true wisdom which is from above. He persevered in the pious labour, and was rewarded with the full revelation of the "truth as it is in Jesus." Of the steps of this most interesting process there remains no record, except as it was unfolded in conversations, far too few and brief, held with the editor during the short intercourse with his lamented brother which it was permitted him to enjoy. The substance of them is stated above.

But however little may be known of the progress,* the clear and satisfactory conclusion is fully

* Since writing the above, the opinions thus expressed have been most powerfully confirmed by the following passage of "An Appeal to Scripture, reason, and tradition, in support of the doctrines contained in a letter to the Roman Catholics of the city of Worcester, from the late Chaplain of that Society." It was written by the Rev. John Hawkins, who having been a Romish priest, had renounced the communion of the Church of Rome, and had attached himself to that of the Church of England. In addition to the ad vantage thus afforded him for understanding this matter, he was the friend and correspondent of Dr. Wharton. "The only just inference to be drawn from this part of Mr. Wharton's account of the rise and progress of his in

and strongly before us. The "Letter to the Roman Catholics of the city of Worcester" has been regarded, on both sides of the Atlantic, as a master-piece in religious polemics. So peaceable and gentle is its spirit, that the term polemics seems scarcely suited to its character. Sound in argument, clear in its statements, immoveable in its conclusions, it is yet, in its allowance of others, imbued with the most tender charity, and in its tone and temper a very breathing of the spirit of the peaceful Jesus. If few could resist the force of its logic, none could be offended by the mildness and moderation with

vestigation or conviction is, that for many years he had been a bigoted member of the Church of Rome, intimately convinced that out of this Church (whether with justice or not, is not here the question,) no one could be saved; and consequently persuaded in his mind, that all Protestants were in general insincere and vicious, slaves to prejudice, and walking with a feigned security in the ways of perdition. By degrees, as he became more intimately acquainted with them, he was admitted to a nearer view of the purity both of their lives and doctrines, which he had only seen before through the medium of prepossession: and could no longer believe that those whom the most amiable qualities of heart rendered dear to him, were the objects of eternal disregard and reprobation, merely because they would not submit to the claims of a Church which assumed an authority to which she had no just pretence. This he knew to be the only motive of their disHe therefore began seriously to examine whether he had not himself been imposed upon in his early days, and whether this doctrine of blind obe dience was that of Revelation. Upon mature inquiry he could not discover that this belief was founded on the word of God. Conceiving upon this, that he had been misled when incapable of judging for himself, he dismissed his former creed, and associated himself to that part of the Christian Church, the religion of which he esteemed most rational and pure. This is indisputa bly the order of his convictions, and the result of his researches." Appeal, Pp. 22, 23.

sent.