32967-0001

71

[centred] Co

distracting conversation. You can preserve this resolve as carefully as you would shade a lamp which the winds of heaven are seeking to extinguish. Will you do it? Will you go to some solitary place tonight, and there kneel down and pray? You are conscious you can do it. Will you do it? Will you open your Bible and read a chapter? and, lest you should not know where to look, I will tell you. Read the first chapter of Proverbs, and then kneel [crossed out] (down and) confess your sins, and try to give yourself up to God for the rest of your life. Then seek the instruction of your minister or Christian friends; break off all outward and known sins; put yourself in the way of all religious influences, and I will venture to say you can not pursue this course a fortnight, a week without finding a new and blessed life dawning within you."

................................ Dr L Bucher. 2nd Vol.

.............................................. Page 116.

[centred] Examination of Mr G. Bucher.

Do you see in the front pew, [crossed out] (yonder) a tall, grave-looking man, of strong and rather harsh features ... very pale, with a severe seriousness of face, and with great formality and precision in every turn and motion? Well, if you ever see him, that man is Dr Wilson. His great

72

[centred] Co

ivory-headed cane leans on the side of the pew by him, and in his hand he holds the "Confession of Faith." The candidate sits on the pulpit stairs, so that he may face the Presbytery, and the examining committee are called an: 'Dr Wilson, in Philosophy.' Here follows, 'Mr. Bucher what is matter and what is mind, and what is the difference 'twixt and 'tween, and what is Mechanics, and Optics and Hydrostatics, and what is Mental Phylosophy [sic], and what is right and wrong, and what is Truth, and what is virtue, and what are the powers of the mind, and what is intellect, susceptibilities and will, and conscience,' [crossed out] (would) and every thing else, world without end, Amen! .........................................

............................................................

........... There are men whose minds have been brought up in a catechetical tread mill --- who never say Confessions of Faith, without taking off their hats, and who have altogether the appearance of thinking that the Bible is the next best book to the Catechism. These men are of course, mentally afraid of heresy --- or 'hearsay,' as an old woman very pertinently pronounced it --- and their remarks on this subject were truly lucid. One of them got up, and in the course of his objections, said, with a peculiar solemnity

73

[centred] Co

of manner, that he did not [wish] to prejudice anyone against the candidate, but Sir, if I understand him, he holds that God has no right to require men to do what they are not able to do. Now, Sir, this is an awful error. If God had not a right to require things of men which they have no ability [crossed out] (to) whatever to perform, what dreadful consequences would ensue! 'Oh,' said he, rolling ^ [added above] (up) his eyes 'they are awful! I will not even name them!' Here I met Aunt Esther's eye, and we, I am afraid, indulged in a very unsuitable degree of merriment. This gentleman spoke an hour in a state of remark equally edifying. But my Bucher blood boiled when I was told that he and one or two others in the Presbytery had actually been preaching such broad nonsense for many years. I really did not think that any human mind could be so ground down --- at least I never really realized it before.

.............................................. ibid

74

[centred] Co

Grazing in the field of nature is not enough for a being whose deepest affinities [crossed out] (of) lay hold of the supernatural and reach after God.

Airy and beautiful the field may be, shown by so great a master; full of goodly prospects and fascinating images; but, without a living God, and objects of faith, and terms of duty, it is a pasture only - nothing more. ................... Bushnell.

We only half believe in prayer ... We expect to be delivered of sin by a long course of duty and self reformation, that will finally pacify the offended laws of nature and bring them on our side again.

That God will do anything for us Himself, or hold any terms of real society with us we but faintly [crossed out] (allow) believe.

That used to be the opinion of ancient times, but the world, ......................

............................. ibid.

[two blank lines]

The conclusion that is now generally received [crossed out] (is) appears to be that light consists of minute atoms of matter of an octahedral form possessing polarity and varying in size or in velocity.

............................... Faraday.

Faraday told a friend that "Watts' On the Mind" first made him think, and that his attention was turned to science by the article "Electricity" in an [crossed out] (early) encyclopaedia he employed to view [?] it.

75

[centred] Co

............ The sympathies of a Protestant it is true will naturally be on the side of the Albigensians and of the Lollards. Yet an enlightened and [crossed out] (intelligent) temperate Protestant will perhaps be disposed to doubt whether the success, either of the Albigensians & of the Lollards. Yet an enlightened & temperate Protestant will perhaps be disposed to doubt whether the success, either of the Albigensians or of the Lollards would on the whole, have promoted the happiness and virtue of mankind. Corrupt as the Church of Rome was, there is reason to believe that, if that Church had been overthrown in the twelfth or even in the fourteenth century, the vacant space would have been occupied by some system more corrupt still. There was then, through the greater part of Europe, very little knowledge; and that little was confined to the clergy. Not one man in five hundred could have spelled his way through a Psalm. Books were few and costly. The art of printing was unknown. Copies of the Bible, inferior in beauty and clearness to those which every cottager may now command, sold for prices which many priests could not afford to give. It was obviously impossible that the laity should search the scriptures for themselves. It is probable therefore that, as soon as they had put off one [crossed out] (yoke) spiritual yoke, they would have pud on another, and that the power lately exercised by the