Tenth day of a rather bad attack of influenza of the ague type.  Last night the fever rose to a great height, partly caused by a succession of five visitors.  One, however, was of my own seeking—­Dean Paget, to whom I was thankful to be able to tell all I have had in my mind for a year or more, as to our Chapel services not being as helpful as they could be made.  The chief fault is extreme rapidity.  I long ago gave up the attempt to say the Confession at that pace; and now I say it, and the Lord’s Prayer, close together, and never hear a word of the Absolution.  Also many of the Lessons are quite unedifying.

On July 11th he wrote to my brother on the subject of a paper about Eternal Punishment, which was to form the first of a series of essays on Religious Difficulties:—­

    I am sending you the article on “Eternal Punishment” as it
    is.  There is plenty of matter for consideration, as to which
    I shall be glad to know your views.

Also if there are other points, connected with religion, where you feel that perplexing difficulties exist, I should be glad to know of them in order to see whether I can see my way to saying anything helpful.

But I had better add that I do not want to deal with any such difficulties, unless they tend to affect life.  Speculative difficulties which do not affect conduct, and which come into collision with any of the principles which I intend to state as axioms, lie outside the scope of my book.  These axioms are:—­

      (1) Human conduct is capable of being right, and of
      being wrong.

      (2) I possess Free-Will, and am able to choose between
      right and wrong.

      (3) I have in some cases chosen wrong.

      (4) I am responsible for choosing wrong.

      (5) I am responsible to a person.

      (6) This person is perfectly good.

    I call them axioms, because I have no proofs to offer for
    them.  There will probably be others, but these are all I can
    think of just now.

The Rev. H. Hopley, Vicar of Westham, has sent me the following interesting account of a sermon Mr. Dodgson preached at his church:—­

In the autumn of 1895 the Vicar of Eastbourne was to have preached my Harvest Sermon at Westham, a village five miles away; but something or other intervened, and in the middle of the week I learned he could not come.  A mutual friend suggested my asking Mr. Dodgson, who was then in Eastbourne, to help me, and I went with him to his rooms.  I was quite a stranger to Mr. Dodgson; but knowing from hearsay how reluctant he usually was to preach, I apologised and explained my position—­with Sunday so near at hand.  After a moment’s hesitation he consented, and in a most genial manner made me feel quite at ease as to the abruptness of my petition.  On the morrow he came over to my vicarage, and made friends with my daughters, teaching them some new manner of playing croquet [probably Castle Croquet], and writing out for them puzzles and anagrams that he had composed.

    The following letter was forwarded on the Saturday:—­