In his after-course (which I may not indicate) this gentleman has every where displayed a wonderful power of bending other minds to his own, and even stamping upon them the tones of his voice and all sorts of slavish imitation.  Over the general results of his action I have long deeply mourned, as blunting his natural tenderness and sacrificing his wisdom to the Letter, dwarfing men’s understandings, contracting their hearts, crushing their moral sensibilities, and setting those at variance who ought to love:  yet oh! how specious was it in the beginning! he only wanted men “to submit their understandings to God” that is, to the Bible, that is, to his interpretation!  From seeing his action and influence I have learnt, that if it be dangerous to a young man (as it assuredly is) to have no superior mind to which he may look up with confiding reverence, it may be even more dangerous to think that he has found such a mind:  for he who is most logically consistent, though to a one-sided theory, and most ready to sacrifice self to that theory, seems to ardent youth the most assuredly trustworthy guide.  Such was Ignatius Loyola in his day.

My study of the New Testament at this time had made it impossible for me to overlook that the apostles held it to be a duty of all disciples to expect a near and sudden destruction of the earth by fire, and constantly to be expecting the return of the Lord from heaven.  It was easy to reply, that “experience disproved” this expectation; but to this an answer was ready provided in Peter’s 2nd Epistle, which forewarns us that we shall be taunted by the unbelieving with thin objection, but bids us, nevertheless, continue to look out for the speedy fulfilment of this great event.  In short, the case stood thus:—­If it was not too soon 1800 years ago to stand in daily expectation of it, it is not too soon now:  to say that it is too late, is not merely to impute error to the apostles, on a matter which they made of first-rate moral importance, but is to say, that those whom Peter calls “ungodly scoffers, walking after their own lusts”—­were right, and he was wrong, on the very point for which he thus vituperated them.

The importance of this doctrine is, that it totally forbids all working for earthly objects distant in time:  and here the Irish clergyman threw into the same scale the entire weight of his character.  For instance; if a youth had a natural aptitude for mathematics, and he asked, ought he to give himself to the study, in hope that he might diffuse a serviceable knowledge of it, or possibly even enlarge the boundaries of the science? my friend would have replied, that such a purpose was very proper, if entertained by a worldly man.  Let the dead bury their dead; and let the world study the things of the world:  they know no better, and they are of use to the Church, who may borrow and use the jewels of the Egyptians.  But such studies cannot be eagerly followed by the