’I have been thinking, dear old Fan, about your words, “there would be a good deal to give and take if you came home for a time;” less perhaps now than before I was somewhat tamed by my illness.  I see more of the meaning of that petition, “from all blindness of heart, from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; and from all uncharitableness.”

’Alas! you don’t know what a misspent life I looked back upon, never losing hold, God be praised, of the sure belief in His promises of pardon and acceptance in Christ.  I certainly saw that a want of sympathy, an indifference to the feelings of others, want of consideration, selfishness, in short, lay at the bottom of very much that I mourned over.

’There is one thing, that I don’t mention as an excuse for a fault which really does exist, but simply as a fact, viz., that being always, even now, pressed for time, I write very abruptly, and so seem to be much more positive and dogmatic than I hope, and really think, is the case.  I don’t remember ever writing you a letter in which I was able to write but as I would have talked out the matter under discussion in all its bearings.  This arises partly from impatience, my pen won’t go fast enough; but as I state shortly my opinion, without going through the reasons which lead me to adopt it, no doubt much that I say seems to be without reason, and some of it no doubt is.’

I need make no excuse for giving as much as possible of the correspondence of these last few months, when—­though the manner of his actual departure was violent, there was already the shadow, as it were, of death upon him.

To Sir J. T. Coleridge the letter was:—­

’December 9, 1870.

’My dearest Uncle,—­How long it is since I wrote to you!...  And yet it is true that I think more often of you than of anyone, except Jem, Joan and Fan.  In fact, your name meets me so often in one way or another—­in papers from England, and much more in books continually in use, that I could not fail to think of you if I had not the true, deep love that brings up the old familiar face and voice so often before my eyes....

’I wish I could talk with you, or rather hear you answer my many questions on so many points.  I get quite bewildered sometimes.  It is hard to read the signs of our times; so hard to see where charity ends and compromise begins, where the old opinion is to be stoutly maintained, and where the new mode of thought is to be accepted.  I suppose there always was some little difference among divines as to “fundamentals,” and no ready-made solution exists of each difficult question as it emerges.

’There is reason for that being so, because it is part of our duty and trial to exercise our own power of discretion and judgment.  But so much now seems to be left to individuals, and so little is accepted on authority.  In Church matters I have for years thought Synods to be the one remedy.  If men meet and talk over a difficulty, there is a probability of men’s understanding each other’s motives, and thus preserving charity.  If one-twentieth part of a diocese insists upon certain observances which nineteen-twentieths repudiate, it seems clear that the very small minority is put out of court.  Yet how often the small minority contains more salt than the large majority!