I can easily imagine what you tell me, that you hardly know the difference between the missionaries of different denominations, and are very much troubled to remember, at times, which is which.  It is a natural consequence of the relations in which you stand to heathenism.  I fancy the sight of men worshipping an idol with four heads and twice as many hands must considerably abate impressions of the importance some of the controversies nearer home.  Do you remember the passage in “Woodstock,” in which our old favorite represents the Episcopalian Rochecliffe and the Presbyterian Holdenough meeting unexpectedly in prison, after many years of separation, during which one had thought the other dead?  How sincerely glad they were, and how pleasantly they talked; when lo! an unhappy reference to the “bishopric of Titus” gradually abated the fervor of their charity, and inflamed that of their zeal, even till they at last separated in mutual dudgeon, and sat glowering at each other in their distant corners with looks in which the “Episcopalian” and “Presbyterian” were much more evident than the “Christian";—­and so they persevered till the sudden summons to them and their fellow-prisoners, to prepare for instant execution, dissolved as with a charm the anger they had felt, and “Forgive me, O my brother,” and “I have sinned against thee, my brother,” broke from their lips as they took what they thought would be a last farewell.

I imagine that a feeling a little resembling this, though from a different cause, makes it impossible for you to remember, in the presence of such spiritual horrors as heathenism presents, the immense importance of many of the controversies so hotly waged at home, I can conceive (as some of our zealots would say) that you are tempted to a certain degree of insensibility and defection of heart; that you no longer discern the momentous superiority of “sprinkling” over “immersion,” or of “immersion” over “sprinkling”; that the “wax candles,” “lighted” and “unlighted,” appear to you alike insignificant; that even the jus divinum of any system of ecclesiastical government is sometimes not discerned with absolute precision; and, in short, that you look with contemptuous wonder on half our “great controversies.”  If I mistake not, things are coming to that pass amongst us, that we shall soon think of them almost with contemptuous wonder too.

Vale,—­et ora pro me,—­as old Luther used to say at the end of his letters.  I will write again soon.

Your affectionate Brother,
F.B.

——­

Grange, July 7, 1851.

My Dear Brother:—­

I have been with Harrington a week:  I am glad to say that I was under some erroneous impressions when I wrote my letter.  He is not a universal sceptic,—­he is only a sceptic in relation to theological and ethical truth.  “Alas!” you will say, “it is an exception which embraces more than the general rule; it little matters what else he believes.”