’I should think that three-fourths of what we clergymen say is unintelligible to the mass of the congregation.  We assume an acquaintance with the Bible and Prayer-book, thought, and a knowledge of the meaning of words which few, alas! possess.  We must begin, then, with the little ones; as far as I see, all children are apt to fail at the point when they ought to be passing from merely employing the memory (in learning by heart, e.g., the Catechism) by exercising the reasoning and thinking faculty.

’"Well now, you have said that very well, now let us think what it means.”

’How well Dr. Pusey says, in his Sermons, “Not altogether intentional deliberate vice, but thoughtlessness is destroying souls.”

’I run on at random, dear Sophy, hoping to give you one and a half hour’s occupation on a sick bed or couch, and because, as you say, this is the only converse we are likely to have on earth.

’I think I am too exclusively fond of this reading, very little else interests me.  I take up a theological book as a recreation, which is, perhaps, hardly reverent, and may narrow the mind; but even Church history is not very attractive to me.  I like Jackson and Hooker, and some of the moderns, of whom I read a good many; and I lose a good deal of time in diving into things too deep by half for me, while I forget or don’t learn simple things.

’All this modern rage for reviews, serials, magazines, I can’t abide.  My mind is far too much distracted already, and that fragmentary mode of reading is very bad for many people, I am sure.

’Naturally enough at forty-two years of age ninety-nine hundredths of the “lighter” books seem to me mere rubbish.  They come to me occasionally.  However, there are younger ones here, so it isn’t sheer waste to receive such donations:  they soon get out of my room.  Not, mind you, that I think this the least evidence of my being wiser, or employing my time more carefully than other folk.  Only I want you to know what I am, and what I think.

’Pena has sent me a nice book which I wanted:  1st.  Because I have a great personal liking for Shairp, a simple-minded, affectionate man, with much poetical feeling and good taste-a kindly-natured man. 2nd.  Because he writes in an appreciative kind of way, and is the very opposite of .... whom I can’t stand with his insufferable self-sufficiency, and incapacity for appreciating the nobler, simpler, more generous natures who are unlike him.  Well! that is fierce.  But there is a school of men whom I can’t stand.  Their nature repels me, and I hardly wish to like them; which is an evil feeling.

’I shall add a line in a few days.

’My very dearest love to Aunty—­dear Aunty; and if I can’t write to Pena, give her my best love and thanks for her book.

’Dear Sophy, your loving Cousin,

‘J.  C. P.’

Two other letters, one to each of the sisters, were in progress at this time.  To Joanna, who had been grieved for the poor girl whose transgression had occurred in the beginning of the year, he says:—­