work that Bishop Ellicott has done so excellently, and his dissertations are perhaps the most valuable part of his work.  He will gain the ear of the men of this generation, rather than Ellicott; he sympathises more with modern modes of thought, and is less rigid than Ellicott.  But he seems very firm on all the most essential and primary points, and I am indeed thankful for such a man.  I don’t find much time for difficult reading; I go on quietly, Hebrew, &c.  I have many good books on both Old and New Testaments, English and German, and some French, e.g.  Keuss and Guizot.

’I like to hear something of what this restless speculative scientific generation is thinking and doing.  But I can’t read with much pleasure the fragmentary review literature of the day.  The “Cornhill” and that class of books I can’t stand, and sketchy writings.  The best specimens of light reading I have seen of late are Charlotte Yonge’s “Pupils of St. John the Divine,” and Guizot’s “St. Louis,” excellent.

’I did read, for it was put on board, Disraeli’s novel.  I was on my back sea-sick for four days; what utter rubbish! clever nonsense!  And I have read Mr. Arnold’s “St. Paul and Protestantism.”  He says some clever things about the Puritan mind, no doubt.  But what a painful book it is:  can’t he see that he is reducing all that the spirit of a man must needs rest on to the level of human criticism? simply eliminating from the writings of the Apostles, and I suppose from the words of the Saviour, all that is properly and strictly Divine.—­[Then follows much that has been before given.]—­How [winding up thus] thankful I am that I am far away from the noise and worry of this sceptical yet earnest age!

’There is something hazy about your friend Davis’s writings.  I know some of his publications, and sympathise to a very considerable extent with him.  But I can’t be sure that I always understand him:  that school has a language of its own, and I am not so far initiated as to follow.

’I can’t understand Maurice, much as I respect him.  It is simply wasting my time and my brains to attempt to read him; he has great thoughts, and he makes them intelligible to people less stupid than me, and many writers whom I like and understand have taken their ideas from him; but I cannot understand him.  And I think many of his men have his faults.  At least I am so conceited as to think it is not all my fault.

’Do you know two little books by Norris, Canon of Bristol, “Key to the Gospel History,” and a Manual on the Catechism?

’They are well worth reading, indeed I should almost say studying, so as to mould the teaching of your young ones upon them.

’How you would be amused could you see the figures and scenes which surround me here!  To-day about 140 men, women, lads and girls are working voluntarily here, clearing and fencing the gardens, and digging the holes for the yams, and they do this to help us in the school; we have two pigs killed, and give them a bit of a feast.  The feeling is very friendly.  A sculptor might study them to great advantage, though clothing is becoming common here now.  Our thirty-four baptized adults and our sixteen or twenty old scholars wear decent clothing, of course.