“My dear Mother,—Since I wrote last, nothing, I am afraid, has occurred here worth the telling you. I still continue to like this place much better than I could have expected, and, indeed, as well as I could any situation whatever, which places me at a distance from my best and dearest friends. The first term of my Oxonian course ends to-morrow or next day. The six weeks have fled over my head since I came here, and I can assure you, on looking back, they appear to be hardly equal to so many hours. We have next the prospect of a six weeks’ vacation, during which, if we except attendance on Mr. Jenkyns’ lectures, no change whatever will take place in my mode of spending my time.
“Most of my English acquaintances leave college next
week for a considerable time, and I must say that I shall have some reason to
regret their absence, though the best friend I have got here, Mr. Hamilton, is more to me than all the rest
put together ten times over, and I am happy to say he does not intend to be
more than a few days with his mother in London during this vacation. I am just
expecting a long letter from Lawrence
and
| 40 | LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART. |
“Yesterday the Sacrament was dispensed here. Mr. Jenkyns had a little conversation with me, according to papa’s desire, in the morning. In answer to his request that I should say something about the sermons here, I have to tell you that the only sort of religious instruction which I think at all worth attending to is, the two lectures on the Creed, which Mr. Mouseley (? Mozley) gives every Saturday and Sunday evening in the chapel. They are, on the whole, excessively good and sensible; as for the sermons in St. Mary’s, I think there is hardly one good out of ten. We had one last Sunday on the Catholic Bill, and another the day before on the Greek of Augustine!
“Mr. Jenkyns also lectures to us a little on the Sunday forenoons, but I am sorry to say milk and water are the articles which chiefly compose his instructions, though, I am sure, he is really a good man, and has been as yet exceedingly kind to me. I have dined once and drunk tea once at Mr. Ireland’s—he is very kind and polite. He made me a very obliging offer of supplying me with money if I at any time should stand in need of his assistance in that way. Certainly his family is as original a picture as one could see. . . .
“Hamilton
expects his brother Tom down to spend a
few days this week. . . . If he be as agree-
| SCOTTISH EPISCOPALIANS | 41 |
