“On returning home after an absence of several weeks, I found, and was pleased to find, your friendly letter and the books which accompanied it. For the one relating to South America, I must beg you to express my thanks where they are due. Having inquired so diligently into the history and condition of that wide country during many years, I am glad to possess any documents which may enable me to correct or otherwise improve the result of my researches. But it will not be my fortune to revise the work. Excepting Mrs. Baillie’s little book concerning Lisbon, I have not reviewed a book of travels for many years.
“I thank you for your own volume. You have undertaken a labour of love where it was greatly needed, and you will have your reward. I cannot doubt but that some of the seed which you have sown will take root and bring forth fruit.
“No person can look with more eagerness than I do for
your Life and Times of
Whitefield, nor will any one who peruses it be better disposed to be
| 234 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 51. |
“I am busied at present in demolishing the flimsy sophistries of Mr. Butler, treating him, however, with the courtesy which is due to a kind-hearted man and an old acquaintance. Milner will receive a different treatment. What think you of his saying Whitefield believed that the Angel Gabriel attended on his congregation, and quoted a story which I have told to prove it? He says also that I have avowed the Moravian doctrine of instantaneous conversion, and refers to a passage (vol. i. p. 159.) which exposes the fallacy of the reasoning by which Wesley was led to believe it. And of such direct and impudent falsehoods his strictures are full. I have, however, rather to enlarge my statements than to vindicate them, and the greater part of my book will be historical and biographical.
“Mrs. Southey joins with me in remembrance to Mrs. Philips, and desires me to say she has not forgotten the few but pleasant hours in which we enjoyed your conversation seven summers ago.
