pursuit of science, knowledge, art, history,--except so far as any
of these things might be made useful tools for immediate spiritual
results.

Under the stimulus to my imagination given by this gentleman's
character, the desire, which from a boy I had more or less nourished,
of becoming a teacher of Christianity _to the heathen_, took stronger
and stronger hold of me. I saw that I was shut out from the ministry
of the Church of England, and knew not how to seek connexion with
Dissenters. I had met one eminent Quaker, but was offended by the
violent and obviously false interpretations by which he tried to
get rid of the two Sacraments; and I thought there was affectation
involved in the forms which the doctrine of the Spirit took with him.
Besides, I had not been prepossessed by those Dissenters whom I had
heard speak at the Bible Society. I remember that one of them
talked in pompous measured tones of voice, and with much stereotyped
phraseology, about "the Bible only, the religion of Protestants:"
altogether, it did not seem to me that there was at all so much of
nature and simple truth in them as in Church clergymen. I also had
a vague, but strong idea, that all Dissenting churches assumed some
special, narrow, and sectarian basis. The question indeed arose: "Was
I _at liberty_ to preach to the heathen without ordination?" but I
with extreme ease answered in the affirmative. To teach a Church, of
course needs the sanction of the church: no man can assume pastoral
rights without assent from other parties: but to speak to those
without, is obviously a natural right, with which the Church can have
nothing to do. And herewith all the precedents of the New Testament so
obviously agreed, that I had not a moment's disquiet on this head.

At the same time, when asked by one to whom I communicated my