letter. I am sorry to say that the public did not care sufficiently
about it to buy copies enough even to pay for printing.

It fell very flat, but I attributed that to the degeneracy of the times,
and of Cornish people in particular. The fact was, they understood that
text far better than I did, and knew that "the Church of the first-born"
was something more spiritual than I had any conception of.

From the commencement of my ministry I did not, as a general rule,
preach my own sermons, but Newman's, which I abridged and simplified,
for in that day I thought them most sound in doctrine, practical and
full of good common sense. Indeed, as far as Church teaching went, they
were, to my mind, perfect. They stated doctrines and drew manifest
conclusions; but my people were not satisfied with them then; and I can
see now, thank God! that, with all their excellences, they were utterly
deficient in spiritual vitality.

Their author was one whom I personally admired very much, but by his own
showing, in his "Apologia." he was a man who was searching not for God,
but for a Church. At length, when he grasped the ideal of what a Church
ought to be, he tried by the Oxford Tracts, especially No. XC, to raise
the Church of England to his standard; and failing in that, he became
dissatisfied, and went over to the Church of Rome.

Once, when I arrived at a friend's house in the Lake district, I was
told that there was a most beautiful view of distant mountains to be
seen from my window. In the morning I lifted the blind to look, but only
saw an ordinary view of green fields, hedges, trees and a lake. There
was nothing else whatever to be seen. In the course of the day, a heavy
mist which had been hanging over the lake was dispersed, and then I saw