the day when you come and tell me that He has done so, the smile that
will be on your face will be no sort of symbol, I know, of the
unutterable content within. _Expertus novi_, you have my thoughts and
hopes."

The letters I shall now quote are taken out of a considerable period,
and give a fair picture of what he believed. Tolerance was his great
characteristic.

Below all principles of his own was a deep resolve not to interfere
in any way with the principles of others, however erroneous he deemed
them.

With his definition of sincerity that comes out in the following
extracts I have myself often found fault in conversation and by
letter, but I never produced any change. I thought, and still think,
that it is sophistical in tone, and tampers with one of the most
sacred of our instincts. It never in his case, I think, made any
difference to his presentment of the truth, but it is a principle
that I should not dare to advocate; however, it was so integral a
part of his faith that in this delineation, which shall be as
accurate as I can make it, I dare not omit it.

His convictions were then a steady accumulation, not the shreds of
one system worked into the fabric by the overmastering new impulse
communicated by another, as is so often the case. He writes:

"The strong man's house entered by the stronger, and his goods
despoiled, is a parable more frequently true of the conversion of
a 'believer' into a sceptic than _vice versa_. The habit of firm