"If you have any principles to stand by," he wrote, "by all means
stand by them; but if all you mean is throwing cold water on other
people's principles, my advice is to make no move. Dissembling your
own uneasiness in the matter and quieting their anxious scruples is
one of those matters which seem so simple that heroism appears to
have no part in it. It would be so much nobler (we are tempted to
think) to stand up and protest and denunciate; to throw gloom and
dissension into a happy home and wreck (if you are the affectionate
son I believe you to be) your own happiness, not to speak of
usefulness. It would be more arduous, I admit; not therefore nobler.
Your duty is most plain; you have no right to cause acute distress to
several people, because you can not take exactly such an exalted view
as they do, of an institution which, from the lowest point of view,
is the dying request of a great and loving soul, to all who can feel
his beauty or listen to his call, a beautiful pledge of family and
national unity, and a touching symbol of all good things."

To another friend, who wrote to him to say that his principles,
though still religious, and faithful in general idea to the Christian
creed, were in so many points different from the principles taught
and demanded by the Church of England, that he felt he ought to take
some definite step to show his state of mind, he wrote as follows:

"The being born into an institution is a thing which must not be
lightly considered: it imposes certain duties upon you—the quiet
examination of its tenets, for example—and unless you are convinced
of its utter inutility, not to say immorality, it is your duty to
bear such a part in relation to it as shall not mar its usefulness;
and you may no more throw it away through caprice or indifferentism