A VARIABLE QUANTITY

DISCUSSION OF THREE POINTS

THE LAST EVENING


THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH.

To E. B*****, Missionary in ------, South Pacific.

Wednesday, June 18, 1851.

My Dear Edward:--

You have more than once asked me to send you,
in your distant solitude, my impressions respecting the religious
distractions in which your native country has been of late years
involved. I have refused, partly, because it would take a volume
to give you any just notions on the subject; and partly, because
I am not quite sure that you would not be happier in ignorance.
Think, if you can, of your native land as in this respect what
it was when you left it, on your exile of Christian love,
some fifteen years ago.

I little thought I should ever have so mournful a motive to
depart in some degree from my resolution. I intended to leave
you to glean what you could of our religious condition from such
publications as might reach you. But I am now constrained to write
something about it. My dear brother, you will hear it with