rational and practical of the Christian Fathers. By and by came
Priestley and Price, and Dr. John Taylor, and W. E. Channing, and a host
of others of the modern school of heterodox writers. I also read a
number of celebrated French authors, including Bossuet and Bourdaloue,
Flechier and Massillon, Pascal and Fenelon, and the eloquent, Protestant
preacher and author, M. Saurin. I read the principal works both of
Catholics and Protestants, of the Fathers and Reformers, of Churchmen
and Dissenters, of Quakers and Mystics, of Methodists and Calvinists, of
Unitarians and Infidels.

I read several works on Law and Government, including Puffendorf's Law
of Nature, Grotius on the Laws of Peace and War, Bodin on Government,
Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, Blackstone's Commentaries, and Jeremy
Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium. I had read works on Anatomy, Physiology and
Medicine, when I could get hold of them, from the time when I was only
twelve years old. I never went far into any other sciences, yet I
studied, to some extent, Astronomy, Geology, Physical Geography, Botany,
Natural History, and Anthropology. I read Wesley's publication on
Natural Philosophy, and I gave more or less attention to every work on
science and natural philosophy that came in my way. Works on natural
religion and natural theology, in which science was taught and used in
subservience to Christian truth and duty, I read whenever I could get
hold of them. They interested me exceedingly. For works on Painting,
Sculpture, Architecture, I had not the least regard. They seemed to
have no tendency to help me in the work in which I was engaged, and I
had no desire to talk respectable nonsense on such subjects. I was fond
of Ecclesiastical and Civil History, and read most greedily such works
as threw light on the progress of society in learning, science, and
useful arts; in freedom, morals, religion and government. I read many of
the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the history of the