Shelford by the loudness and vehemence of your tones. Now, my
dear Tom, you cannot doubt that this gives me pain; and it does
so not so much on account of the thing itself, as because I
consider it a pretty infallible test of the mind within. I do
long and pray most earnestly that the ornament of a meek and
quiet spirit may be substituted for vehemence and self-
confidence, and that you may be as much distinguished for the
former as ever you have been for the latter. It is a school in
which I am not ambitious that any child of mine should take a
high degree.

If the people of Shelford be as bad as you represent them in your
letters, what are they but an epitome of the world at large? Are
they ungrateful to you for your kindnesses? Are they foolish, and
wicked, and wayward in the use of their faculties? What is all
this but what we ourselves are guilty of every day? Consider how
much in our case the guilt of such conduct is aggravated by our
superior knowledge. We shall not have ignorance to plead in its
extenuation, as many of the people of Shelford may have. Now,
instead of railing at the people of Shelford, I think the best
thing which you and your schoolfellows could do would be to try
to reform them. You can buy and distribute useful and striking
tracts, as well as Testaments, among such as can read. The cheap
Repository and Religious Tract Society will furnish tracts suited
to all descriptions of persons; and for those who cannot read--
why should you not institute a Sunday school to be taught by
yourselves, and in which appropriate rewards being given for good
behaviour, not only at school but through the week, great effects
of a moral kind might soon be produced? I have exhausted my
paper, and must answer the rest of your letter in a few days. In