demanding the simplest and most forcible expression. If the truth
is of serious importance to us we dare not obstruct it by phrase-
making: we are compelled to be as direct as our inherited
feebleness will permit. The cannon ball's path is near to a
straight line in proportion to its velocity. "My boy," my father
once said to me, "if you write anything you consider particularly
fine, strike it out."

The Reply is an admirable specimen of the way in which a controversy
should be conducted; without heat, the writer uniformly mindful of
his object, which is not personal distinction, but the conviction of
his neighbour, poor as well as rich, all the facts in order, every
point answered, and not one evaded. At the opening of the first
letter, a saying of Burkitt's is quoted with approval. "Painted
glass is very beautiful, but plain glass is the most useful as it
lets through the most light." A word, by the way, on Burkitt. He
was born in 1650, went to Cambridge, and became rector, first of
Milden, and then of Dedham, both in Suffolk. As rector of Dedham he
died. There he wrote the Poor Man's Help and Young Man's Guide,
which went through more than thirty editions in fifty years. There
he wrestled with the Baptists, and produced his Argumentative and
Practical Discourse on Infant Baptism. I have wandered through
these Dedham fields by the banks of the Stour. It is Constable's
country, and in its way is not to be matched in England. Although
there is nothing striking in it, its influence, at least upon me, is
greater than that of celebrated mountains and waterfalls. What a
power there is to subdue and calm in those low hills, overtopped, as
you see it from East Bergholt, by the magnificent Dedham half-
cathedral church! It is very probable that Burkitt, as he took his
walks by the Stour, and struggled with his Argument, never saw the