brother. Some information on that head will be necessary to explain the
nature of that reluctance which I now feel to comply with thy request,
and which had formerly so much excited thy surprise.

Waldegrave, like other men early devoted to meditation and books, had
adopted, at different periods, different systems of opinion on topics
connected with religion and morals. His earliest creeds tended to efface
the impressions of his education; to deify necessity and universalize
matter; to destroy the popular distinctions between soul and body, and
to dissolve the supposed connection between the moral condition of man
anterior and subsequent to death.

This creed he adopted with all the fulness of conviction, and propagated
with the utmost zeal. Soon after our friendship commenced, fortune
placed us at a distance from each other, and no intercourse was allowed
but by the pen. Our letters, however, were punctual and copious. Those
of Waldegrave were too frequently devoted to the defence of his
favourite tenets.

Thou art acquainted with the revolution that afterwards took place in
his mind. Placed within the sphere of religious influence, and listening
daily to the reasonings and exhortations of Mr. S----, whose benign
temper and blameless deportment was a visible and constant lesson, he
insensibly resumed the faith which he had relinquished, and became the
vehement opponent of all that he had formerly defended. The chief object
of his labours, in this new state of his mind, was to counteract the
effect of his former reasonings on my opinions.

At this time, other changes took place in his situation, in consequence
of which we were once more permitted to reside under the same roof. The