labours of better abilities argue the impropriety of it.

But if you think it necessary to labour this subject, I will propose
the single instance of the conversion of St. Paul for investigation.
By this means we shall be kept from rambling after different subjects.
If you can give a reasonable account of this conversion without
admitting the truth of christianity, I will acknowledge you have left
me destitute of one evidence on which I now rely. On the other hand,
if you fail in this, you may reasonably suppose that you would fail in
any other case of equal moment in this general controversy.

Yours, &c.

H. BALLOU.

* * * * *

[The letter containing _extracts_ No. 1, having been laid before the
Rev. EDWARD TURNER, of Charlestown, Mass. he saw fit to reply to it.
The following are extracts from his letter.]

"Passing over the principal parts of your introduction, which
generally embrace sentiments to which I readily subscribe, I will just
notice what you say concerning the study of languages. I am not so
tenacious of this kind of study, as to believe that too much time has
not often been employed in it. I am also convinced with you, that 'the
truth or falsity of every proposition must depend on the truth or
falsity of the principles embraced in it.' But still I am not able to
say that the study of Greek and Hebrew can be of no 'possible service
to an American.' Neither, because those languages are not a perfect