Nottingham I go to Sheffield; from Sheffield to Manchester; from
Manchester to Liverpool? from Liverpool to London, from London to
Bristol. Ah, what a weary way! My poor crazy ark has been tossed to and
fro on an ocean of business, and I long for the Mount Ararat on which it
is to rest. At Birmingham I was extremely unwell; a violent cold in my
head and limbs confined me for two days. Business succeeded very well;
about a hundred subscribers, I think.

At Derby, also, I succeeded tolerably well. Mr. Strutt, the successor of
Sir Richard Arkwright, tells me, I may count on forty or fifty in Derby.
Derby is full of curiosities; the cotton and silk mills; Wright, the
painter, and Dr. Darwin, the every thing but Christian! Dr. Darwin
possesses, perhaps, a greater range of knowledge than any other man in
Europe, and is the most inventive of philosophical men. He thinks in a
new train on all subjects but religion. He bantered me on the subject of
religion. I heard all his arguments, and told him, it was infinitely
consoling to me--to find that the arguments of so great a man, adduced
against the existence of a God and the evidences of revealed religion,
were such as had startled me at fifteen, but had become the objects of my
smile at twenty. Not one new objection; not even an ingenious one! He
boasted 'that he had never read one book in favour of such stuff! but
that he had read all the works of infidels.'

What would you think, Mr. Wade, of a man, who having abused and ridiculed
you, should openly declare, that he had heard all that your enemies had
to say against you, but had scorned to inquire the truth from any one of
your friends? Would you think him an honest man? I am sure you would not.
Yet such are all the infidels whom I have known. They talk of a subject,
yet are proud to confess themselves profoundly ignorant of it. Dr. Darwin
would have been ashamed to reject 'Hutton's Theory of the Earth,' without