to trace a unity and progress in theological and ethical thought among men and churches, prepared him to accept and recognize the same law in natural things. If Mr. Mill had studied and followed up, in his own way, the method of Mr. Maurice in these respects, it might not have fallen to him to have written probably one of the saddest passages ever penned, where finality, not in cause but in result, faces him as a possibility, driving him to despair, from which his account of his deliverance scarcely seems satisfactory-the opening of the fifth chapter of his autobiography. Other students may hereafter learn that some of the "unobvious truths" which Mr. Maurice's mental gifts enabled him to discover are worth their attention.

LECTURES.

I.

ON THE FRIENDSHIP OF BOOKS.1

I HAVE proposed to speak to you this evening on the Friendship of Books. I have some fear that an age of reading is not always favourable to the cultivation of this friendship. I do not mean that we are in any special danger of looking upon them as enemies. That is no doubt the temptation of some persons. I have known both boys and men who have looked at books with a kind of rage and hatred, as if they were the natural foes of the human species. I am far from thinking that these were bad boys or bad men; nor were they stupid. Some of them I have found very intelligent, and have learnt much from them. I could trace the dislike in some cases to a cause which I thought honourable. The dogs and horses which they did care about, and were always on good terms with, they regarded as living creatures, who could receive

1 Delivered first at Ellesmere, at the request of Archdeacon Allen, in the autumn of 1856; afterwards at Harrow.

affection, and in some measure could return it. Their horses could carry them over hills and moors; their dogs had been out with them from morning till night, and took interest in the pursuit that was interesting them. Books seemed to them dead things in stiff bindings, that might be patted and caressed ever so much and would take no notice, that knew nothing of toil or pleasure, of hill or stubble-field, of sunrise or sunsetting, of the earnest chase or the feast after it. Was it not better to leave them in the shelves which seemed to be made for them? Was it not treating them most respectfully not to finger or soil them, but to secure the services of a housemaid who should occasionally dust them?

I frankly own that I have great sympathy with these feelings, and with those who entertain them. If books. are only dead things, if they do not speak to one, or answer one when one speaks to them, if they have nothing to do with the common things that we are busy with with the sky over our head, and the ground under our feet-I think that they had better stay on the shelves; I think any horse or dog, or tree or flower, is a better companion for human beings than they are. And therefore I say again, it is not with those who count them enemies that I find fault. They have much to say for themselves; if their premises are right they are right in their conclusions. What I regret is that many of us spend much of our time in reading books, and in talking of books—that we like nothing worse than the reputation of being indifferent to them,