objections, but upon these there is no use in entering in a letter intended not for controversial, but friendly purposes. I enclose you two pamphlets, the imputed authorship of which has cost me no little trouble. Whoever may have been their author, I am not disposed to controvert the position laid down by him, and you may conclude that while I regard Roman Catholicism as a very complete system of spiritual, and consequently secular, despotism, I am far from supposing that other denominations have not their theoretic intolerance in proportion to the liberality or illiberality of their ecclesiastical constitutions."
I came to learn from these pamphlets that there were two parties in the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church—one resting on authority and traditional practice, the other preaching progress and reform—and I had good reason to know in the end, as we shall see, that my friend was an influential member of the latter section.
Eighteen hundred and forty-two brought the fulfilment of all my dreams of literary labour. In the long perspective of memory, that fruitful era looks like the occupation of a new territory by a strong immigration. Everybody was busy, everybody was hopeful, new fields were cleared daily, new seeds and saplings were planted, and new and engrossing hopes created which have not ceased, and which shall not cease.
