My dear Mr. Boyd,--I won't ask you to forgive me for not writing
before, because I know very well that you would rather have not heard
from me immediately.... And so, you and Mrs. Mathew have been tearing
to pieces--to the very rags--all my elaborate theology! And when Mr.
Young is 'strong enough,' he is to help you at your cruel work! 'The
points upon which you and I differed' are so numerous, that if I
really _am_ wrong upon every one of them, Mrs. Mathew has indeed
reason to 'punish me with hard thoughts.' Well, she can't help my
feeling for her much esteem, although I never saw her. And if I _were_
to see her, I would not argue with her; I would only ask her to let me
love her. I am weary of controversy in religion, and should be so
were I stronger and more successful in it than I am or care to be. The
command is not 'argue with one another,' but 'love one another.' It
is better to love than to convince. They who lie on the bosom of Jesus
must lie there _together_!

Not a word about your book![19] Don't you mean to tell me anything
of it? I saw a review of it--rather a satisfactory one--I think in an
_August_ number of the 'Athenaeum.' If you will look into 'Fraser's
Magazine' for August, at an article entitled 'Rogueries of Tom Moore,'
you will be amused with a notice of the 'Edinburgh Review's' criticism
in the text, and of yourself in a note. We have had a crowded Bible
meeting, and a Church Missionary and London Missionary meeting
besides; and I went last Tuesday to the Exmouth Bible meeting with
Mrs. Maling, Miss Taylor, and Mr. Hunter. We did not return until
half-past one in the morning.... The Bishop of Barbadoes and the Dean
of Winchester were walking together on the beach yesterday, making
Sidmouth look quite episcopal. You would not have despised it _half so
much_, had you been here.