conscience. I think that the best way of considering it, and the
most interesting, is to view it as it may be seen in the lives of
good men everywhere, whether Christians or so-called heathens--
Socrates, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, St. Augustine, as well as in the
lives of Christ, or Bunyan, or Spinoza. The study of religious
biography seems to me one of the best modes of keeping up
Christian feeling.

As to the question of Disestablishment, I am not like Mr. Balfour,
I wobble rather, yet, on the whole, I agree with Mr. Gladstone,
certainly about the Welsh Church. Churches are so worldly and so
much allied to the interests of the higher classes. I think that a
person who belongs to a Church should always endeavour to live
above his Church, above the sermon and a good part of the prayer,
above the Athanasian Creed, and the form of Ordination, above the
passions of party feelings and public meetings. The best
individuals have always been better than Churches, though I do not
go so far as a German professor, who thinks that people will never
be religious until they leave off going to church, yet I am of
opinion that in every congregation the hearers should attempt to
raise themselves above the tone of the preacher and of the
service.

I am sorry to hear that Mr. Balfour, who has so much that is
liberal in him, is of an extreme opposite opinion. But I feel that
I have talked long enough on a subject which may not interest you,
but of which I should like to talk to you again when we meet. It
seems to me probable that the Church WILL be disestablished,
because it has been so already in most countries of Europe, and
because the school is everywhere taking its place.