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A GUIDE,

&c.

LETTER I.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

THE hours which we spent together conversing on religious subjects, I have often remembered with pleasure. They were seasons of refreshing to my own heart, and, I would hope, not wholly unprofitable to yourself. To me it was truly gratifying to meet a Roman Catholic who could enter calmly and dispassionately into the various questions at issue between the Roman hierarchy and the churches of the Reformation-one who impartially weighed every argument, honestly admitted the force of an adverse conclusion, and, above all, bowed with reverence to the authority of Scripture. I regret that it is a rare thing to see controversy conducted with candour and moderation. On the polemical arena, even good men sometimes forget themselves, and manifest,

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by the acrimony of their tempers, that their passion for victory is greater than their love of truth. They seem to struggle with an enemy, rather than to expostulate with a friend; evincing a spirit which tends rather to wound the feelings than to convince the judgment. But such a course is more calculated to engender animosity and confirm hostility, than to enlighten the darkness of prejudice, or soothe the irritation of bigotry.

To us, dear Friend, it is consolatory to reflect, that we have, from time to time, travelled over all the debateable ground in this great controversy, never once falling out by the way. Whether in public discussions or in private conference, whether journeying on the road, sauntering in the fields, or seated by the fire, I found your temper ever the same. Always patient and gentle, you never turned from the argument to attack the advocate; nor adduced the alleged crimes of Protestants as proofs of the errors of their religion.

I freely grant that you are a candid inquirer after truth. But while I have been frequently pleased to see you fully admitting certain important principles at variance, as I think, with the tenets of your church, there was yet manifest a grievous want of courage to follow them out to

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

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their legitimate consequences. Circumstanced as you are, however, I cannot severely blame, though I must greatly lament your timidity and hesitation. I know too well, by experience, the nature of the difficulties with which you must contend-the influence of those attachments and the force of those ties by which you are bound to be at all surprised that the claims of truth should, for a time at least, yield to the demands of interest and the solicitations of affection; or to expect that the clamours of honour, falsely so called, should be immediately silenced by the gentle whispers of a conscience but partially awakened.

A gracious Providence having cast my lot in a different and remote part of our native land, we are deprived of the privilege of speaking face to face on this most important subject. But the interest I feel in your everlasting welfare forbids me to let the matter drop, and therefore I shall communicate to you my thoughts in writing; and as mere dry controversy is not always interesting, might it not be useful to trace the progress of truth in my own mind to notice the difficulties that occurred in my religious inquiries, pointing out the various processes by which I was led to certain conclusions, and referring occasionally to the feelings that agitated my mind

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