TO HIS SISTER, MRS. HOLLAND.
Thornhill, Oct. 21, 1840.
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We congratulate you on dear Henry’s account. Oh, how glad should we have been had Canada been commiserated by him: had I twenty sons and should you ask, how I should wish to dispose of them, I would say, Oh, let them be clergymen—pious, faithful, useful ministers of our beloved Church, and let them all be fixed in Canada. I hope my dear nephew will be on his guard: caution him against a religion of forms and ceremonies, and high priestly assumption, none of which can be maintained without sapping the grand fundamental article of our Protestant religion, Justification by Faith. Once admit that there is anything inherently gracious in anything but what is simple faith, and Protestantism is virtually at an end: let anything be expected otherwise than from Christ by faith through the power and agency of the divine Spirit, and carry out this admission to its full length, and you are inevitably landed safely in Romanism. I fear much for the younger clergy.
In another letter, in reference to the above subject, he writes:—
Oh, my dear sister, I quite tremble when I think of the probable results of the present wide spread of tractarian notions. High churchism, if it be suffered to proceed, and does not meet with a speedy and most effectual check from the rulers of our Church, will hurry hundreds and thousands into Romanism, or force the decidedly Evangelical into secession. Awful times seem to be awaiting us, and I hardly dare think of them: indeed, I keep putting away every consideration almost as fast as it comes; or, rather, I endeavour to keep rolling the weighty care upon One who is both able and pledged, in answer to believing prayer, to sustain it. These principles are exerting no small degree of influence in our province. Oh, forget us not in your prayers! we greatly need them. As to myself I need say but little. My health and spirits are restored to a degree which I little anticipated, and I am enabled to go through such duties as I engage in with comparative ease and comfort. A calm, tranquil, peaceful old age has been mercifully vouchsafed me, and all I want is more grace to enjoy and improve my many mercies. I am always backward to speak of spiritual things, lest while recounting God’s mercies, “self-applause should step in;” but I still owe it to the goodness of my condescending God and Saviour to testify that I do hope his work is not retrograding in my soul. Infirmities, I have many—mental and spiritual, as well as bodily; but still some precious deepenings are I hope not fallaciously discernible.