‘Sincerely yours,
‘John Sinclair.
‘Tuesday.’
Sir John’s regiment has been disbanded nine or ten years, and consequently this rascally saddler has been at least so long kept out of his money. What can these people think of themselves! To live quietly while thus depriving tradesmen of their right for such a number of years!
May 16.—This is the first fine day that has occurred since I left town; the lilacs are coming fast into blossom, and the fresh verdure of the grass and trees is highly pleasing.
August 29.—As the time approaches to go this Oxford journey, I dislike it more and more, and wish I had firmly rejected it. I am not in a situation at all comfortable here, and have only one maid—no man or boy—and only the carpenter to put my horse in the whisky; but with a little exertion all this could be arranged. Mrs. Y. going to the sea for seven weeks, and therefore seven weeks’ peace here if I stayed. I am in a regular habitual application to my ‘Elements,’ and have made a good progress in them, so that if I kept here I should have gone through many meetings of the Board; and then if it pleased the Lord to take me, they would at least be in a state to be serviceable to mankind, and the great collection I have made in divinity would gradually be brought into order.
All around here is a region dead in iniquity and sins, as far as ladies and gentlemen are concerned. Amongst the Sectaries there is Christianity, and nowhere else, which is a horrible thing to think of. The clergy are, if possible, more dead than any others; many of them very profligate, many thoroughly worldly minded, but some of very respectable moral characters, but without a spark of vital religion.
I associate only with Mrs. O. Oakes. Having written till I am tired, I go once or twice a week to relax with the mild green (sic) of her soul, because I can be free and do as I like, and I try hard to make her a Christian, but hitherto in vain. If evil ideas at any time plague me, then I keep away, and, thanks to God, I have of late had an unusual command over my imagination, which for years plagued me terribly. Prayer is my refuge.
November 23.—The 17th, 18th, and 19th at Euston, and I had much conversation with the duke, in which I earnestly endeavoured to impress on his mind the fact, that by his tenets he placed himself entirely under the covenant of works, and that he must be tried for them, and that I would not be in such a situation for ten thousand worlds. He was mild and more patient than I expected.
He lent me, and I read it there, Priestley’s Life, by himself. He asked me what I thought of it? My reply was that through the whole it was the recital of a man perfectly well satisfied with himself, not the confessions of a sinner lamenting what has been wrong in him. He seems to have had no feeling of the sort; as if, when tried by the test of his own merit, it would be a great injustice in God not to be satisfied with him, and that I had no conception of any man having it in his power to review or detail his life with any religious aspect without much self-condemnation, and beseeching God to try him in any way rather than by an appeal to his life or his own merit, but (if he be really a Christian) by the merits only of the blood of his Redeemer. He said it was my view of things, and not that of the doctor, whom he believed was undoubtedly a very good man. The conversation continued, but we were as far as the poles asunder. The duke has drawn up memoirs of his life, and he and Lady Augusta read to me that part which concerned his own administration, which is very satisfactory, as it consists much of original letters. He appears to much more advantage in it than I conceived he would have done, and it was certainly a wise step to leave such a memorial in justification of himself. Lord Templeton there one day. They seem to me to grow more and more economical, and to descend to minute attentions which are below their rank and fortune.