Dear Hope,—I am much obliged to you for sending me a copy of your letter, which I have read with the greatest pleasure…. I see that in the statement just published by authority, no Prussian documents are given. I think your letter will be a puzzling one; but the spirit of practical Protestantism is subtle and versatile, and able to set aside everything—laws, principles, rubrics, and canons. Else I do not see how the mischief which I apprehend could be realised.
Ever yours sincerely,
W. Palmer
P.S.—I am glad you think my pamphlet may be useful. We have taken entirely different sides of the same subject; I the theoretical (as it seemed to me), and you the practical view of the question.
Sir John Taylor Coleridge to J. R. Hope, Esq.
My dear Hope,—Many thanks for your letter, which I have read through with, I may say, a painful interest. Of course, in a matter so difficult in itself, and so new, I must confess, to me, I do not take on me at once to pronounce that you are right, but I cannot at present find out where you are wrong; and I am the more inclined to think that you may be right because I see in the Act just words enough to satisfy people rather precipitate that the Prussian scheme might be carried through safely on them. 'Spiritual jurisdiction,' 'over other Protestant congregations,' would seem to ordinary minds enough—till it was further considered how the English Bishop was to work out the scheme by virtue of these words, and yet be consistent with his own engagements.
I shall not be sorry, however, to find that you are answered; not that I wish to accomplish, or seem rather to accomplish any end by a disorderly and indigested attempt at union; nor do I think this thing of itself so important as many do: still it is one which very much arrests the imagination, and excites strong devotional feeling; and I rather looked on it as leading to more important matters with Prussia itself. I cannot, too, help a little more personal feeling for the Bishop than it fell within our plan to express—a good and pious man, I believe, but not by intellect or previous habits fitted to meet such emergencies as you place before him.
Very truly yours,
J. T. Coleridge.
December 30,1841.