I think the case must be as plain to your mind as it is to mine. If I were to occupy any place in your army, it would be in the flying artillery; these solid columns will never do for me. Why, I can't remember the time when I have written twenty-five sermons in a year, and that, I insist, is the amount of labor you desire of me. You may think that I overrate it, and you speak of my writing from "the level of my mind." The highest level is low enough, and this I say in sad sincerity. In fact, if nothing offers itself for me to do that I can do, I think that I shall let the said mind lie as fallow ground for a while, hoping that, through God's blessing, leisure and leisurely studies may give strength for some good work by and by. How to live, in the mean time, is the question; but I can live poor, and must, if necessary, trench upon my principal. But if I am driven to this resort, I will make thorough work of it; I will bind myself to no duty, professional, literary, or journalistic; if a book, or a little course of lectures, or any other little thing comes out from under [211] my hands at the end of one, two, or three years, let it; but I will do nothing upon compulsion, though the things to do be as thick as blackberries. There's my profession of--duty! I have worked hard, however imperfectly. I have worked in weariness, in tribulation, and to the very edge of peril; and I believe that the high Taskmaster, to whom I thus refer with humble and solemn awe, will pardon me some repose, if circumstances beyond my control assign it to me for my lot.