"I am against your discourse because of its bad taste. Suicide is no argument against the truth of belief. Christians are continually committing it, and clergymen also. The Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge used to bring this argument from suicide forward in their tracts against heresy. But being educated gentlemen they abandoned it long ago, and it is now only used by the lower class of preachers. I do not mean to suggest that you belong to that class--only that you have condescended to use an argument peculiar to uncultivated reasoners. "Personally, I have great respect for several eminent preachers of Wesleyan persuasion, but they think it necessary to inquire into the truth of an accusation before they make it You must have borrowed yours from the Rev. Brewin Grant, with whom in his last illness I had friendly communications, and he had long ceased to repeat what he said in days when it was not thought necessary to be exact in imputations against adversaries. "I do not remember to have written before in refutation of the statement you made. No one who knows me would believe it for a moment; but as you are a responsible, and I understand a well-regarded, preacher, I inform you of the error, especially as it gives me the opportunity of putting on record not only my disinclination, but my dislike and contempt for suicide, and for those who, not being hopelessly diseased or insane, commit it." Dr. Downes sent me a gentlemanly and candid letter, owning that the Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., was the authority on which he spoke, whose representations he would not repeat, and I have reason to believe he has not. Such are the vicissitudes of taking sides. He has to pay who takes the right, but he has honour in the end. But he pays more who takes the wrong side consciously, and with it comes infamy. CHAPTER XXXI. THINGS WHICH WENT AS THEY WOULD I commence with Judge Hughes' first candidature. There are cases in which gratitude is submerged by prejudice, even among the cultivated classes. There was Thomas Hughes, whose statue has been deservedly erected in Rugby. Three years before he became a member of Parliament I told him he might enter the House were he so minded. And when opportunity arose I was able to confirm my assurance.