“My Freethinking friends sneer even at the mention of any God; and their talk of methods of reformation that infer any wisdom above their own has long since sickened me. One Sunday evening last year, I accompanied one of them to what they call the ‘Eclectic Hall’ here, to hear a Mrs. Law speak. There were from two to three hundred present,—few women—almost all toil-worn looking men. Mrs. Law, the lecturess—a stout, coarse-looking lady, or woman who might have been a lady—based her address on another by Mr. Gladstone, M.P. One thing she said will give you an idea of the spirit of her lecture, which was full of sadness to me, because highly appreciated by her audience: ‘Jesus tells you,’ she shouted, ‘“Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven,” but I tell you, Blessed are the rich, for theirs is no myth-world, but this substantial one with its tangible, satisfying joys.’ “I got one of them to read the October Letter—and then Volumes I. and IV. of Fors. Another young fellow, a Londoner, read them too, and then at leisure moments there was a talk over them for some days. But, with the exception of the first referred to, they talked pitifully enough. Your incidental remark about destroying the new town of Edinburgh, and other items of dubious sort, blinded them to any good, and it was a blessing when something else came athwart their vacant minds, and they ceased to remember you.” IV. I am grateful for the following note on the name ‘Sheffield’:— “Leeds, 29th Dec, 1875. “Sir,—The town, in all probability, took its name from the river ‘Sheaf,’ which flows into the Don. “Doncaster is a case in point out of hundreds of others. It may be that the river has been named in recent times, but it is unlikely; for as a rule a river always has some name by which it is known before any settlements are made on its banks.”