except the trouble and annoyance of my own evil heart, from which, however, I do not expect complete freedom, while in this tabernacle. As to writers on the subject, I have none, besides the formularies of our Church, whose doctrines and principles I like better than Thomas Scott's. There are some points of discipline, however, in which I do not go along with him. But I now attach myself most exclusively to the Word of God and prayer, as the method of increasing in knowledge, and feel delighted in the freedom which I have gained from the variety of opinions of learned men, which used to perplex me so grievously." This is what he looked upon as being in the Gospel freedom, that he was free from doctors; and it is a freedom. If Anglican doctors were, like our theologians, all of a mind in doctrine, with a certain margin for diversity of opinion in things of minor consequence, or in the way of clearing up a difficulty, it might be borne; but when one has theologians for guides who agree about as much as one living clergyman agrees with another, it is surely a freedom to be delivered from a yoke that presses on so many sides, and forces so many ways at once. {148} CHAPTER VIII. Some Of The Practical Effects Of His Views. It is high time that we should turn from the abstract consideration of Mr. Spencer's views, and test their efficiency by the great standard of good and evil--facts. The facts, bearing upon our subject, which the Journal gives up to this period of his life, the close of 1826, and beginning of the next year, may be summed up in few words. One old woman was the only one of whom he could say, "she seems fully established in religion;" and it is remarkable that this very person, Mrs. Wykes, became a Catholic later on. All the rest were in different stages of fermentation; some "hopeful," some "promising," some "ripening unto light," and so forth: they ripen more and more according to the number of his visits; but if it should happen that they did not need material help from him, they very soon got back to their old way again, and poor Mr. Spencer used to return, after his day's apostleship, much humiliated at his want of success. In fact, his missionary work was a perfect representation of Protestant missions to the heathen. He distributed Bibles and blankets, prayer-books and porridge, and three of his best and most hopeful proselytes went mad, and were sent to the county lunatic asylum. Of himself, he tells us that he used to spend from two to three hours daily in godly contemplation. Of this he began to get tired after some time, and gives the following extraordinary notions of his interior state:--