Something should here be said of two friends whom Locke had made in later life, one of whom seems to have been constantly about him during his last years. The less intimate of these was Samuel Bolde, a Dorsetshire clergyman, who had come forward, in 1697, to defend the _Reasonableness of Christianity_ against Edwards' attacks, and who afterwards did Locke a similar service in replying to the assailants of the _Essay_. He was one of Locke's correspondents, and once at least paid him a visit at Oates. Bolde's outspokenness and independence of judgment naturally excited Locke's admiration. There are some memorable sentences in a letter written to him in 1699. "To be learned in the lump by other men's thoughts, and to be in the right by saying after others, is the much easier and quieter way; but how a rational man, that should inquire and know for himself, can content himself with a faith or a religion taken upon trust, or with such a servile submission of his understanding as to admit all and nothing else but what fashion makes passable among men, is to me astonishing. I do not wonder you should have, in many points, different apprehensions from what you meet with in authors. With a free mind, which unbiassedly pursues truth, it cannot be otherwise." After expanding these thoughts, and applying them to the study of Scripture, he goes on to advise Bolde how to supply a mental defect that he had complained of, namely, that "he lost many things because they slipped from him." The simple method was to write them down as they occurred. "The great help to the memory is writing," Bacon had said. Locke emphasizes the dictum, and adds, "If you have not tried it, you cannot imagine the difference there is in studying with and without a pen in your hand." "The thoughts that come unsought, and as it were dropped into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have, and therefore should be secured, because they seldom return again."