Nothing can be clearer, than that the New Testament is entirely pervaded by the doctrine,--sometimes explicitly stated, sometimes unceremoniously assumed,--that earthly things are very speedily to come to an end, and _therefore_ are not worthy of our high affections and deep interest. Hence, when thoroughly imbued with this persuasion, I looked with mournful pity on a great mind wasting its energies on any distant aim of this earth. For a statesman to talk about providing for future generations, sounded to me as a melancholy avowal of unbelief. To devote good talents to write history or investigate nature, was simple waste: for at the Lord's coming, history and science would no longer be learned by these feeble appliances of ours. Thus an inevitable deduction from the doctrine of the apostles, was, that "we must work for speedy results only." Vitæ summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam. I _then_ accepted the doctrine, in profound obedience to the absolutely infallible system of precepts. I _now_ see that the falsity and mischief of the doctrine is one of the very many disproofs of the assumed, but unverified infallibility. However, the hold which the apostolic belief then took of me, subjected my conscience to the exhortations of the Irish clergyman, whenever he inculcated that the highest Christian must necessarily decline the pursuit of science, knowledge, art, history,--except so far as any of these things might be made useful tools for immediate spiritual results. Under the stimulus to my imagination given by this gentleman's character, the desire, which from a boy I had more or less nourished, of becoming a teacher of Christianity _to the heathen_, took stronger and stronger hold of me. I saw that I was shut out from the ministry of the Church of England, and knew not how to seek connexion with Dissenters. I had met one eminent Quaker, but was offended by the violent and obviously false interpretations by which he tried to get rid of the two Sacraments; and I thought there was affectation involved in the forms which the doctrine of the Spirit took with him. Besides, I had not been prepossessed by those Dissenters whom I had heard speak at the Bible Society. I remember that one of them talked in pompous measured tones of voice, and with much stereotyped phraseology, about "the Bible only, the religion of Protestants:" altogether, it did not seem to me that there was at all so much of nature and simple truth in them as in Church clergymen. I also had a vague, but strong idea, that all Dissenting churches assumed some special, narrow, and sectarian basis. The question indeed arose: "Was I _at liberty_ to preach to the heathen without ordination?" but I with extreme ease answered in the affirmative. To teach a Church, of course needs the sanction of the church: no man can assume pastoral rights without assent from other parties: but to speak to those without, is obviously a natural right, with which the Church can have nothing to do.