44. I could put all this much better, and more convincingly, before you, if I were able to take any pains in writing at present; but I am not, as I told you; being weary and ill; neither do I much care now to use what, in the very truth, are but tricks of literary art, in dealing with this so grave subject. You see I write you my letter straightforward, and let you see all my scratchings out and puttings in; and if the way I say things shocks you, or any other reader of these letters, I cannot help it; this only I know, that what I tell you is true, and written more earnestly than anything I ever wrote with my best literary care; and that you will find it useful to think upon, however it be said. Now, therefore, to draw towards our conclusion. Supposing the Bible inspired, in any of the senses above defined, you have in these passages a positively Divine authority for the use of song and dance, as a means of religious service, and expression of national thanksgiving. Supposing it not inspired, you have (taking the passages for as slightly authoritative as you choose) record in them, nevertheless, of a state of mind in a great nation, producing the most beautiful religious poetry and perfect moral law hitherto known to us, yet only expressible by them, to the fulfilment of their joyful passion, by means of professional dance and choral song. 45. Now I want you to contrast this state of religious rapture with some of our modern phases of mind in parallel circumstances. You see that the promise of Jeremiah's, "Thou shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry," is immediately followed by this, "Thou shalt yet _plant vines_ upon the mountains of Samaria." And again, at the yearly feast to the Lord in Shiloh, the dancing of the virgins was in the midst of the vineyards (Judges xxi. 21), the feast of the vintage being in the south, as our harvest home in the north, a peculiar occasion of joy and thanksgiving. I happened to pass the autumn of 1863 in one of the great vine districts of Switzerland, under the slopes of the outlying branch of the Jura which limits the arable plain of the Canton Zurich, some fifteen miles north of Zurich itself. That city has always been a renowned, stronghold of Swiss Protestantism, next in importance only to Geneva; and its evangelical zeal for the conversion of the Catholics of Uri, and endeavors to bring about that spiritual result by stopping the supplies of salt they needed to make their cheeses with, brought on (the Uri men reading their Matt. v. 13, in a different sense) the battle of Keppel, and the death of the reformer Zwinglius. The town itself shows the most gratifying signs of progress in all the modern arts and sciences of life. It is nearly as black as Newcastle--has a railroad station larger than the London terminus of the Chatham and Dover--fouls the stream of the Limmat as soon as it issues from the lake, so that you might even venture to compare the formerly simple and innocent Swiss