Have been much meditating this week on many
matters, Church especially: find myself unsettled, I fear, but I think I
have the remedy, which is to keep my attention fixed rather on practical
than on speculative points. We cannot agree on the one; on the other we
may, and good men do." March 2, 1845: "I confess that the Romanising
tendencies so openly avowed in the Church of England alarm me. The
question occurs, Is not this a necessary, or at least a natural tendency
of High Churchism?" Speaking of meetings of his Synod, he says "it is
wretched work, which ended, indeed, in doing nothing." One member had
spoken with much bitterness, which he says, "thank God, I do not feel."
3d April 1845: "We are in a nice mess about this Old Town business. Two
different communion offices in one day in the same chapel. Is it
possible that this could ever have been contemplated by the canon? I do
fear the extreme and Romanising party, and they hurt us here. The Scotch
office is supposed to identify us with them, and certainly the comments
upon it make it speak a language very different from the English."
June 19.--"Left home in the 'Engineer' coach at seven, travelled through
to London without stop, and arrived there at one o'clock: wonderful the
shortening of this journey; went with a party to Handel's Athalia at
Exeter Hall; tired, fagged, and sleepy as I was, I yet felt deeply the
power of the mighty master in this his mighty work.
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