clined to believe that this is the case with a great many birthright members, and that the Society suffers greatly from such members. They are Quakers simply because they were brought up in the Society, having no actual convincement of the truth of its doctrines. My mind at present is totally unsettled in regard to what orthodoxy and even more liberal sects would deem the essentials of a Christian. I never expect and never care, while I have my present views, to find a church whose creed I would adopt. I am perfectly sick of everything in the shape of a religious creed. What a vast variety there is! And all interpretations of the Bible! One would suppose that, if the Bible was revealed from God, it would be sufficiently plain to every understanding."

North Dartmouth, June 29, 1849: "When I would do good, evil is present with me.' I sometimes almost despair of there being any one to help me, even an Almighty. What evidence have I of his existence? Do I even feel an inward consciousness that he exists, as I do of myself? Have I a real, living, moving faith in the superintending providence of a God, or do I only believe in him from tradition? O Almighty One, if there be such a being, what art thou? How can we know thee-how feel thee? Is there such a thing as man's actually holding communion with thee? If so, what is it? How can it be done? Can my spirit ever attain to this honor? How can spirits mingle together? How know they mingle together, and the time? How do they become acquainted? How enjoy each other's

society? O, will my poor, sinning, trembling soul ever know these things? Shall I ever have faith — shall I ever cease to doubt? I know that all Nature speaks a God; but I want to know, I want to feel, I want to speak to that God myself. I feel sometimes impatient for my spirit to leave this body, that I may know what is behind the curtain that is spread between time and eternity. But am I prepared for this? If Death should come to-night, this moment, should I be willing to meet it? O no, I should plead for a little longer; I should try, I fear, to cheat Death by fair promises of what I would do, if he would suffer me to remain. What omissions of duty, what commissions of evil, would crowd themselves upon me! And when will they be less-ah, when? I pray that it may be soon."

North Dartmouth, July 1, 1849: "My mind has become somewhat calmed, though it is still full of doubts in respect to almost all the great doctrines of our various religious sects, and particularly those of Quakers. I long ago resolved to submit everything, whether of a religious nature or otherwise, to the test of reason, being satisfied that Christianity is a rational religion, and capable of withstanding the search and the criticism of the keenest intellect. I knew that I considered many things as true solely because I had been brought up among them, where their truth was never questioned; and I know I hold many such things about me now, but they are becoming less and less. Every day I find myself resting upon another's convictions, pinning my faith upon another's sleeve; and every day I try to tear

myself away, even though strongly attached thereto, and I find nowhere else to rest. Sometimes I feel as though the very foundations of my soul were breaking up, and that I should never find a settling place. But it matters not whether I ever come to any conclusion upon these subtile points of theology, if I can only settle upon true Christianity. But, should I tell all my thoughts, I should hardly be considered a friend of this by very many professing Christians. The great points that are a burden to me now are the character of Christ, the atonement, the nature of salvation, immediate revelation, the authority and inspiration of the scriptures, the ministry and worship. Among this vast multitude comprising what are considered the most essential truths of the Gospel, I do not feel that it is essentially necessary, however desirable it may be, to decide upon either. The language arises spontaneously over all my inward strivings: If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?' Teach me, O God, of thine own wisdom!"

The last three extracts, portraying as remarkable and as pathetic a struggle as ever took place in a human soul between the imprisoning forces of an inherited thought-system and the irresistible vital energies of nascent reason, could not have been omitted without leaving in utter obscurity the origin of much that was noblest in Potter's character and career. But I have hesitated not a little whether it would be wise to publish without at least one omission the record of his thoughts on the day of his majority. Ought so frank a reference to his

personal appearance as is contained in the following entry to be submitted to alien eyes? In answering this question, I have allowed myself to be governed by the effect of that passage on my own mind. It is so characteristic, so full of a pitiless sincerity and uncompromising truthfulness and rarest freedom from all the delusions of personal self-conceit, that it seems to me to have sprung unconsciously out of the innermost nobilities of his nature, and to tell as nothing else could how strong a passion for truth burned in his heart's core. Even if this early photograph of the boy had remained a correct likeness of the man, it would still be invaluable in its ethical aspect. But whoever saw Potter in public when his fine face was lighted up with the glow of great ideas and lofty ideals, whoever met him in private and had insight enough to see the inward majesty of the soul mirrored in the whole outward aspect of the body, must recognize, in this striking contrast between the boy and the man, a wonderful instance of the way in which Nature makes the psychical dominate the physical and write out the story of the victorious spirit in the gradual transfiguration of features and form. Let the ruthless description stand, if only as a foil to the serene and noble presence which we all loved to see, but shall see no more !

Taunton, Feb. 1, 1850: "My twenty-first birthday. I am now legally a man, a free-man. The day has come which years ago, in my early youth, I was accustomed to anticipate with so much impatience and hope. Are my anticipations realized? No.

The years between looked long and weary. I expected to find myself at twenty-one a new being, possessing hardly a quality by which I could recognize my then insignificant existence. I thought to feel, to act, and to know myself differently. I believed I should scarcely identify the boy in the man; that I should outgrow myself, and by some mysterious process be converted into another being of dif ferent perceptions and functions. But do I feel, act, and know myself any differently from what I did ten years ago? Can I not identify the spindle-bodied, long-legged, large-nosed, freckle-faced, red-haired boy of eleven, in the somewhat taller but similarly featured form that I now wear? And do I not inwardly perceive myself the same as then? I certainly do. The man is but the boy larger grown. But have I not changed? I as certainly have. But the change has been rather a change in size than in nature - a development of what I then possessed rather than an exchange for something else - a slow and steady growth from the green and tender sapling to the height and magnitude of a tree. Thus grows the character-so slow the progress, so gradual the transition from one stage to another, so perfectly adapted the past that is to the past that has been, and the past that will be to the past that is, that we never lose the consciousness of its sameness. But, could I have been transported at once from myself in 1840 to myself in 1850, I opine I should not find it so easy to know myself; and, could several characters be similarly transported across ten years of life, and then shaken up together and drawn out