Rational Christianity will thrive more
rapidly there than here. They are freer from prejudices than we are, and
bolder in grasping at truth. The time is not distant, though neither you
nor I shall see it, when we shall be but a secondary people to them. Our
greediness for wealth, and fantastical expense have degraded, and will
degrade, the minds of our maritime citizens. These are the peculiar
vices of commerce.
I had been long without hearing from you, but I had heard of you
through a letter from Doctor Waterhouse. He wrote to reclaim against
an expression of Mr. Wirt's, as to the commencement of motion in
the revolutionary ball. The lawyers say that words are always to be
expounded _secundum subjectam materiem_, which, in Mr. Wirt's case, was
Virginia. It would, moreover, be as difficult to say at what moment
the Revolution began, and what incident set it in motion, as to fix the
moment that the embryo becomes an animal, or the act which gives him
a beginning. But the most agreeable part of his letter was that which
informed me of your health, your activity, and strength of memory;
and the most wonderful, that which assured me that you retained your
industry and promptness in epistolary correspondence. Here you have
entire advantage over me. My repugnance to the writing-table becomes
daily and hourly more deadly and insurmountable. In place of this has
come on a canine appetite for reading.
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