In fact, I very soon left off the attempt at intimate religious intercourse with him, or asking counsel as of one who could sympathize.

We talked, indeed, a great deal on the surface of religious matters; and on some questions I was overpowered and received a temporary bias from his superior knowledge; but as time went on, and my own intellect ripened, I distinctly felt that his arguments were too fine-drawn and subtle, often elaborately missing the moral points and the main points, to rest on some ecclesiastical fiction; and his conclusions were to me so marvellous and painful, that I constantly thought I had mistaken him.

In short, he was my senior by a very few years: nor was there any elder resident at Oxford, accessible to me, who united all the qualities which I wanted in an adviser.

Nothing was left for me but to cast myself on Him who is named the Father of Lights, and resolve to follow the light which He might give, however opposed to my own prejudices, and however I might be condemned by men.

This solemn engagement I made in early youth, and neither the frowns nor the grief of my brethren can make me ashamed of it in my manhood.
Among the religious authors whom I read familiarly was the Rev.
T.Scott, of Aston Sandford, a rather dull, very unoriginal, half-educated, but honest, worthy, sensible, strong-minded man, whose works were then much in vogue among the Evangelicals.