A day or two after he sent me a characteristic note, whose peculiar hieroglyphics, after much labor, I was able to decipher; for it has been often said that the only reason why he was never made a bishop was that no clergyman in his diocese would ever have been able to read his letters.
THE DEANERY OF WESTMINSTER, July 22, 1872 Dear Doctor---Pray accept my sincere thanks for your very kind note.

I quite appreciate your candor in mentioning what you thought a defect in my sermon.

It arose from a fixed conviction which I have long formed, that the only chance there is of my sermons doing any good is by taking one topic at a time.

The effect and the nature of the death of Jesus Christ, I quite agree with you in thinking to be a most important part of the Christian doctrine, and Christian history.

But as my sermon was on a different subject--that of the right use of greatness--I felt that I could not speak, even by way of allusion, to the other great doctrine on which I had often preached before.
I sincerely wish that I could come to America.