Page:Studies of a Biographer 3.djvu/136

 a milder interpretation. Anyhow, Godwin stuck to it for a time, and resisted the ensnaring arguments of Arians and Arminians. A glimpse of the social stratum which enjoyed such intellectual food may be given by a passage in a letter from his mother—a worthy and affectionate old lady in spite of her peculiar views of spelling, punctuation, and Christian charity. That her daughter may not be

"as the figtree whome the master of the vineyard came seeking fruit and found none. Is my daily prayer for her and all of you poor Jack once made a profession two but him I have no hopes off. I may say the same of Joseph how cutting it is to be the means of bringing children into the world to be the subjects of the Kingdom of Darkness to dwell with Divils and Damned Spirits from whence as I heard you mention in your prayers there is no redemption."

The 'prayers' must have been edifying, but William went the way, it is to be feared—wherever it may have led—of Jack, Joseph, and Hannah. His nonconformity took him, like Priestley and Price, into the ranks of political radicalism, and while his Calvinistic theory of predestination changed into the doctrine of 'philosophical necessity,' Rousseau became his guide in place of Jonathan Edwards. He left the pulpit, but only to preach lay sermons as an