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[Letter of Francis William Newman to Dr. Chapman] Clifton, Bristol, Dear Sir, I have at home two attacks on me (on Phases of Faith, The Soul &c) which are likely to have escaped your notice. They come from the side of the Plymouth Brethren. When I return home (which will be in a few days) I will send them to you. Whether you are aware of another attack in the Journal of Sacred Literature (of which the late Dr. Kitto was Editor) may likewise seem doubtful: I had the number, but am not sure whether I still have it.[*] By the way, if your Reviewer takes any notice of the two successive articles against me in the North British, (the first of which so shamelessly misquoted as well as misinterpreted me,) I am almost inclined to wish he should see a private note from the Editor, (though of course he would not refer to it publicly,) which displays Archbishop Whately's hand in that disreputable affair & the Editor's own consciousness of wrong; though he had not the manliness either to acknowledge to the public what was due to me (or rather to himself) nor to hinder a new article in substance equally unjust. My book on Theism is not actually finished, but all that is arduous in it is finished, and I am only filling out its proportions & trying to obviate certain minor defects. When it is complete, which may be very soon, I suppose my first business will be to discuss with my printer, & make sure that I can afford to risk his bill: (it is better to say plainly at once, that if you were ever so willing or so sanguine, I should not be happy in allowing you to take any risk:) and if I take courage, I see no reason why it should not be quickly printed before Christmas. I compute that it will be 200 pages of small quarto. (Quarto is must be.) I have about 50 pages directly or indirectly discoursing on Future Life. I hope I have not unduly deprived you of Ferrier's metaphysical book, which I fear I never even acknowledged. I will send it back soon. I looked into it sufficiently to say, that if that is Ontology, I am not made to get benefit from it. Sincerely yours,
P.S. I do not direct to you Dr. at your publishing house. It would require a great deal of new reading for me to produce a book on Mormonism & the Agapemonè; for it would require a full & consecutive acquaintance with them, which I have not. The MS. which you sent me shows in part how the Mormon writings may be used, & some Agapemonè tracts sent me by a friend struck me much (as they evidently struck my wife disagreeably) as an imitation of Christianity & a sort of reductio ad absurdum. "Brother Prince" is held up as the great product of God's dealings, the manifestation of truth &c &c in such a way as to force one to cry out, What right have you to make a Man a part of my religion? It might happen that at some future time I might take up such reading; but I have no taste for it at present. I think indeed that the negative side is worked enough for the present. No one who has boldness to read will find any deficiency of refutations, if the current doctrine can be refuted: but all my heart is on the side of building up religion, and letting old error find that it has not that field to itself.
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