shores of the ocean that suggested to him the " Hymn of the
Sea," which, with the following letter, he sent some months
later to Mr. Ware, editor of the " Christian Examiner ":

" NEW YORK, MAY, 1842 : As you are making a bee to furnish out
the first number of your periodical in its new form, I shall contribute
my assistance, such as it is, along with the rest of your neighbors.
You may rely upon my doing something. I am sorry to hear that the
'Christian Examiner' is not so successful as it ought to be. The
cause to which you ascribe it is doubtless the true one—that of its
having taken the review form, which is too solemn and didactic for
the public taste. It is wonderful what success some of our magazines—
the lighter sort—have had. The publishers of the 'Lady's Book ' and
' Ladies' Companion' talk, and I believe with truth, of their ten thou-
sand subscribers and more. 'Graham's Magazine ' has also a very
large circulation.... I hope another cause of the falling off in the
subscribers of the ' Christian Examiner ' is not any decline in the
numbers of our denomination. Yet it must be admitted, I believe,
that we do not multiply as we did a few years since. Is the increase
of the Unitarians at the present time in proportion to the increase of
the population ? I am not able to judge with much precision. Be-
twixt the neologists on the one side, and the archaists on the other, I
fear that sober and sensible notions of religion are not making much
progress just now; at least, not in the shape in which they are re-
ceived by us." ^*

-391-