He soon found himself blessed with perfect peace
of mind, and a settled conviction.
One other difficulty, and one only, we hear of at this point in
his life. His dislike of early rising amounted, we are told,
'almost to a constitutional infirmity'. This weakness too he
overcame, yet not quite so successfully as his doubts upon the
doctrine of the Trinity. For in afterlife, the Doctor would often
declare 'that early rising continued to be a daily effort to him
and that in this instance he never found the truth of the usual
rule that all things are made easy by custom.
He married young and settled down in the country as a private
tutor for youths preparing for the Universities. There he
remained for ten years--happy, busy, and sufficiently prosperous.
Occupied chiefly with his pupils, he nevertheless devoted much of
his energy to wider interests. He delivered a series of sermons
in the parish church; and he began to write a History of Rome, in
the hope, as he said, that its tone might be such 'that the
strictest of what is called the Evangelical party would not
object to putting it into the hands of their children'. His views
on the religious and political condition of the country began to
crystallise. He was alarmed by the 'want of Christian principle
in the literature of the day', looking forward anxiously to 'the
approach of a greater struggle between good and evil than the
world has yet seen'; and, after a serious conversation with Dr.
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