F.B.

JOURNAL OF A VISIT, ETC.

July 1, 1851.

I arrived at ----Grange this day. In the evening, as Harrington and
myself were conversing in the library, I availed myself of a pause
in the conversation to break the ice in relation to the topic which
lay nearest my heart, by saying:--

"And so you have become, they tell me, a universal sceptic?"

"Not quite," he replied, throwing one of his feet over the edge of
the sofa on which he was reclining and speaking rather dogmatically
(I thought) for a sceptic. "Not quite: but in relation to religion I
certainly become convinced that certainty, like pride, was not made for
man, and that it is in vain for man to seek it."

I was amused at the contradiction of a certainty of universal
uncertainty, as well as at the discovery there was nothing to be
discovered.

He noticed my smile, and divined its cause.

"Forgive me," he said, "that, like you Christians and believers
of all sorts, I sometimes find theory discordant with practice. The
generality of people are, you know, a little inconsistent with their
creed; suffer me to be so with mine."