again to the point I had resolved to quit for this evening. "But
since we are there," said I, "I wish you would in brief tell me why,
when you doubted of Christianity, you did not stop at any of those
harbours of refuge which, in our time especially, have been so
plentifully provided for those who reject the New Testament?
You are not ignorant, I know, of the writings of Mr. Theodore
Parker, and other modern Deists. How is it that none of them
even transiently satisfied you? An ingenious eclecticism founded
on them has satisfied, you see, your old college friend, George
Fellowes, of whom I hear rare things. He is far enough from
being a sceptic,"

"Why," said he, laughing, "it is quite true that George is not a
sceptic, He has believed more and disbelieved more, and both one
and the other for less reason, than any other man I know. He
used to send me the strangest letters when I was abroad, and almost
every one presented him under some new phase. No, he is no sceptic.
If he has rejected almost every thing, he has also embraced almost
every thing; at each point in his career, his versatile faith has
found him some system to replace that he had abandoned; and he is
now a dogmatist par excellence, for he has adopted a theory of
religion which formally abjures intellect and logic, and is as
sincerely abjured by them. If the difficulties he has successively
encountered had been seen all at once, I fancy he would have been
much where I am. Poor George! 'Sufficient unto the day,' with him,
is the theology 'thereof'! I picture him to myself going out of a
morning, with his new theological dress upon him, and, chancing to
meet with some friend, who protests there is some thing or other
not quite 'comme il faut,' he proceeds with infinite complacency
to alter that portion of his attire; the new costume is found