digested. I laid hands on every heretical work I could hear
of. By chance I made the acquaintance of a young man who,
together with his family, were Unitarians. I got, and
devoured, Channing's works. I found a splendid copy of
Voltaire in the Holkham library, and hunted through the
endless volumes, till I came to the 'Dialogues
Philosophiques.' The world is too busy, fortunately, to
disturb its peace with such profane satire, such withering
sarcasm as flashes through an 'entretien' like that between
'Frere Rigolet' and 'L'Empereur de la Chine.' Every French
man of letters knows it by heart; but it would wound our
English susceptibilities were I to cite it here. Then, too,
the impious paraphrase of the Athanasian Creed, with its
terrible climax, from the converting Jesuit: 'Or vous voyez
bien . . . qu'un homme qui ne croit pas cette histoire doit
etre brule dans ce monde ci, et dans l'autre.' To which
'L'Empereur' replies: 'Ca c'est clair comme le jour.'

Could an ignorant youth, fevered with curiosity and the first
goadings of the questioning spirit, resist such logic, such
scorn, such scathing wit, as he met with here?

Then followed Rousseau; 'Emile' became my favourite.
Froude's 'Nemesis of Faith' I read, and many other books of a
like tendency. Passive obedience, blind submission to
authority, was never one of my virtues, and once my faith was
shattered, I knew not where to stop - what to doubt, what to
believe. If the injunction to 'prove all things' was
anything more than an empty apophthegm, inquiry, in St.
Paul's eyes at any rate, could not be sacrilege.