If we soberly reflect upon the part which the trappings and mantlings of
men have played in their affairs, we shall not hesitate, I believe, to
put into that category many things which have hitherto been considered
far less occasional. What is honour but a garment? What money but a
walking-stick? What are fine manners but a wig? If I professed, instead
of abhorring, the Cynic school of philosophy, I might go on to ask what
were love but an ointment, or religion but a tinted glass. I can thank
my Redeemer, as I sit here in my green haven, with the stormy sea of my
troubles afar off, beating in vain against the walls of contentment,
that through all my vicissitudes I was never tempted to stray into such
blasphemous imaginations. Fool as I have been, and fool as I have
declared myself upon the forefront of this very book, I have never said
in my heart, THERE IS NO GOD; but much and loudly have maintained the
affirmative. And although I have been sadly, wickedly, detestably errant
from His way, there is one divine precept which I have never failed to
keep, and that is, LOVE ONE ANOTHER. All other affections, additions,
accidents, accessories of men, however, from the lowest, which is Money,
to the highest, which is Polite Education, I have been able to discard
without concern or loss of self-respect. This fact alone should furnish
good reason for my Memoirs, and commend them to the philosopher, the
poet, the divine, and the man of feeling. For true it is that I have
been bare to the shirt and yet proved my manhood, beaten like a thief
and yet maintained myself honest, scorned by men and women and yet been
ready to serve my fellows, held atheist by the godly and yet clung to my
Saviour's cross. In situations calculated to excite the contemptuous
ridicule of the meanest upon earth I have been satisfied that I was
neither contemptible nor reasonably ridiculous, and that while I might
herd with ruffians, and find in their society my most comfortable