as you your Self should care to converse with, how many are there, do
you think, on whom the Thoughts of Religion would have that Effect?

Cleo. A great many, I hope.

Hor. You can hardly forbear laughing, I see, when you say it; and I am
sure, you your Self would have no Value for a Man whom you should see
tamely put up a gross Affront: Nay, I have seen and heard Parsons and
Bishops themselves laugh at, and speak with Contempt of pretended
Gentlemen, that had suffer'd themselves to be ill treated without
resenting it.

Cleo. What you say of my self, I own to be true; and I believe the
same of others, Clergymen as well as Laymen. But the Reason why Men,
who bear Affronts with Patience, Are so generally despised is, because
Every body imagines, that their Forbearance does not proceed from a
Motive of Religion, but a Principle of Cowardice. What chiefly induces
us to believe this, is the Knowledge we have of our selves: We are
conscious within of the little Power which Christianity has over our
Hearts, and the small Influence it has over our Actions. Finding our
own Incapacity of subduing strong Passions, but by the Help of others
that are more violent, we judge of others in the same Manner: And
therefore when we see a vain, worldly Man gain such a Conquest over
his known and well establish'd Pride, we presently suspect it to be a
Sacrifice which he makes to his Fear; not the Fear of God, or
Punishment in another World, but the Fear of Death, the strongest
Passion in our Nature, the Fear that his Adversary, the Man who has
affronted him, will kill him, if he fights him. What confirms us in
this Opinion is, that Poltrons shew no greater Piety or Devotion than
other People, but live as voluptuously and indulge their Pleasures as