177.--To Francis Hodgson.


Newstead Abbey, Sept. 3, 1811.


MY DEAR HODGSON,--I will have nothing to do with your immortality; [1]
we are miserable enough in this life, without the absurdity of
speculating upon another. If men are to live, why die at all? and if
they die, why disturb the sweet and sound sleep that "knows no waking"?

"Post Mortem nihil est, ipsaque Mors nihil ... quaeris quo jaceas post
obitum loco? Quo _non_ Nata jacent." [2]

As to revealed religion, Christ came to save men; but a good Pagan will
go to heaven, and a bad Nazarene to hell; "Argal" (I argue like the
gravedigger) why are not all men Christians? or why are any? If mankind
may be saved who never heard or dreamt, at Timbuctoo, Otaheite, Terra
Incognita, etc., of Galilee and its Prophet, Christianity is of no
avail: if they cannot be saved without, why are not all orthodox? It is
a little hard to send a man preaching to Judaea, and leave the rest of
the world--Negers and what not--_dark_ as their complexions, without a
ray of light for so many years to lead them on high; and who will
believe that God will damn men for not knowing what they were never
taught? I hope I am sincere; I was so at least on a bed of sickness in a
far-distant country, when I had neither friend, nor comforter, nor hope,
to sustain me. I looked to death as a relief from pain, without a wish
for an after-life, but a confidence that the God who punishes in this