Willing to see society go on as it did, because he
despaired of seeing it otherwise, but not at all agreeing in his interior
with the common notions of crime and punishment, he "_dumfounded_" a long
tirade against vice one evening, by taking the pipe out of his mouth, and
asking the speaker, "Whether he meant to say that a thief was not a good
man?" To a person abusing Voltaire, and indiscreetly opposing his
character to that of Jesus Christ, he said admirably well (though he by no
means overrated Voltaire, nor wanted reverence in the other quarter), that
"Voltaire was a very good Jesus Christ _for the French_." He liked to see
the church-goers continue to go to church, and wrote a tale in his
sister's admirable little book (_Mrs. Leicester's School_) to encourage
the rising generation to do so; but to a conscientious deist he had
nothing to object; and if an atheist had found every other door shut
against him, he would assuredly not have found his. I believe he would
have had the world remain precisely as it was, provided it innovated no
further; but this spirit in him was anything but a worldly one, or for his
own interest. He hardly contemplated with patience the new buildings in
the Regent's Park; and, privately speaking, he had a grudge against
_official_ heaven-expounders, or clergymen.
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