You shall speedily know the effect they have
had in both ways. For myself I must inform you that I was brought up a
Believer from my infancy; a Theist, if a Christian is such; for I
suppose the word will be allowed, though the equivalent term of Deist
is so generally reprobated by Christians; I had before my eyes the
example of a most amiable parent; a moral man, a Christian undoubtedly;
who, when I have been attending upon him, as much from affection as
from duty upon a sick and nearly dying bed, has prayed I might be
stedfast in the faith he held, in accents still sounding in my
intellectual ear; a parent, whom for his virtues and love of his
offspring, like a Chinese, I am tempted to worship, and I could exclaim
with the first of poets,
_"Erit ille mihi semper Deus."_
With such habits of education then, such fervent advice and such
reverence for my instructor, what can have turned me from my belief;
for I confess I am turned? Immorallity it is not; that I assert has not
preceded my unbelief, and I trust never will follow it; there has not
indeed yet been time for it to follow; whether it is a probable
consequence will presently be discussed; but it is _thought_, free
thought upon the subject; when I began freely to think I proceeded
boldly to doubt; your Letters gave me the cause for thinking, and my
scepticism was exchanged for conviction; not entirely by the perusal of
your Letters; for I do not think they would quite have made me an
Atheist! but by attention to that answer from my friend, which I have
his permission to subjoin.
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