nlarged upon these subjects. That these sentiments,
as I was of a very lively disposition, should influence me, was very
natural; my tutor seemed to me the most gifted of mortals, and his
decisions were my oracles. Though I may still honour his memory, I must
nevertheless censure as a weakness in what then certainly appeared to
me his greatest forte, namely, his unwearied mockery of Christianity
and of every religion; all others rather than the various sects of the
Christian Church, found a release from his satires; the present, as
well as the past, the history of the development, its mysteries, all
was a subject of his derision, and the apostles, even the Saviour
himself, were not spared by him, how much less Luther, or Calvin, and
Zwingli, or even those so named mystics, who desire to form in
themselves a peculiar spirit to recognise God. My mind had soon become
so intimately connected with his, that I could not endure that there
should be any religion for me on the earth, that any pious sentiments
should ever arise in my heart. I had indeed my heroes of the former
world, the Grecian antiquity, the high-minded Romans, in whose
patriotism I glowed in dreams, the boundless fields of poetry with its
gardens of wit and humour; and out of Sophocles and Eschylus, those
dreamers of a world of spirits not understood, these seemed to me the
most sublime objects that could ever have the power to shake my soul.
In a short time I was honestly and truly ashamed of being a Christian,
when I thought of the variegated world of fiction, of the ambiguous
Grecian mythology, of those feasts and spectacles, lofty statues, and
noble temples: Where then were the deliverer on the ignominious cross,
and his impoverished disciples? how this faith of poverty and
misfortune dwindled into nothing compared with those sacrifices and
public parade, and the jubilee of the Pindaric hymns? neither did I
reckon myself among the community, and the dullest day of my young,
life, was that on which I was received into the church of our sect with
the customary ceremonies. Each word seemed nonsense to me, all
solemnity degradation, in anger only I responded to the questions, and
while still in the church, I swore never again to visit it: A
contradictory and foolish oath, which, however, I long observed. At a
later period, when I reentered into the world, I remarked that all, who
were called strong-minded, were either privately or publicly of my
belief. All did