nt with less and less probabilities to justify
action?"

"I freely grant I should."

"If now a servant came into the room to say that he feared your
farm-house at King's O--- was on fire, though you might think it but
faintly probable, you would not think it prudent to neglect the
information?"

"I certainly should not."

"And if you were immortal here on earth, and the neglect of some probably,
or (we will say) only possibly, true information in relation to some
vital interest might affect it through that whole immortality, you
would consider it prudent to act on almost no probability at all, on the
very faintest presumption of the truth?"

"I must in honesty agree with you so far."

"What does your scepticism promise you, if it be well founded?
Much happiness?"

"To me none; rather the contrary; and to none, I think, can it promise
much."

"And if Christianity be true,--for I speak only of that,--I know there
is not in your estimate any other religion that comes into competition
with it--immortal felicity, immortal misery, depends on it?"

"Yes; it cannot be denied."

"You admit that scepticism may be false, even though it has a
thousand to one in its favor; for by its very principles you know
nothing, and can know nothing, on the subjects to which its doubts
extend?"

"I acknowledge it."

"And Christianity may be true by the very same reasoning, though
the chances be only as one to a thousand?"

"It is so."

"Then by your own confession you are not prudent, for you do not act
in relation to Christianity on the principles on which you say you
act in the affairs of the present life; where you acknowledge that
the least presumption will move you, when the interests are
sufficiently permanent and great."

He told me, with a smile, I might have arrived at the same conclusion
without any argument; for he was willing to acknowledge in general
that he was not prudent, and in relation to this very subject should
always admit, with Byron, that the sincere Christian had an undeniable
advantage over both the infidel and the sceptic; "since," he added,
putting the admission into a very concise form, "their best is
his worst."

"Very well," said I, "Harrington, only remember that your imprudence is
none the less for your admission of it."

"None in the world," he admitted; but be contended there was a flaw
in the argument; for that it was impossible to accept any religion
on merely prudential grounds. And