Project Gutenberg's Letters to His Son, 1750, by The Earl of Chesterfield

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Title: Letters to His Son, 1750

Author: The Earl of Chesterfield

Release Date: December 1, 2004 [EBook #3354]
[Last updated on February 14, 2007]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS TO HIS SON, 1750 ***

Produced by David Widger

LETTERS TO HIS SON

1750

By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD

on the Fine Art of becoming a

MAN OF THE WORLD

and a

GENTLEMAN

LETTER C

LONDON, January 8, O. S. 1750

DEAR BOY: I have seldom or never written to you upon the subject of
religion and morality; your own reason, I am persuaded, has given you
true notions of both; they speak best for themselves; but if they wanted
assistance, you have Mr. Harte at hand, both for precept and example; to
your own reason, therefore, and to Mr. Harte, shall I refer you for the
reality of both, and confine myself in this letter to the decency, the
utility, and the necessity of scrupulously preserving the appearances of
both. When I say the appearances of religion, I do not mean that you
should talk or act like a missionary or an enthusiast, nor that you
should take up a controversial cudgel against whoever attacks the sect
you are of; this would be both useless and unbecoming your age; but I
mean that you should by no means seem to approve, encourage, or applaud,
those libertine notions, which strike at religions equally, and which are
the poor threadbare topics of halfwits and minute philosophers. Even
those who are silly enough to laugh at their jokes, are still wise enough
to distrust and detest their characters; for putting moral virtues at the
highest, and religion at the lowest, religion must still be allowed to be
a collateral security, at least, to virtue, and every prudent man will
sooner trust to two securities than to one. Whenever, therefore, you
happen to be in company with those pretended 'Esprits forts', or with
thoughtless libertines, who laugh at all religion to show their wit, or
disclaim it, to complete the