done, will throw a certain lustre over the darker
side of his fame, ... and deprive deists of the right of quoting him as
a cool, deliberate rejecter of Christianity."

To these very significant declarations, coming as they do from so
conscientious a believer as Kennedy, I shall add the testimony of a few
persons who have been conspicuous by their hostility to Byron. Mr. Galt
is one of these, and yet he says:--

"I am persuaded, nevertheless, that to class him among absolute infidels
were to do injustice to his memory, and that he has suffered
uncharitably in the opinion of the 'rigidly righteous,' who, because he
had not attached himself to any particular sect or congregation, assumed
that he was an adversary to religion. To claim for him any credit as a
pious man would be absurd; but, to suppose he had not as deep an
interest as other men 'in his soul's health and welfare,' was to impute
to him a nature which can not exist."

And elsewhere, after showing, first, what Byron did not believe in;
secondly, what he would have liked to believe, but which had not
sufficient grounds to satisfy his reason; thirdly, what he did actually
believe, Mr. Galt adds:--

"Whatever was the degree of Lord Byron's dubiety as to points of faith
and doctrine, he could not be accused of gross ignorance, nor described
as animated by any hostile feeling against religion."

The same biographer says elsewhere:--

"That Byron was deeply imbued with the essence of natural piety; that he
often felt the power and being of a God thrilling in all his frame, and
glowing in his bosom, I declare my thorough persuasion; and that he
believed in some of the tenets and in the philosophy of Christianity, as
they influence the spirit and conduct of men, I am as little disposed to
doubt; especially if those portions of his works which only trench upon
the subject, and which bear the impression of fervor and earnestness,
may be admitted as evidence. But he was not a member of any particular
church."

Medwin, who might be considered to be an authority, before his vanity
was wounded by the publication of writings wherein his good faith was
questioned, and it was shown that Lord Byron had no great esteem for his
talents, says,--

"It is difficult to judge, from the contradictory nature of his
writings, what the religious opinions of Lord Byron were. But on the
whole, if he were occasionally skeptical, yet his wavering never
amounted to a disbelief in the