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a thing as it actually is: moral truth is, when you tell a thing sincerely and precisely as it appears to you. I say, such a one walked across the street; if he really did so, I told a physical truth. If I thought so, though I should have been mistaken, I told a moral truth."

Talking of an acquaintance, whose narratives, which abounded in curious and interesting topics, were unhappily found to be very fabulous; Boswell mentioned lord Mansfield's having said to him,

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Suppose we believe one half of what he tells." JOHNSON. "Ay; but we don't know which half to believe. By his lying we lose, not only our reverence for him, but all comfort in his conversation." BOSWELL. " May we not take it as an amusing fiction?" JOHNSON. "Sir, the misfortune is, that you will insensibly believe as much of it as you incline to believe."

No. XV.

RELIGION.

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On the religious observance of the sabbath Johnsou observed, Sunday was a heavy day to me when I was a boy. My mother confined me on that day, and made me read The Whole Duty of Man, from a great part of which I could derive no instruction. When, for instance, I had read the chapter on theft, which, from my infancy, I had been taught was wrong, I was no more convinced that theft was wrong than before; so there was no accession of knowledge. A boy should be introduced to such

books, by having his attention directed to the arrangement, to the style, and other excellences of composition; that the mind, being thus engaged by au amusing variety of objects, may not grow weary." He communicated to Boswell the following particulars upon the subject of his religious progress. "I fell into an inattention to religion, or an indifference about it, in my ninth year. The church at Lichfield, in which we had a seat, wanted reparation; so I was to go and find a seat in other churches; and, having bad eyes, and being awkward about this, I used to go and read in the fields on Sunday. This habit continued till my fourteenth year; and still I find a great reluctance to go to church. I then became a sort of lax talker against religion, for I did not much think against it; and this lasted till I went to Oxford, where it would not be suffered. When at Oxford, I took up Law's Serious Call to a Holy Life, expecting to find it a dull book, (as such books generally are), and, perhaps, to laugh at it. But I found Law quite an overmatch for me; and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion, after I became capable of rational inquiry.”

To Boswell's great surprise, he asked him to dine with him on Easter-day. He never supposed, that he had a dinner at his house; for he had not then heard of any one of his friends having been entertained at his table. Johnson told him, "I generally have a meat pie on Sunday: it is baked at a public oven, which is very properly allowed, because one man can attend it; aud thus the advantage is obtained, of not keeping servants from church to dress dinners."

He said, he would not have Sunday kept with rigid severity and gloom, but with gravity and simplicity of behaviour.

He likewise said, he went more frequently to church when there were prayers only, than when there was also a sermon, as the people required more an example for the one than the other; it being much easier for them to hear a sermon, than to fix their minds on prayer.

Boswell talked of preaching, and of the great success which those called Methodists have. JOHNSON. "Sir, it is owing to their expressing themselves in a plain and familiar manner, which is the only way to do good to the common people, and which clergymen of genius and learning ought to do from a principle of duty, when it is suited to their congregations; a practice for which they will be praised by men of sense. To insist against drunkenness as a crime, because it debases reason, the noblest faculty of man, would be of no service to the common people; but to tell them, that they may die in a fit of drunkenness, and show them how dreadful that would be, cannot fail to make a deep impression. Sir, when your Scotch clergy give up their homely manner, religion will soon decay in that country."

To Dr. Maxwell he once observed, that the established clergy did not preach plain enough; and that polished periods and glittering sentences flew over the heads of the common people, without any impression upon their hearts. Something might. be necessary, he conceived, to excite the affections of the common people, who were sunk in languor and lethargy; and, therefore, he supposed, that the

new concomitants of methodism might probably produce so desirable au effect. "The mind, like the body," he said, "delights in change and novelty, aud, even in religion itself, courts new appearances and modifications. Whatever may be thought of some methodist teachers, I can scarcely doubt the sincerity of a man, who travelled nine hundred 'miles in a month, and preached twelve times a week; for no adequate reward, merely temporal, could be given for such indefatigable labour."

One Sunday, Boswell told him he had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where he heard a woman preach. JOHNSON." Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs it is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

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"The Christian religion has very strong evidences. It, indeed, appears in some degree strange to reason; but in history we have undoubted facts, against which, in reasoning a priori, we have more arguments than we have for them; but then, testimony has great weight, and casts the balance. I would recommend to every man, whose faith is yet unsettled, Grotius, Dr. Pearson, and Dr. Clarke."

Again: "As to the Christian, sir, besides the strong evidence which we have for it, there is a ba lance in its favour from the number of great men who have been convinced of its truth, after a serious consideration of the question. Grotius was an acute man; a lawyer; a man accustomed to examine evidence; and he was convinced. Grotius was not a recluse-but a man of the world-who certainly had no bias to the side of religion. Sir

Isaac Newton set out an infidel, and came to be a firm believer."

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Talking of those who denied the truth of Christianity, he said, "It is always easy to be on the negative side. If a man were now to deny that there is salt upon the table, you could not reduce him to an absurdity. Come, let us try this a little farther. I deny that Canada is taken; and I can support my denial by pretty good arguments. The French are a much more numerous people than we; and it is not likely that they would allow us to take it. But the ministry have assured us, in all the formality of the Gazette, that it is taken.' Very true: but the ministry have put us to an enormous expense by the war in America; and it is their interest to persuade us that we have got something for our money. But the fact is confirmed by thousands of men who were at the taking of it.' Ay,. but these men have still more interest in deceiving us: they don't want that we should think the French have beaten them, but that they have beaten the French. Now, suppose that you should go over, and find that it really is taken-that would only satisfy yourself; for when you come home, we will not believe you: we will say, you have been bribed. Yet, sir, notwithstanding all these plausible objections, we have no doubt that Canada is really ours. Such is the weight of common testi-. mony. How much stronger are the evidences of the Christian religion!"

Dr. Mayo having asked Johnson's opinion of Soame Jenyns's View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion-JOHNSON. "I think it a

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