t-repeated
accusation that sceptics shut out evidence because they will not be
governed by the morality of Christianity. You I know will not believe
that in my case, and _I_ know its falsehood as a general rule. I only
ask, Do you think I can change the self-formed convictions of
twenty-five years, and could you think such a change would have anything
in it to merit _reward_ from _justice_? I am thankful I can see much to
admire in all religions. To the mass of mankind religion of some kind is
a necessity. But whether there be a God and whatever be His nature;
whether we have an immortal soul or not, or whatever may be our state
after death, I can have no fear of having to suffer for the study of
nature and the search for truth, or believe that those will be better
off in a future state who have lived in the belief of doctrines
inculcated from childhood, and which are to them rather a matter of
blind faith than intelligent conviction.--A.R.W.

This for yourself; show the _letter only_ to my mother.

* * * * *

TO HIS MOTHER

_Sourabaya, Java. July 20, 1861._

My dear Mother,--I am, as you will see, now commencing my retreat
westwards, and have left the wild and savage Moluccas and New Guinea for
Java, the Garden of the East, and probably without any exception the
finest island in the world. My plans are to visit the interior and
collect till November, and then work my way to Singapore so as to return
home and arrive in the spring. Travelling here will be a much pleasanter
business than in any other country I have visited, as there are good
roads, regular posting stages, and regular inns or lodging-houses all
over the interior, and I shall no more be obliged to carry about with me
that miscellaneous lot of household furniture--bed, blankets, pots,
kettles and frying pan, plates, dishes and wash-basin, coffee-pots and
coffee, tea, sugar and butter, salt, pickles, rice, bread and wine,
pepper and curry powder, and half a hundred more odds and ends, the
constant looking after which, packing and repacking, calculating and
contriving, have been the standing plague of my life for the last seven
years. You will better understand this when I tell you that I have made
in that time about eighty movements, averaging one a month, at every one
of which all of these articles have had to be rearranged and repacked by
myself according to the length of the trip, besides a constant personal
supervisi