rtue were empty distinctions, no such things
existing." But the pamphlet, already mentioned, in which he expressed
these views, was the outburst of a youthful free-thinker not yet
accustomed to his new ideas; not many years passed over his head before
it "appear'd not so clever a performance as [he] once thought it;" and
in his autobiography he enumerates it among the "errata" of his life.

It was not so very long afterward that he busied himself in composing
prayers, and even an entire litany, for his own use. No Christian could
have found fault with the morals therein embodied; but Christ was
entirely ignored. He even had the courage to draw up a new version of
the Lord's Prayer; and he arranged a code of thirteen rules after the
fashion of the Ten Commandments; of these the last one was: "Imitate
Jesus and Socrates." Except during a short time just preceding and
during his stay in London he seems never to have been an atheist;
neither was he ever quite a Christian; but as between atheism and
Christianity he was very much further removed from the former than from
the latter. He used to call himself a deist, or theist; and said that a
deist was as much like an atheist as chalk is like charcoal. The
evidence is abundant that he settled down into a belief in a personal
God, who was good, who concerned himself with the affairs of men, who
was pleased with good acts and displeased with evil ones. He believed
also in immortality and in rewards in a life to come. But he supported
none of these beliefs upon the same basis on which Christians support
them.

Unlike the infidel school of that day he had no antipathy even to the
mythological portions of the Christian religion, no desire to discredit
it, nor ambition to distinguish himself in a crusade against it. On the
contrary, he was always resolute to live well with it. His mind was too
broad, his habit of thought too tolerant, to admit of his antagonizing
so good a system of morals because it was intertwined with articles of
faith which he did not believe. He went to church frequently, and always
paid his contribution towards the expenses of the society; but he kept
his commendation only for those practical sermons which showed men how
to become virtuous. In like manner the instruction which he himself
inculcated was strictly confined to those virtues which promote the
welfare and happiness of the individual and of society. In fact, he
recognized none other; that which did