Hor. What a wonderful machine, what an heterogenous compound is man! You have almost conquered me.
Cleo. I aim at no victory, all I wish for is to do you service, in undeceiving you.
Hor. What is the reason that, in the same person, the fear of death should be so glaringly conspicuous in sickness, or a storm, and so entirely well hid in a duel, and all military engagements? Pray, solve that too.
Cleo. I will as well as I can: On all emergencies, where reputation is thought to be concerned, the fear of shame is effectually roused in men of honour, and immediately their pride rushes in to their assistance, and summons all their strength to fortify and support them in concealing the fear of death; by which extraordinary efforts, the latter, that is the fear of death, is altogether stifled, or, at least, kept out of sight, and remains undiscovered. But in all other perils, in which they do not think their honour engaged, their pride lies dormant. And thus the fear of death, being checked by nothing, appears without disguise. That this is the true reason, is manifest from the different behaviour that is observed in men of honour, according as they are either pretenders to Christianity; or tainted with irreligion; for there are of both sorts; and you shall see, most commonly at least, that your esprits forts, and those who would be thought to disbelieve a future state (I speak of men of honour), show the greatest calmness and intrepidity in the same dangers, where the pretended believers among them, appear to be the most ruffled and pusillanimous.
Hor. But why pretended believers? at that rate there are no Christians among the men of honour.
Cleo. I do not see how they can be real believers.
Hor. Why so?
Cleo. For the same reason that a Roman Catholic cannot be a good subject, always to be depended upon, in a Protestant, or indeed any other country, but the dominions of his Holiness. No sovereign can confide with safety in a man’s allegiance, who owns and pays homage to another superior power upon earth. I am sure you understand me.
Cleo. You may yoke a knight with a prebendary, and put them together into the same stall; but honour, and the Christian religion, make no couple, nec in unâ sede morantur, any more than majesty and love. Look back on your own conduct, and you shall find, that what you said of the hand of God was only a shift, an evasion you made to serve your then present purpose. On another occasion, you had said yesterday yourself, that Providence superintends and governs every thing without exception; you must, therefore, have known, that the hand of God is as much to be seen in one common accident in life, and in one misfortune, as it is in another, that is not more extraordinary. A severe fit of sickness may be less fatal, than a slight skirmish between two hostile parties; and, among men of honour, there is often as much danger in a quarrel about nothing, as there can be in the most violent storm. It is impossible, therefore, that a man of sense, who has a solid principle to go by, should, in one sort of danger, think it impiety not to show fear, and in another be ashamed to be thought to have any. Do but consider your own inconsistency with yourself. At one time, to justify your fear of death, when pride is absent, you become religious on a sudden, and your conscience then is so tenderly scrupulous, that, to be undaunted under chastisements from the Almighty, seems no less to you than waging war with Heaven; and, at another, when honour calls, you dare not knowingly and willingly break the most positive command of God, but likewise to own, that the greatest calamity which, in your opinion, can befal you, is, that the world should believe, or but suspect of you, that you had any scruple about it. I defy the wit of man to carry the affront to the Divine Majesty higher. Barely to deny his being, is not half so daring, as it is to do this after you have owned him to exist. No Atheism——