I acknowledged that it was a sufficient reason, and that it went to account in some degree for a fact I had remarked in the few sceptics I had come across,—genuine or otherwise,—that they seemed less capable of reposing in their professed convictions than any one else: it is of no avail, they say, to reason on such subjects; and yet they are perpetually reasoning! They will neither rest themselves nor let any one else rest. He confessed it, and said, "The state of mind is very much as you have described it; and you have described it so exactly, that I almost think you, my dear uncle, must know the heart of a sceptic, and have been one yourself some time or other!"
We wound up the morning, which was beautiful, by taking a ride, in the course of which I was amused with an instance of the sensitiveness with which Harrington's cultivated mind recoiled from the grossness of vulgar and ignorant infidelity. We called at the cottage of a little farmer, a tenant of his, somewhat notorious both for profanity and sensuality. Presuming, I suppose, on his young landlord's suspected heterodoxy, and thinking, perhaps, to curry favor with him, he ventured (I know not what led to it) to indulge in some stupid joke about the legion and the herd of swine. "Sir," said he, scratching his head, "the Devil, I reckon, must have been a more clever fellow than I thought, to make two thousand hogs go down a steep place into the sea; it is hard enough even to make them go where they will, and almost impossible make them go where they won't."
"The Devil, my good friend," said Harrington, very gravely, "is a very clever fellow; and I hope you do not for a moment intend to compare yourself with him. As to the supposed miracle, it would, no doubt, be hard to say which were most to be pitied, the devils in the swine, or the swine with the devils in them; but has it never struck you that the whole may be an allegorical representation of the miserable and destructive effects of the union of the two vices of sensuality and profanity? They also (if all tales be true) lead to a steep place, but I have never heard that it ends in the water. Now," he continued, "I dare say you would laugh at that story which the Roman Catholics tell of St. Antony; namely, that he preached to the pigs'! —yet it has had a very sound allegorical interpretation; we are told that it meant merely that he preached to country farmers; which, you see, is more than I have been doing."
It was one of the many things which made me a sceptic as to whether he was one. "Harrington," said I, "at times I find it impossible to believe that you doubt the truth of Christianity."
"Suppose I were to answer, that at times I doubt whether I doubt it or not, would not that be a thorough sceptic's answer?" I admitted that it would be indeed.
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July 8. I was already in the library, writing, when Harrington came in to breakfast. "You seem busy early," said he. I told him I was merely endeavoring to manifest my love for his future children.
"You know," said I, "what Isocrates says, that it is right that children, as they inherit the other possessions, should also inherit the friendships of their fathers."
"My children!" said he, very gravely; "I shall never have any."
"O, yes, you will, and then these sullen vapors of doubt will roll off before the sunlight of domestic happiness. It will allure you to love Him who has given you so much to love. Yes," said I, gayly, "I shall visit you one day in happier moods; when you will wonder how you could have indulged all your present thoughts of God and the universe. As you gaze into the face of innocent childhood, which shows you what faith in God is by trust in you, you will say, 'Heaven shield the boy from being what his father has been?'—you will feel that such thoughts as yours will not do, as the world says; and we shall all go together, you with your wife on your arm, to church there in the in the bright sun and deep quiet of a Sabbath morning, and amidst the music of the Sabbath bells; and as the tranquil scene steals into your very soul, you will say, 'No, scepticism was not made for man.'"