The third conversation took place soon after this comment had been made on Lord Byron’s conduct. The doctor inquired if his Lordship had read any of the religious books he had sent. “I have looked,” replied Byron, “into Boston’s Fourfold State, but I have not had time to read it far: I am afraid it is too deep for me.”
Although there was no systematic design, on the part of Lord Byron, to make Dr Kennedy subservient to any scheme of ridicule; yet it is evident that he was not so serious as the doctor so meritoriously desired.
“I have begun,” said his Lordship, “very fairly; I have given some of your tracts to Fletcher (his valet), who is a good sort of man, but still wants, like myself, some reformation; and I hope he will spread them among the other servants, who require it still more. Bruno, the physician, and Gamba, are busy, reading some of the Italian tracts; and I hope it will have a good effect on them. The former is rather too decided against it at present; and too much engaged with a spirit of enthusiasm for his own profession, to attend to other subjects; but we must have patience, and we shall see what has been the result. I do not fail to read, from time to time, my Bible, though not, perhaps, so much as I should.”
“Have you begun to pray that you may understand it?”
“Not yet. I have not arrived at that pitch of faith yet; but it may come by-and-by. You are in too great a hurry.”
His Lordship then went to a side-table, on which a great number of books were ranged; and, taking hold of an octavo, gave it to the doctor. It was Illustrations of the Moral Government of God, by E. Smith, M.D., London. “The author,” said he, “proves that the punishment of hell is not eternal; it will have a termination.”
“The author,” replied the doctor, “is, I suppose, one of the Socinians; who, in a short time, will try to get rid of every doctrine in the Bible. How did your Lordship get hold of this book?”
“They sent it out to me from England, to make a convert of me, I suppose. The arguments are strong, drawn from the Bible itself; and by showing that a time will come when every intelligent creature shall be supremely happy, and eternally so, it expunges that shocking doctrine, that sin and misery will for ever exist under the government of God, Whose highest attribute is love and goodness. To my present apprehension, it would be a most desirable thing, could it be proved that, alternately, all created beings were to be happy. This would appear to be most consistent with the nature of God.—I cannot yield to your doctrine of the eternal duration of punishment.—This author’s opinion is more humane; and, I think, he supports it very strongly from Scripture.”
The fourth conversation was still more desultory, being carried on at table amid company; in the course of it Lord Byron, however, declared “that he was so much of a believer as to be of opinion that there is no contradiction in the Scriptures which cannot be reconciled by an attentive consideration and comparison of passages.”
It is needless to remark that Lord Byron, in the course of these conversations, was incapable of preserving a consistent seriousness. The volatility of his humour was constantly leading him into playfulness, and he never lost an opportunity of making a pun or saying a quaint thing. “Do you know,” said he to the doctor, “I am nearly reconciled to St Paul; for he says there is no difference between the Jews and the Greeks, and I am exactly of the same opinion, for the character of both is equally vile.”