To John Johnson, Esq.
Weston, June 7, 1790. You never pleased me more than when you told me you had abandoned your mathematical pursuits. It grieved me to think that you were wasting your time merely to gain a little Cambridge fame, not worth having. I cannot be contented that your renown should thrive nowhere but on the banks of the Cam. Conceive a nobler ambition, and never let your honour be circumscribed by the paltry dimensions of a university! It is well that you have already, as you observe, acquired sufficient information in that science to enable you to pass creditably such examinations as, I suppose, you must hereafter undergo. Keep what you have gotten, and be content.
You could not apply to a worse than I am to advise you concerning your studies. I was never a regular student myself, but lost the most valuable years of my life in an attorney's office and in the Temple. It seems to me that your chief concern is with history, natural philosophy, logic, and divinity. As to metaphysics, I know little about them. Life is too short to afford time even for serious trifles. Pursue what you know to be attainable, make truth your object, and your studies will make you a wise man. Let your divinity, if I may advise, be the divinity of the glorious Reformation. I mean in contradiction to Arminianism, and all the isms that were ever broached in this world of ignorance and error.
Obiter Dicta
Men of lively imaginations are not often remarkable for solidity of judgement. They have strong passions to bias it, and are led far away from their proper road, in pursuit of petty phantoms of their own creating.
Excellence is providentially placed beyond the reach of indolence, that success may be the reward of industry, and that idleness may be punished with obscurity and disgrace.
I do not think that in these costermonger days, as I have a notion Falstaff calls them, an antediluvian age is at all a desirable thing, but to live comfortably while we do live is a great matter, and comprehends in it everything that can be wished for on this side the curtain that hangs between time and eternity.
Wherever there is war, there is misery and outrage; notwithstanding which, it is not only lawful to wish, but even a duty to pray for the success of one's country. And as to the neutralities, I really think the Russian virago an impertinent puss for meddling with us, and engaging half a score kittens of her acquaintance to scratch the poor old lion, who, if he has been insolent in his day, has probably acted no otherwise than they themselves would have acted in his circumstances and with his power to embolden them.
Though a Christian is not to be quarrelsome, he is not to be crushed. Though he is but a worm before God, he is not such a worm as every selfish and unprincipled wretch may tread on at his pleasure.
St. Paul seems to condemn the practice of going to law. "Why do ye not suffer wrong, etc." But if we look again we shall find that a litigious temper prevailed among the professors of that day. Surely he did not mean, any more than his Master, that the most harmless members of society should receive no advantage of its laws, or should be the only persons in the world who should derive no benefit from those institutions without which society cannot subsist.