I am not a believer but I am not a hardened and set disbeliever. I am not an infidel and I am not so far as I can judge myself in my intentions and [661] plans of living—in what I live for—as much in antagonism with Christianity as most men who profess to be devout believers. But I have ever since I can remember revolted against the methods and modes of warfare of the churches and the priests. They have offended my sense of justice, my common sense—or so I am deluded. Practically in the conduct of my life and in my direct and controlled influence as I take a humble position in this respect, not daring to take the responsibility of being true to what may be an idiosyncrasy—not venturing to assume that I am wiser than the great body of those in the history of Christendom, whom I recognize as the wise and good. Suppose a man who sees things so far differently from the mass of ordinarily healthy men is thereby classed as of defective vision, as of diseased brain. Then I have not a doubt that I was born with a defect of the eye, with a defect of the brain. I take that possibility very much into account and so govern myself.

Suppose it to be so, I can’t help seeing that there are a great many men with like defects not precisely like mine but more or less like (in kind) and often greater as often less (only) in degree. You carry clerical colors in spite of yourself and if there had not been special reasons, in no conversation between us would any marked difference of opinion or feeling on these subjects be manifest on my part. I would not allow it to be made manifest unless forced by ill-bred persistence. So with others. Therefore you do not know how many there are more or less like me. But behind them is the very much larger class with less distrust and pronounced defects (as you may assume) and still greater modesty, timidity and reverence for tradition, laws, ordinances, parental and other early associations &c.

You may go into any class you please, the most cultivated and the least—and you will find, if I am not deceived by my experience, that such defective condition is at this time, the rule and not the exception.

Why don’t they show themselves and go to work for their faith like men?—First because it is not a faith; second, while the evil which would tend to immediately result is obvious, the good is not so clear; third because it needs an unhealthy degree of self assurance and confidence to engage individually with an enemy entrenched behind nearly all that is good for centuries in Christendom.

If the tendency I speak of and for representatively is a diseased one—as you must regard it—and as I do not deny that it may be—those who represent the truth—those who are our doctors in divinity—cannot be too cautious not to aggravate the disease with ill judged medicine.

For myself I would far rather have been John Stuart Mill than Agassis; rather my children would take after Mill than Agassis, as I would rather they followed Christ, the man of sorrows, than any conqueror.

Was a man holding the Christian theology never heard of as injudicious in the education of his children? Was no baptized child ever forced? Do you remember the Sunday School books in which we read the biography of children who had read the bible through twice before God took them to [662] heaven at the age of six? Did you never hear of a case in which the son of a Christian mother was oppressed with melancholy and reflected on suicide as he began to face his great work in the world? Did you never hear of a Christian woman in whose household there was more of blight than in that of the motherless Mills? Do you suppose that it is a much smaller misfortune for a Chinese child to lose its Pagan mother than for an English child to lose its Christian mother? Do you suppose there is a whit more tenderness toward her child in an English mother than in a Digger Indian mother? Is the child of a believer never unhappy? Is the child of a unbeliever never happy—never genial—never imaginative? Do you suppose that Mill allowed envy, hatred & malice to rule his actions, that he was led by his passions, lusts and appetites a great deal more than most of those who accept without reserve the scheme of any school of Christian theology? Are the men who consecrate their lives to the propagation of Christian theology much more inclined to understand and weigh well the arguments of those who differ from them, much less apt to misrepresent them than Mill? Are they bolder than he, or more earnest, in seeking truth for truth’s sake? Who do you think in our time has had a stronger desire that man should live together in peace, in justice & brotherly kindness than Mill? Is it Agassis? Did he labor more constantly & earnestly and directly to that end? Do you think that Agassis the believer or son of a believer was nearer Christ in his life than Mill? Are you sure that the mother of the Reverend Mr Hepworth, for instance, or of James Fiske, was an unbeliever?

When Mill died, I recommended my son to read his books, not because I thought the result of his work was perfect wisdom but because of the noble humanity of it—because of its admirable intent, purpose and spirit. If there is a worm in my brain, I fear that it feeds on such food as the Times supplies when it seems to hold up John Stuart Mill as an awful example to the Christian young men of New York.

May my last end be like his.