Where the principles of reasonable religion have not been well inculcated in childhood, and enforced by example at home, I believe that infidelity is generally and perhaps necessarily one step in the progress of an active mind. Very many undoubtedly stop there; but they whose hearts escape the corruption which, most certainly, irreligion has a direct tendency to produce, are led into the right path, sooner or later, by reflection, inquiry, and the instinct of an immortal spirit, which can find no other resting place in its weal, no other consolations in its afflictions. This has been the case in the circle of my experience, which has not been a contracted one. I have mixed with men of all descriptions – Atheists, Roman Catholics, and Dissenters of every kind, from the Unitarians, whose faith stands below zero, to the disciples of Richard Brothers

and Joanna Southcote, whose trash would raise the thermometer to the point of fever heat. I have seen them pass from one extreme to another; and had occasion to observe how nearly those extremes meet. And now when I call to mind those persons who were unbelievers some thirty years ago, I find that of the survivors the greater and all the better part are settled in conformity with the belief of the national church, and this conformity in those with whom I am in habits of peculiar and unreserved friendship I know to be sincere. A very few remain sceptical and are unhappy; and these, with the best feelings and kindest intentions, have fallen into degrading and fatal habits, which gather strength as they grow older and older, and find themselves more and more unable to endure the prospect of a blank futurity. Some others, who were profligates at the beginning, continue to be so.

According to my estimate of public opinion, there is much more infidelity in the lower ranks than there ever was before, and less in the higher classes than at any time since the Restoration.

The indifferentists – those who used to conform without a thought or feeling upon the subject – are the persons who have diminished in numbers. Considering the connection of infidelity with disaffection in all its grades, and the alliance for political purposes between Catholics, Dissenters, and Unbelievers, I think with you that a tremendous convulsion is very likely to be brought about; but I am not without hope that it may be averted; and even should it take place, I have no fear for the result, fatal as it must needs be to the generations who should witness the shock.