Chapter iv. Containing two letters in very different stiles

“MY WORTHY FRIEND,—I informed you in my last that I was forbidden
 the use of the waters, as they were found by experience rather to
 increase than lessen the symptoms of my distemper. I must now
 acquaint you with a piece of news, which, I believe, will afflict my
 friends more than it hath afflicted me. Dr Harrington and Dr
 Brewster have informed me that there is no hopes of my recovery.

 “I have somewhere read, that the great use of philosophy is to learn
 to die. I will not therefore so far disgrace mine as to shew any
 surprize at receiving a lesson which I must be thought to have so
 long studied. Yet, to say the truth, one page of the Gospel teaches
 this lesson better than all the volumes of antient or modern
 philosophers. The assurance it gives us of another life is a much
 stronger support to a good mind than all the consolations that are
 drawn from the necessity of nature, the emptiness or satiety of our
 enjoyments here, or any other topic of those declamations which are
 sometimes capable of arming our minds with a stubborn patience in
 bearing the thoughts of death, but never of raising them to a real
 contempt of it, and much less of making us think it is a real good.
 I would not here be understood to throw the horrid censure of
 atheism, or even the absolute denial of immortality, on all who are
 called philosophers. Many of that sect, as well antient as modern,
 have, from the light of reason, discovered some hopes of a future
 state; but in reality, that light was so faint and glimmering, and
 the hopes were so incertain and precarious, that it may be justly
 doubted on which side their belief turned. Plato himself concludes
 his Phaedon with declaring that his best arguments amount only to
 raise a probability; and Cicero himself seems rather to profess an
 inclination to believe, than any actual belief in the doctrines of
 immortality. As to myself, to be very sincere with you, I never was
 much in earnest in this faith till I was in earnest a Christian.

 “You will perhaps wonder at the latter expression; but I assure you
 it hath not been till very lately that I could, with truth, call
 myself so. The pride of philosophy had intoxicated my reason, and
 the sublimest of all wisdom appeared to me, as it did to the Greeks
 of old, to be foolishness. God hath, however, been so gracious to
 shew me my error in time, and to bring me into the way of truth,
 before I sunk into utter darkness forever.

 “I find myself beginning to grow weak, I shall therefore hasten to
 the main purpose of this letter.

 “When I reflect on the actions of my past life, I know of nothing
 which sits heavier upon my conscience than the injustice I have been
 guilty of to that poor wretch your adopted son. I have, indeed, not
 only connived at the villany of others, but been myself active in
 injustice towards him. Believe me, my dear friend, when I tell you,
 on the word of a dying man, he hath been basely injured. As to the
 principal fact, upon the misrepresentation of which you discarded
 him, I solemnly assure you he is innocent. When you lay upon your
 supposed deathbed, he was the only person in the house who testified
 any real concern; and what happened afterwards arose from the
 wildness of his joy on your recovery; and, I am sorry to say it,
 from the baseness of another person (but it is my desire to justify
 the innocent, and to accuse none). Believe me, my friend, this young
 man hath the noblest generosity of heart, the most perfect capacity
 for friendship, the highest integrity, and indeed every virtue which
 can ennoble a man. He hath some faults, but among them is not to be
 numbered the least want of duty or gratitude towards you. On the
 contrary, I am satisfied, when you dismissed him from your house,
 his heart bled for you more than for himself.

 “Worldly motives were the wicked and base reasons of my concealing
 this from you so long; to reveal it now I can have no inducement but
 the desire of serving the cause of truth, of doing right to the
 innocent, and of making all the amends in my power for a past
 offence. I hope this declaration, therefore, will have the effect
 desired, and will restore this deserving young man to your favour;
 the hearing of which, while I am yet alive, will afford the utmost
 consolation to,

                 Sir,
                    Your most obliged,
                         obedient humble servant,
                                 THOMAS SQUARE.”

“SIR,

 “I am not at all surprized at hearing from your worthy nephew a
 fresh instance of the villany of Mr Square the atheist's young
 pupil. I shall not wonder at any murders he may commit; and I
 heartily pray that your own blood may not seal up his final
 commitment to the place of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

 “Though you cannot want sufficient calls to repentance for the many
 unwarrantable weaknesses exemplified in your behaviour to this
 wretch, so much to the prejudice of your own lawful family, and of
 your character; I say, though these may sufficiently be supposed to
 prick and goad your conscience at this season, I should yet be
 wanting to my duty, if I spared to give you some admonition in order
 to bring you to a due sense of your errors. I therefore pray you
 seriously to consider the judgment which is likely to overtake this
 wicked villain; and let it serve at least as a warning to you, that
 you may not for the future despise the advice of one who is so
 indefatigable in his prayers for your welfare.

 “Had not my hand been withheld from due correction, I had scourged
 much of this diabolical spirit out of a boy, of whom from his
 infancy I discovered the devil had taken such entire possession. But
 reflections of this kind now come too late.

 “I am sorry you have given away the living of Westerton so hastily.
 I should have applied on that occasion earlier, had I thought you
 would not have acquainted me previous to the disposition.——Your
 objection to pluralities is being righteous over-much. If there were
 any crime in the practice, so many godly men would not agree to it.
 If the vicar of Aldergrove should die (as we hear he is in a
 declining way), I hope you will think of me, since I am certain you
 must be convinced of my most sincere attachment to your highest
 welfare—a welfare to which all worldly considerations are as
 trifling as the small tithes mentioned in Scripture are, when
 compared to the weighty matters of the law.

          I am, sir,
               Your faithful humble servant,
                               ROGER THWACKUM.”