In reply to my last on the subject of Christianity, he said he had prepared a long letter; for which I looked out in vain, though he wrote to me every day on other topics—chiefly a tissue of obscenity and folly.
I reminded him of his promise that he would answer all my arguments, and recommended him to weigh well the reasonings with which I had supplied him before he attempted to write. He replied to this somewhat in a rage, assuming the airs of a philosopher, a man of firmness, a man who stood in no want of brains to distinguish “a hawk from a hand-saw.” { 16} He then resumed his jocular vein, and began to enlarge upon his experiences in life, and especially some very scandalous love adventures.
I BORE all this patiently, to give him no handle for accusing me of bigotry or intolerance, and in the hope that after the fever of erotic buffoonery and folly had subsided, he might have some lucid intervals, and listen to common sense. Meantime I gave him expressly to understand that I disapproved of his want of respect towards women, his free and profane expressions, and pitied those unhappy ones, who, he informed me, had been his victims.
He pretended to care little about my disapprobation, and repeated: “spite of your fine strictures upon immorality, I know well you are amused with the account of my adventures. All men are as fond of pleasure as I am, but they have not the frankness to talk of it without cloaking it from the eyes of the world; I will go on till you are quite enchanted, and confess yourself compelled in _very conscience_ to applaud me.” So he went on from week to week, I bearing with him, partly out of curiosity and partly in the expectation he would fall upon some better topic; and I can fairly say that this species of tolerance, did me no little harm. I began to lose my respect for pure and noble truths, my thoughts became confused, and my mind disturbed. To converse with men of degraded minds is in itself degrading, at least if you possess not virtue very superior to mine. “This is a proper punishment,” said I, “for my presumption; this it is to assume the office of a missionary without its sacredness of character.”
One day I determined to write to him as follows:—“ I have hitherto attempted to turn your attention to other subjects, and you persevere in sending me accounts of yourself which no way please me. For the sake of variety, let us correspond a little respecting worthier matters; if not, give the hand of fellowship, and let us have done.”