I kept my eye fixed on the fragments, meditating for a moment upon the inconstancy and fallacy of human things I had just before eagerly desired to obtain, that which I now tore with disdain. I had hoped to have found a companion in misfortune, and how I should have valued his friendship! Now I gave him all kinds of hard names, insolent, arrogant, atheist, and self-condemned.

I repeated the same operation, dividing the wretched members of the guilty letter again and again, till happening to cast my eye on a piece remaining in my hand, expressing some better sentiment, I changed my intention, and collecting together the disjecta membra, ingeniously pieced them with the view of reading it once more. I sat down, placed them on my great Bible, and examined the whole. I then got up, walked about, read, and thought, “If I do not answer,” said I, “he will think he has terrified me at the mere appearance of such a philosophical hero, a very Hercules in his own estimation. Let us show him, with all due courtesy, that we fear not to confront him and his vicious doctrines, any more than to brave the risk of a correspondence, more dangerous to others than to ourselves. I will teach him that true courage does not consist in ridiculing conscience, and that real dignity does not consist in arrogance and pride. He shall be taught the reasonableness of Christianity, and the nothingness of disbelief. Moreover, if this mock Julian start opinions so directly opposite to my own, if he spare not the most biting sarcasm, if he attack me thus uncourteously; is it not all a proof that he can be no spy? Yet, might not this be a mere stratagem, to draw me into a discussion by wounding my self-love? Yet no! I am unjust—I smart under his bitter irreligious jests, and conclude at once that he must be the most infamous of men. Base suspicion, which I have so often decried in others! he may be what he appears—a presumptuous infidel, but not a spy. Have I even a right to call by the name of insolence, what he considers sincerity. Is this, I continued, thy humility, oh, hypocrite? If any one presume to maintain his own opinions, and to question your faith, he is forthwith to be met with contempt and abuse. Is not this worse in a Christian, than the bold sincerity of the unbeliever? Yes, and perhaps he only requires one ray of Divine grace, to employ his noble energetic love of truth in the cause of true religion, with far greater success than yourself. Were it not, then, more becoming in me to pray for, than to irritate him? Who knows, but while employed in destroying his letter with every mark of ignominy, he might be reading mine with expressions of kindness and affection; never dreaming I should fly into such a mighty passion at his plain and bold sincerity. Is he not the better of the two, to love and esteem me while declaring he is no Christian; than I who exclaim, I am a Christian, and I detest you. It is difficult to obtain a knowledge of a man during a long intercourse, yet I would condemn him on the evidence of a single letter. He may, perhaps, be unhappy in his atheism, and wish to hear all my arguments to enable him the better to arrive at the truth. Perhaps, too, I may be called to effect so beneficent a work, the humble instrument of a gracious God. Oh, that it may indeed be so, I will not shrink from the task.”