We have lost the joy of the household and the solace of our old age. She must have known how we loved her. Oh that she could now know how deeply, how tenderly, we do still and shall ever love her dear joyous face! Blessings on her!
I am much engaged, an old man, and out of health, and I cannot spare time to answer your questions fully,--nor indeed can they be answered. Science has nothing to do with Christ, except in so far as the habit of scientific research makes a man cautious in admitting evidence. For myself, I do not believe that there ever has been any revelation. As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities....
During these two years [October 1836 to January 1839] I was led to think much about religion.
Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality. I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that amused them. But I had gradually come by this time--_i.e._ 1836 to 1839--to see that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos. The question then continually rose before my mind and would not be banished,--is it credible that if God were now to make a revelation to the Hindoos, he would permit it to be connected with the belief in Vishnu, Siva, etc., as Christianity is connected with the Old Testament? This appeared to me utterly incredible.
By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported,--and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become,--that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us,--that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events,--that they differ in many important details, far too important, as it seemed to me, to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses;--by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me,--I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me.