"_April 6_. Had some sweetness to-day, especially in reading Edwards's Sermon."
"_.1796. Feb. 6_. I am now in my study; and oh, it is a sweet place, because of the presence of God with the vilest of men. It is at the top of the house; I have but one window in it."
In reply to Jeffrey, who as Editor of the _Edinburgh Review_ rebuked his contributor for "levity of quotations," Sydney Smith wrote in 1808:--
"I do not understand what you mean. I attack these men because they have foolish notions of religion. The more absurd the passage, the more necessary it should be displayed--the more urgent the reason for making the attack at all."
This is at any rate an explanation, even if it does not amount to a justification; but what is lamentable is that, as in the case of the Methodists at home, he seems frankly unable to conceive of the passion for spreading the Gospel which drove men from all that is enjoyable in life to slave and die under Indian suns. He seems genuinely to believe that the spread of the Christian religion in India will produce a revolution, and he turns the ludicrous blunders of religious men into arguments for slothfulness in evangelization.--
"If there were a fair prospect of carrying the Gospel into regions where it was before unknown,--if such a project did not expose the best possessions of the country to extreme danger, and if it was in the hands of men who were discreet as well as devout, we should consider it to be a scheme of true piety, benevolence, and wisdom: but the baseness and malignity of fanaticism shall never prevent us from attacking its arrogance, its ignorance, and its activity. For what vice can be more tremendous than that which, while it wears the outward appearance of religion, destroys the happiness of man, and dishonours the name of God?"
In the second article on Methodism, he returns, as his manner was, to the ground formerly traversed, and claims the praise of all reasonable men for his previous strictures.--
"In routing out a nest of consecrated cobblers, and in bringing to light such a perilous heap of trash as we were obliged to work through, in our articles upon the Methodists and Missionaries, we are generally conceived to have rendered an useful service to the cause of rational religion."