THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO DR. JOHNSON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9010, 15 October 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO DR. JOHNSON.

The familiar, the noble gospel according to Dr. Johnson, reads somewhat as follows :— No grown man who is dependent on the will, that is tha whim, of another can be happy, and life without enjoyment is intolerable gloom. Therefore, as money means independence and enjoyment, get money, and having got it keep it. A spendthrift is a fool. , Clear your mind of cant, and never debauch your understanding. The only liberty worth turning out inbo the street for is the liberty to do what you like in your own house, to say what you like in your own inn. All work is bondage. Never get excited about causes you do not understand, or about people you have never seen. Life is a struggle with either poverty or ennui; but it is better bo be rich than to be poor. Death is a terrible thing to face. The man who says he is not afraid of it lies. Yet, as murderers have met ib bravely on the scaffold, when the time comes so perhaps may I. In the meantime lam horribly afraid. The future is death. I should like more evidence of the immortality of the soul. There is great solace in talk. We—yon and I—are shipwrecked on a wave swept rock. At any moment one or other of us, perhaps both, may be carried out to sea and lost. For bhe bime being we have a modicum of light and warmth, of meat and drink. Let us constitute ourselves a club, stretch out our legs and walk. We have minds, memories, valued experiences, different opinions. Sir, let us talk, not as men who mock at fate, not with coarse speech or foul bongue, bub with a manly mixture of the gloom that admits the inevitable, and the merriment that observes the incongruous. Thus talking we shall learn to love one another net sentimentally, but fundamen tally. Cultivate your mind, if you happen to have one Care greatly for books and li terature. Venerate poor scholars, but don't shout for " Wilkes and Liberty." If any tyrant prevents your goings out and your comings in, fill your pockets with large stones and kill him as he passes. Then go home and think no more about ib. Never bheorise about revolution. Finally, pay your score at your club and your final debt to Nature generously and without casting the account too narrowly. Don% be a prig like Sir John Hawkins, or your own enemy like Bozzy, or a Whip like Burke, or a vile wretch like Rosseau, or pretend to be an atheist like Hume, but be a good fellow and don't insist upon being remembered more than a mouth after you are dead.—Augustine Birrel, in the Speaker.