Discussions on religious subjects
he never tolerated in anybody but Coleridge. One evening, after he and
Leigh Hunt had returned from a visit to Coleridge, Hunt began to express
his surprise that a man of so much genius as the Highgate sage should
entertain such religious opinions as he did, and mentioned one of his
doctrines for especial reprobation. Lamb, who was preparing the second
bowl of punch, answered, hesitatingly, with a gentle smile,--"Never mind
what Coleridge believes; he is full of fun." He was an humble, sinful
worshipper, and while he bowed his head tremblingly before Heaven, he
poured out the stream of his affections to his sister and his friends.
The religious character of Sydney Smith was less peculiar than that of
Elia. An earnest Christian, with a will too resolute to allow the aid
of the punch-bowl in vanquishing trouble, professionally wielding the
religious and moral ideas, and habitually obeying them, he stood erect
and looked at the life to come with a firm eye. "The beauty of the
Christian religion," he says, "is that it carries the order and
discipline of heaven into our very fancies and conceptions, and, by
hallowing the first shadowy notions of our minds, from which actions
spring, makes our actions themselves good and holy.
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