Scruples still distress me. My resolution, with the blessing of God, is to contend with them, and, if I can, to conquer them.
'My resolutions are-- 'To conquer scruples. 'To read the Bible this year. 'To try to rise more early. 'To study Divinity. 'To live methodically. 'To oppose idleness. 'To frequent Divine worship.
'Almighty and most merciful Father! before whom I now appear laden with the sins of another year, suffer me yet again to call upon Thee for pardon and peace.
'O God! grant me repentance, grant me reformation. Grant that I may be no longer distracted with doubts, and harassed with vain terrors. Grant that I may no longer linger in perplexity, nor waste in idleness that life which Thou hast given and preserved. Grant that I may serve Thee in firm faith and diligent endeavour, and that I may discharge the duties of my calling with tranquillity and constancy. Take not, O God, Thy holy Spirit from me: but grant that I may so direct my life by Thy holy laws, as that, when Thou shalt call me hence, I may pass by a holy and happy death to a life of everlasting and unchangeable joy, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
'I went to bed (at) one or later; but did not sleep, tho' I knew not why.
'Easter Day, March 30, 1766.--I rose in the morning. Prayed. Took my prayer book to tea; drank tea; planned my devotion for the church. I think prayed again. Went to church, was early. Went through the prayers with fixed attention. Could not hear the sermon. After sermon, applied myself to devotion. Troubled with Baxter's scruple, which was quieted as I returned home. It occurred to me that the scruple itself was its own confutation.
'I used the prayer against scruples in the foregoing page in the pew, and commended (so far as it was lawful) Tetty, dear Tetty, in a prayer by herself, then my other friends. What collects I do not exactly remember. I gave a shilling. I then went towards the altar that I might hear the service. The communicants were more than I ever saw. I kept back; used again the foregoing prayer; again commended Tetty, and lifted up my heart for the rest. I prayed in the collect for the fourteen S. after Trinity for encrease of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and deliverance from scruples; this deliverance was the chief subject of my prayers. O God, hear me. I am now to try to conquer them. After reception I repeated my petition, and again when I came home. My dinner made me a little peevish; not much. After dinner I retired, and read in an hour and a half the seven first chapters of St. Matthew in Greek. Glory be to God. God grant me to proceed and improve, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.
'I went to Evening Prayers, and was undisturbed. At church in the morning it occurred to me to consider about example of good any of my friends had set me. This is proper, in order to the thanks returned for their good examples.
'My attainment of rising gives me comfort and hope. O God, for Jesus Christ's sake, bless me. Amen.
'After church, before and after dinner, I read Rotheram on Faith.
'After evening prayer I retired, and wrote this account.
'I then repeated the prayer of the day, with collects, and my prayer for night, and went down to supper at near ten.
'May 4,--66. I have read since the noon of Easter day the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark in Greek.
'I have read Xenophon's Cyropaidia.'
BODLEIAN LIBRARY. SELECT AUTOGRAPHS. (MONTAGU.)
* * * * *
APPENDIX B. (Page 312.)
Johnson's sentiments towards his fellow-subjects in America have never, so far as I know, been rightly stated. It was not because they fought for liberty that he had come to dislike them. A man who, 'bursting forth with a generous indignation, had said:--"The Irish are in a most unnatural state; for we see there the minority prevailing over the majority"' (ante, ii. 255), was not likely to wish that our plantations should be tyrannically governed. The man who, 'in company with some very grave men at Oxford, gave as his toast, "Here's to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies"' (post, iii. 200), was not likely to condemn insurrections in general. The key to his feelings is found in his indignant cry, 'How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?' (Ib) He hated slavery as perhaps no man of his time hated it. While the Quakers, who were almost the pioneers in the Anti-slavery cause, were still slave-holders and slave-dealers, he lifted up his voice against it. So early as 1740, when Washington was but a child of eight, he had maintained 'the natural right of the negroes to liberty and independence.' (Works, vi. 313.) In 1756 he described Jamaica as 'a place of great wealth and dreadful wickedness, a den of tyrants and a dungeon of slaves.' (Ib vi. 130.) In 1759 he wrote:--'Of black men the numbers are too great who are now repining under English cruelty.' (Ib iv. 407.) In the same year, in describing the cruelty of the Portuguese discoverers, he said:--'We are openly told that they had the less scruple concerning their treatment of the savage people, because they scarcely considered them as distinct from beasts; and indeed, the practice of all the European nations, and among others of the English barbarians that cultivate the southern islands of America, proves that this opinion, however absurd and foolish, however wicked and injurious, still continues to prevail.