On Monday[661], April 29, I found him at home in the forenoon, and Mr. Seward with him.  Horace having been mentioned; BOSWELL.  ’There is a great deal of thinking in his works.  One finds there almost every thing but religion.’  SEWARD.  ’He speaks of his returning to it, in his Ode Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens[662] JOHNSON.  ’Sir, he was not in earnest:  this was merely poetical.’  BOSWELL.  ’There are, I am afraid, many people who have no religion at all.’  SEWARD.  ’And sensible people too.’  JOHNSON.  ’Why, Sir, not sensible in that respect.  There must be either a natural or a moral stupidity, if one lives in a total neglect of so very important a concern.’  SEWARD.  ’I wonder that there should be people without religion.’  JOHNSON.  ’Sir, you need not wonder at this, when you consider how large a proportion of almost every man’s life is passed without thinking of it.  I myself was for some years totally regardless of religion.  It had dropped out of my mind.  It was at an early part of my life.  Sickness brought it back, and I hope I have never lost it since[663].’  BOSWELL.  ’My dear Sir, what a man must you have been without religion!  Why you must have gone on drinking, and swearing, and—­[664]’ JOHNSON. (with a smile) ’I drank enough and swore enough, to be sure.’  SEWARD.  ’One should think that sickness and the view of death would make more men religious.’  JOHNSON.  ’Sir, they do not know how to go about it:  they have not the first notion.  A man who has never had religion before, no more grows religious when he is sick, than a man who has never learnt figures can count when he has need of calculation.’

I mentioned a worthy friend of ours[665] whom we valued much, but observed that he was too ready to introduce religious discourse upon all occasions.  JOHNSON.  ’Why, yes, Sir, he will introduce religious discourse without seeing whether it will end in instruction and improvement, or produce some profane jest.  He would introduce it in the company of Wilkes, and twenty more such.’

I mentioned Dr. Johnson’s excellent distinction between liberty of conscience and liberty of teaching[666].  JOHNSON.  ’Consider, Sir; if you have children whom you wish to educate in the principles of the Church of England, and there comes a Quaker who tries to pervert them to his principles, you would drive away the Quaker.  You would not trust to the predomination of right, which you believe is in your opinions; you would keep wrong out of their heads.  Now the vulgar are the children of the State.  If any one attempts to teach them doctrines contrary to what the State approves, the magistrate may and ought to restrain him.’  SEWARD.  ‘Would you restrain private conversation, Sir?’ JOHNSON.  ’Why, Sir, it is difficult to say where private conversation begins, and where it ends.  If we three should discuss even the great question concerning the existence of a Supreme Being by ourselves, we should not be restrained; for that would be to put an end to all improvement.  But if we should discuss it in the presence of ten boarding-school girls, and as many boys, I think the magistrate would do well to put us in the stocks, to finish the debate there.’