[1249] But when familiarity and noise claim the praise due to
knowledge, art, and elegance, we must beat down such pretensions.'
What I have preserved of his conversation during the remainder of my
stay in London at this time, is only what follows: I told him that when
I objected to keeping company with a notorious infidel,[1250] a
celebrated friend[1251] of ours said to me, 'I do not think that men who
live laxly in the world, as you and I do, can with propriety assume such
an authority. Dr. Johnson may, who is uniformly exemplary in his conduct.
But it is not very consistent to shun an infidel to-day, and get drunk
to-morrow.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, this is sad reasoning. Because a man
cannot be right in all things, is he to be right in nothing? Because a
man sometimes gets drunk, is he therefore to steal? This doctrine would
very soon bring a man to the gallows.'
After all, however, it is a difficult question how far sincere
Christians should associate with the avowed enemies of religion; for in
the first place, almost every man's mind may be more or less 'corrupted
by evil communications;'[1252] secondly, the world may very naturally
suppose that they are not really in earnest in religion, who can easily
bear its opponents; and thirdly, if the profane find themselves quite
well received by the pious, one of the checks upon an open declaration
of their infidelity, and one of the probable chances of obliging them
seriously to reflect, which their being shunned would do, is removed.
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