It is commonly supposed that Dr. Johnson did a great deal to overload and oppress the English language by introducing new and awkward words of monstrous length. His opportunities in that way were large, but he always claimed that he had used them with moderation and had not coined above four or five words. When we note that “peregrinity” was one of them, we are grateful that he refrained so much; but when we remember that “clubbable” was another, we are glad that he did not refrain altogether. For there is no quality more easy to recognize and difficult to define than that which makes a man acceptable in a club; and of this Dr. Johnson has given us a fine example in his life and an appropriate name in his word. I think one reason why he got on so well with people who differed from him, and why most of the sensible ones so readily put up with his downright and often brusque way of expressing his sentiments, was because they came so evidently from his sincere and unshakeable conviction that certain things are true, that they can not be changed, and that they should not be forgotten. Not only in politics, but also and more significantly in religion, Samuel Johnson stands out as a sturdy believer. This seems the more noteworthy when we consider the conditions of his life. There is hardly one among the great men of history who can be called so distinctively “a man of letters,” undoubtedly none who has won as high a position and as large a contemporary influence by sheer strength of pen. Now the literary life is not generally considered to be especially favourable to the cultivation of religion; and Johnson’s peculiar circumstances were not of a kind to make it more favourable in his case than usual. He was poor and neglected, struggling during a great part of his career against the heaviest odds. His natural disposition was by no means such as to predispose him to faith. He was afflicted from childhood with a hypochondriac and irritable humour; a high, domineering spirit, housed in an unwieldy and disordered body; plagued by inordinate physical appetites; inclined naturally to rely with over-confidence upon the strength and accuracy of his reasoning powers; driven by his impetuous temper into violent assertion and controversy; deeply depressed by his long years of obscurity and highly elated by his final success,—he was certainly not one whom we would select as likely to be a remarkably religious man. Carlyle had less to embitter him. Goethe had no more to excuse self-idolatry. And yet, beyond a doubt, Johnson was a sincere, humble, and, in the main, a consistent Christian.