I saw he felt moved by my indifference, and I requested him to invite the parish minister to make a prayer. He did so. I was still unmoved by his pathetic appeals to Heaven to bless my soul with the outpourings of his grace upon me. I felt no solicitude about my fate. All seemed dark and hopeless, with no ray of light to gladden the soul of a dying unbeliever in revelation. I was willing to see, but no light came to my relief. In this state of awful gloom, when midnight blackness offered no consolation, when the idolatry of monkish mockery gave no satisfaction, and when no ostentatious show of worldly gain or honor wearied my mind with their cares, I said, “what is life?” I answered, “’tis but a dream.” “Then what have I done which is not a dream?” I wondered. “There is my Age of Reason, and is that a dream?” I saw no dream in that work. It was a reality. It was my work. I saw it was not a dream. There was what the minister had not disturbed. He did not overthrow what it contained. He prayed against my infidelity, but he did not lessen my convictions in any position I had taken. No: weak and worn out with disease as I was, he made no issue with my attack upon his faith. He went away, and I saw him no more, till no more of flesh and blood imprisoned my spirit. I was well satisfied he was afraid of me. I was never more satisfied of the truth of my book. Still, it was not what I wanted. It did not aid me in my lone chamber of weakness and destitution. It gave me no solace, save the reflection that I had served the cause of human freedom, and had triumphed over the dogmatical assumptions of a miserable theology. I was not wholly satisfied that I was altogether right, but I was very certain that religionists were wrong. I saw the corruption and hypocrisy of those who professed to be Christians, and I was persuaded that what they taught upheld them in their hypocrisy. In this frame of mind, I neither felt wounded by their assaults upon my work, nor was I afraid of what would be my condition after death.