_Under this heading a correspondence appeared in the_ Examiner, 15_th_ _February to_ 14_th_ _June_, 1879. _Butler wrote all the letters under various signatures except one or perhaps two_. _His first letter purported to come from_ “_An Earnest Clergyman_” _aged forty-five_, _with a wife_, _five children_, _a country living worth_ £400 _a year_, _and a house_, _but no private means_. _He had ceased to believe in the doctrines he was called upon to teach_. _Ought he to continue to lead a life that was a lie or ought he to throw up his orders and plunge himself_, _his wife and children into poverty_? _The dilemma interested Butler deeply_: _he might so easily have found himself in it if he had not begun to doubt the efficacy of infant baptism when he did_. _Fifteen letters followed_, _signed_ “_Cantab_,” “_Oxoniensis_,” _and so forth_, _some recommending one course_, _some another_. _One_, _signed_ “_X.Y.Z._,” _included_ “_The Righteous Man_” _which will be found in the last group of this volume_, _headed_ “_Poems_.” _From the following letter signed_ “_Ethics_” _Butler afterwards took two passages_ (_which I have enclosed_, _one between single asterisks the other between double asterisks_), _and used them for the_ “_Dissertation on Lying_” _which is in Chapter V of_ Alps and Sanctuaries. To the Editor of the _Examiner_. Sir: I am sorry for your correspondent “An Earnest Clergyman” for, though he may say he has “come to smile at his troubles,” his smile seems to be a grim one. We must all of us eat a peck of moral dirt before we die, but some must know more precisely than others when they are eating it; some, again, can bolt it without wry faces in one shape, while they cannot endure even the smell of it in another. “An Earnest Clergyman” admits that he is in the habit of telling people certain things which he does not believe, but says he has no great fancy for deceiving himself. “Cantab” must, I fear, deceive himself before he can tolerate the notion of deceiving other people. For my own part I prefer to be deceived by one who does not deceive himself rather than by one who does, for the first will know better when to stop, and will not commonly deceive me more than he can help. As for the other—if he does not know how to invest his own thoughts safely he will invest mine still worse; he will hold God’s most precious gift of falsehood too cheap; he has come by it too easily; cheaply come, cheaply go will be his maxim. The good liar should be the converse of the poet; he should be made, not born.