Wednesday, Dec. 8. Went with Mrs. Hoole and my son, by appointment : found him very poorly and low, after a very bad night. Mr. Nichols the printer was there 1 . My son read the Litany, the Doctor several times urging him to speak louder 2 . After prayers Mr. Langton came in : much serious discourse : he warned us all to profit by his situation ; and, applying to me, who stood next him, exhorted me to lead a better life than he had done. ' A better life than you, my dear Sir ! ' I repeated. He replied warmly, ' Don't compliment now 3 .' He told Mr. Lang- ton that he had the night before enforced on 4 a powerful
argument to a powerful objection against Christianity.
He had often thought it might seem strange that the Jews, who refused belief to the doctrine supported by the miracles of our Saviour, should after his death raise a numerous church ; but he said that they expected fully a temporal prince, and with this idea the multitude was actuated when they strewed his way with palm-branches on his entry into Jerusalem ; but finding their expectations afterwards disappointed, rejected him, till in process of time, comparing all the circumstances and prophecies of the Old Testament, confirmed in the New, many were converted ; that the Apostles themselves once believed him to be a temporal
1 Life, iv. 407 ; for Nichols's par- Sir, louder, I entreat you, or you ticulars of his conversation. In the pray in vain." ' Mr. Croker records Preface to the Gentleman's Maga- the following communication from sine, 1784, are given some verses by Mr. Hoole: 'When I called upon Nichols, where Johnson is men- him, the morning after he had pressed tioned, with this footnote on his me rather roughly to read louder, he name : ' To whom the writer of these said, " I was peevish yesterday ; you lines had the pleasure of shewing must forgive me : when you are as them in the last interview with which old and as sick as I am, perhaps you he was honoured by this illustrious may be peevish too." I have heard pattern of true piety. " Take care of him make many apologies of this your eternal salvation," and " Re- kind.' Life, iv. 409.
member to observe the Sabbath ; let 3 * Alas ! when I receive these un it never be a day of business, nor due compliments, I am ready to wholly a day of dissipation," were answer with my old friend Johnson parts of his last solemn farewell. " Sir, I am a miserable sinner." ' " Let my words have their due Hannah More's Memoirs, ii. 437. weight," he added ; " they are those 4 See post in Mr. Windham's of a dying man." ' Diary, where such an argument was
2 ' He more than once interrupted enforced on Dec. 7. Mr. Hoole with, " Louder, my dear
prince
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