The inculcation being finished for that evening, Lord Byron said, that when he was young his mother brought him up strictly; and that he had access to a great many theological works, and remembered that he was particularly pleased with Barrow’s writings, and that he also went regularly to church.  He declared that he was not an infidel, who denied the Scriptures and wished to remain in unbelief; on the contrary, he was desirous to believe, as he experienced no happiness in having his religious opinions so unsteady and unfixed.  But he could not, he added, understand the Scriptures.  “Those people who conscientiously believe, I always have respected, and was always disposed to trust in them more than in others.”  A desultory conversation then ensued, respecting the language and translations of the Scriptures; in the course of which his Lordship remarked, that Scott, in his Commentary on the Bible, did not say that it was the devil who tempted Eve, nor does the Bible say a word about the devil.  It is only said that the serpent spoke, and that it was the subtlest of all the beasts of the field.—­Will it be said that truth and reason were served by Dr Kennedy’s {319} answer?  “As beasts have not the faculty of speech, the just inference is, that the beast was only an instrument made use of by some invisible and superior being.  The Scriptures accordingly tell us, that the devil is the father of lies--the lie made by the serpent to Eve being the first we have on record; they call him also a murderer from the beginning, as he was the cause of the sentence of death which was pronounced against Adam and all his posterity; and still farther, to remove all doubt, and to identify him as the agent who used the serpent as an instrument, he is called the serpent—­the devil.”

Lord Byron inquired what the doctor thought of the theory of Warburton, that the Jews had no distinct idea of a future state?  The doctor acknowledged that he had often seen, but had never read The Divine Legation.  And yet, he added, had Warburton read his Bible with more simplicity and attention, he would have enjoyed a more solid and honourable fame.

His Lordship then said, that one of the greatest difficulties he had met with was the existence of so much pure and unmixed evil in the world, and which he could not reconcile to the idea of a benevolent Creator.  The doctor set aside the question as to the origin of evil; but granted the extensive existence of evil in the universe; to remedy which, he said, the Gospel was proclaimed; and after some of the customary commonplaces, he ascribed much of the existing evil to the slackness of Christians in spreading the Gospel.

“Is there not,” said his Lordship, “some part of the New Testament where it appears that the disciples were struck with the state of physical evil, and made inquiries into the cause?”—­“There are two passages,” was the reply.  The disciples inquired, when they saw a man who had been born blind, whether it was owing to his own or his parents’ sin?—­and, after quoting the other instance, he concludes, that moral and physical evil in individuals are not always a judgment or punishment, but are intended to answer certain ends in the government of the world.