What is there in this world worth having without religion? Do you not feel that true religion, even in its most imperfect stage, is not merely an escape from hell after death but the only real state for a man -- the only position to live in in this world -- the only frame of mind which will give anything like happiness here. I cannot help feeling at moments -- if there were no Christ, everything, even the very flowers and insects, and every beautiful object, would be hell now -- dark, blank, hopeless.

MS. Letter. 1843.