Lamb, if he did not find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
and sermons in stones, found good in everything. The soul of goodness in
things evil was visible to him. He had thought, felt, and suffered
so much, that, as Leigh Hunt says, he literally had intolerance for
nothing. Though he could see but little religion in many professing
Christians, he nevertheless saw that the motley players, "made up of
mimic laughter and tears, passing from the extremes of joy or woe at the
prompter's call," were not so godless and impious as the world believed
them to be.

Writing to Bernard Barton in the spring of 1826, Lamb says, speaking
of his literary projects,--"A little thing without name will also be
printed on the Religion of the Actors, but it is out of your way; so I
recommend you, with true author's hypocrisy, to skip it." I wonder if
"good B.B." read the article, and, if he did, how he liked it. Quaker
though he was, he could not but have been pleased with it. Should you
like to read the "Religion of the Actors," reader? You will not find it
in any edition of Charles Lamb's writings. Here it is.

THE RELIGION OF ACTORS.

"The world has hitherto so little troubled its head with the points of
doctrine held by a community which contributes in other ways so largely
to its amusement, that, before the late mischance of a celebrated
tragic actor, it scarce condescended to look into the practice of any
individual player, much less to inquire into the hidden and abscondite
springs of his actions. Indeed, it is with some violence to the
imagination that we conceive of an actor as belonging to the relations
of private life, so closely do we identify these persons in our mind
with the characters which they assume upon the stage. How oddly does it