He wrote this year a letter, not intended for publication, which has,
perhaps, as strong marks of his sentiment and style, as any of his
compositions. The original is in my possession. It is addressed to the
late Mr. William Drummond, bookseller in Edinburgh, a gentleman of good
family, but small estate, who took arms for the house of Stuart in 1745;
and during his concealment in London till the act of general pardon came
out obtained the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson, who justly esteemed him as
a very worthy man. It seems, some of the members of the society in
Scotland for propagating Christian knowledge, had opposed the scheme of
translating the holy scriptures into the Erse or Gaelick language, from
political considerations of the disadvantage of keeping up the
distinction between the Highlanders and the other inhabitants of
North-Britain. Dr. Johnson being informed of this, I suppose by Mr.
Drummond, wrote with a generous indignation as follows:

'To MR. WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

'SIR,

'I did not expect to hear that it could be, in an assembly convened for
the propagation of Christian knowledge, a question whether any nation
uninstructed in religion should receive instruction; or whether that
instruction should be imparted to them by a translation of the holy
books into their own language. If obedience to the will of God be
necessary to happiness, and knowledge of his will be necessary to
obedience, I know not how he that with-holds this knowledge, or delays
it, can be said to love his neighbour as himself. He that voluntarily
continues ignorance, is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance
produces; as to him that should extinguish the tapers of a light-house,
might justly be imputed the calamities of shipwrecks. Christianity is