(signed) "RICHARD F. BURTON."
I do not analyse the motives which led Burton to sign this paper. He may
have done it merely to satisfy his wife (for, from the Agnostic point of
view, the Sacraments would not have mattered much either way), or he may
have done it from honest conviction, or from a variety of causes, for
human motives are strangely commingled; _but that he did sign it there
is no doubt_. Lady Burton, at any rate, took it all in good faith, and
acted accordingly in sending for the priest; the priest, on receiving
her assurance, acted in good faith in administering to Sir Richard Burton
the last rites of the Church; and the Bishop of Trieste also acted in
good faith in conceding to him a Catholic funeral. It is difficult to
see how any of them could have acted otherwise.
Lastly, it has been asserted that Sir Richard Burton "loathed" the Roman
Catholic Church; and though he was indifferent to most religions, he
entertained a "positive aversion" to this one, and therefore to "kidnap"
him on his death-bed was peculiarly cruel. I have read most of Burton's
writings, and it is true, especially in his earlier books, that he girds
against what he conceives to be certain abuses in the Roman Catholic
Church and her priesthood in out-of-the-way countries; but then he
attacks other forms of Christianity and other religions too. He had
a great hatred of cant and humbug under the cloak of religion, and
denounced them accordingly.
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