Note 1552 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)

Immortality must be the "end" which it will be "unequalled joy to gain," and yet "no pain to lose," since the annihilated will not be conscious of the loss. Lord Byron expressed the same idea in a letter, Dec 8, 1821: "Indisputably, the believers in the gospel have a advantage over all others,—for this simple reason, that, if true, they will have their reward hereafter, and if there be no hereafter, they can be but with the infidel in his eternal sleep, having had the assistance of an exalted hope through life." Pope and Byron leave out of their reckoning the sufferings to which christians are constantly exposed through their homage to christianity.