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736 ; ® ft t & t a3> eiV [Saturday,
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LETTERS ON TJNITARJANISM. Letxek. III. O...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Lamartine's Opinion Of England. London, ...
all things . "When the French , who don ' t set up for a religious people—as we do—made conquests in the East , their first step was to send out missionaries to regenerate and civilize their captives ; when w < s made similar conquests—only on a more extensive scalenotwithstanding all our cant , our only thought was commerce , —profit first , piety after . Now , merely pitching tents of refuge is of no earthly use unless they are secured ; and in order to secure them they are invariably attached to the soil ; in like manner , some true statesman , about five-and-twenty years ago , foreseeing the storm that was then
beginning to lower over Europe , plainly perceived that mere savings-banks , though admirable institutions for national prosperity , were no guarantee whatever to national security as long as they remained merely in the hands of individuals , and , therefore , he wisely incorporated them with the national funds ; consequently , every member of the community felt that in defending his country he was defending himself , nay , his dearer self , that is , his property , of which every Q-overnment , no matter
what may be its politics , has become the symbol . So that , even the gentleman who transmutes his week ' s earnings into gin of a Saturday night—as Cleopatra dissolved her pearl in vinegar — and then piously spends the Sabbath in murdering his wife , or thumping his children , yet , only whisper of danger threatening the throne , the Church , or the state , which are the trinity of his one God , namely , his own stake in the country , and , lo ! the Sardanapalus of the gin palace feels every inch" a patriot . M . de Lamartine must also take into consideration the
difference of food . We are a beer-swilling , beef-eating people ; two capital antidotes to excitement and enthusiasm : whereas the poor French artizan coquettes with his hunger upon homoeopathic globules of fricandeau and whole acres of sorrel , all of which is then duly fermented , and when inflated with a few glasses of Asti blanc , all sorts of vapours of " Mourir pour laPatrie !'' and " A bas tous le Monde" mount into his head—for Frenchmen , neither being addicted to gin-drinking nor beating their wives , have no domestic safety valves , like the lower orders of English , for their physical force , and are , therefore , reduced to
the sole alternative of expending it all on la chose publique . Our prurience I shall not attempt to d >* ny ; and prudence , no doubt , is a vi » tue , only , unfortunately , she generally gets into bad company by locating herseif next door to selfishness and suspicion . But one of the reasons why England may be justly called the flower ( query , flour ?) of nations is that John Bull is certainly the most grindable animal in the world ; but still he is prudent even in his folly , as he always gives his flour to the rich and his chaff tq the poor - and he is right ; for the rich , of their superfluity , in some shape or other , will make bread of
hi $ gift , and cast it on the waters of time that it may retuin to him after many days . Whereas the poor , being like the chaff he gives them , always scattered before the wind , become part of that ill wind of poverty which blows nobody good : so prudent John is right to have nothing to do with them . Some persons think John is inconsistent , and that , after the Cambridge Testimonial and the young duke ' s £ 12 , 000 a-year , he ought to abbreviate his name from John Bull to Jack Ass . Not so . John never was more consistent than in his patient gilding of greatness , for he is a tufthunter ( as well as
foxhunter ) to his very marrow ; and if he only worshipped the Lord of Hosts with half as much unflagging zeal and untiring devotion as he worships the Host of Lords he bows down to , he would indeed merit that title for preeminent piety which M . dc Lamartine , after a thiee weeks' investigation , bestows upon him . But , to return to the Duke of Cambridge ' s £ 12 , 000 ( which his Iloyal Highness is by no means likely to return to the people ) ; in that proceeding John was eminently consistent . For , as Dr . Johnson liked a good hater , so John Bull sympathetically respects a good feeder , and , surely , a better never lived than the late " good" ( dinner ) Duke of Cambridge .
M . de Lamartine scorns now to consider England ( thanks to the clean streets and the disappearance of Irish beggars ) a sort of social and political rock of Gibraltar—impregnable . Yet , after all , the Abh 6 Lammenuis may be right , and he says that 'The English aristocracy is the last remnant of the feudal institutions of Europe , mid England is the battle-ground on which the contest for its extinction must be fought out . " At all events , I am certain that the English arc not that preeminently moral peoplo which M . de Lamartine seems to consider
them . Nor never can ho , as long as England contains so many men both in letters and politics who , like Epaminondas do Clcrville , the hypocrite judge in Eugene Sue ' s admirable comeclie sociale , entitled Le Jugc , " twaddle amain about ' « L'hommo prive , et l'hummc publique , " and think that any amount of private vice may bo varnished over by a copious display of fine sentiments in public or on paper . With us realities are nothing ^ -iippearnncos everything : hence comes our religious cant ( without one grain of Christian conduct—for the charitable institutions that M . do Tisunanino admires so much urn not charily in the wide gospel acceptation of the unn ) ;
then we have the cant of benevolence , the cant of progress , the cant of talent , the cant of respectability , and the cant of impartiality ^ and justice , —in short cant in one shape or another is the locus criminis of England , and until this " damned spot" be rooted out , morality may continue to send her effigy under every possible form to Great Britain , but she , the living , breathing , active divinity , will never visit us in perso n ^ With many apologies , Sir , for trespassing at such length on your valuable time and space , I have the honour to be , your obedient servant , Omphaie .
736 ; ® Ft T & T A3> Eiv [Saturday,
736 ; ® ft t & t a 3 > eiV [ Saturday ,
Letters On Tjnitarjanism. Letxek. Iii. O...
LETTERS ON TJNITARJANISM . Letxek . III . October 16 , 1850 . Sir , —A sect owes its strength or its weakness , its success or its failure , in a large degree to the character of its founder . Indeed , unless it altogether depart from its original intention and object it remains through all the changes of its history the exactest expression , the completest embodiment of its founder ' s individuality . The Church of England had for founder the wife-killer , Henry the Eighth , who was neither frankly Papist nor frankly Protestant ,
and who was either the best of good fellows or the most brutal of ruffians , as the fit was on him . Now , the Anglican Church is always oscillating between the rankest Popery arid the most rampant Protestantism , between the most generous tolerance and the most furious intolerance . It is Henry the Eighth incarnate . How faithfully , also , does Methodism correspond , both in its good and its evil to what was good and evil in John Wesley ! Destitute of creative faculty , but endowed with that consummate skill to organize which is often mistaken for creative power — possessing much theological
earnestness , but no spiritual breadth—a prosaic , precise , and mechanical man , with a vast fund of ambition and an eager thirst for empire , —abounding in resources , not from the spontaneousness and suggestiveness of genius , but from , that energetic self-ieliance and that invincible persistency which are often more fertile than genius , —not loving cant for its own sake , but never scrupling to employ it if thereby an obstacle could be conquered or a purpose achieved , —most zealous for the conversion of human souls , that is , if they would consent to be ruled in his fashion , —essentially English as far as
shrewdness , sagacity , and determination are concerned , but wanting some of the noblest English qualities , chivalry , openness in speech and in action , enthusiasm for fair play and hatred of espionage , —fitted , above all others , to astonish , to win , and to dominate the commonplace , but only because he himself was the cleverest and most cunning of the commonplace , — on the whole respectable and estimable , but not loveable and admirable , and far inferior to those beautiful fecund and truly religious and seraphic natures that have brought lustre and redemption to the Church of Home at its darkest
and most degraded periods . Such was John Wesley . And at the present hour do we not see all those features in Wesleyanism ? And from what we see it is easy to prophesy . A sect , whose distinguishing excellence is its perfect organization , but with no depth of devotional life or warmth of devotional aspiration , and mistaking excitement for heavenly growth and victory , is incapable of expansion , and cannot adapt itself to the varying wants and circumstances of Society . The Church of Rome ,
however unwilling to change in doctrine , has always saved itself from the worst of its dangers by employing a new machinery not to supplant the old , but as a supplement to the old . But when , as in Methodism , organization is the chief thing , not as in the Church of Home , one of the chief things , the very superiority and symmetry of the organization became the germs of decay and dissolution . We believe , therefore , that Methodism is dying—dying from an overdose of what England has not enough of—good government , superlative administration .
Perhaps the Unitarian sect has been still more thoroughly and vitally the image of Priestley ' s mind and character than Methodism of Westioy . We are not of those who would depreciate Priestley . He was a good man in something higher than the conventional sense : a pious , simple-hearted , heroic man . No one ' s life was ever made holy by a nobler sincerity ; and , if ever equanimity deserved the name of magnanimity , it would be such as he displayed . Of his talents it is the custom to speak disparagingly , merely because lie attempted too much , and could
not bo expected to succeed equally well in every department of study ; but , if ho had not genius , he had ingenuity ; if he had not profound scholarship , he had numerous acquirements ; if he had not the lofty vision , he had the comprehensive glance ; if he did not penetrate far , he discerned quickly ; if he had not crushing logic , he had dialectical acuteness ; if he was never eloquent , he was frequently elegant , and ho compensated for the want of force in his style by its exceeding lucidity . His whole being , his whole carper , were transparent as truth itself , and his grand pursuit was truth . Ho had no
ambition , especially he had not that most fatal of all ambitions , the desire to rule as a self-elected pope over the souls of men . How wonderful likewise , was his incessant and indomitable industry ! If he had not worshipped his God in the most godlike fashion , by brave deeds and pertinacious conflicts with error , and untiring efforts at reform there , where reform was most needed , we should say that he had served him well by the mere amount of his labours . Take him all in all he was by far the greatest marl the Unitarians have had , and , much as they are influenced by his spirit , they do not sufficiently honour his memory , preferring to him and his unembellished utterances a mean and mongrel race of phrasemongers and rhetoricians .
But there were some radical defects in Priestley , which signally unfitted him for a spiritual reformer . The two primordial characteristics of such a reformer are enthusiasm and imagination . Without enthusiasm he cannot gain adherents , without imagination he cannot make what he has to say popularly intelligible or popularly acceptable ; he cannot raise men into that poetic element where they believe all which they dare or desire tQ be possible
he cannot make them prove to a sneering and a doubting world that the age of miracles is not past , and that it is not , as is commonly supposed , the miraculous which engenders faith , but faith which engenders the miraculous . This miracle-working faith Priestley was not the man to inspire . He had no enthusiasm—he had no imagination . Compare him with the old Hebrew prophets : compare him with Martin Luther , and what he wanted will at once be seen . He was the calmest and coldest of
human beings . Indeed , he was too much a philosopher to be a prophet . And , perhaps , he was the first pure philosopher , and , probably , he will be the last , that ever attempted to be a religious reformer . The prophet and the philosopher have nothing in common ; they differ as much in the objects which they seek as in the means which they employ . That which is philosophically beautiful may be prophetically blasphemous : that which is prophetically sublime may be philosophically absurd . The philosopher hunts for the essence of things and the abstractly true ; scorning abstractions and despising the dwellers in the
region of mere ideas as weaklings , the prophet rushes into the thick of the fight with his burning phantasies and his wrath at wrong , and the thunders of his eloquence . It is a favourite scheme of certain silly sophists in . these days to reconcile faith and understanding ; but they cannot be reconciled , nor is it of importance that they should be so . Each , has its own promise , its own aims , its own agencies . They work best when they work apart . But behold our good Priestley attempting their reconciliation in his own person by trying to be prophet and philosopher too . The endeavour was all the more certain to fail , leading through the failure to the wildest incongruities , from the circumstance that Priestley concerned himself chiefly with physical philosophy , in which there are two features , both alike fatal to the prophetic : —the necessity of viewing things continually in their minutest details , and of searching energetically for the law or laws of particular phenomena . Whereas the prophetic places itself face to face only with masses , and is too hot in its rage against moral deviations from the divinest of all laws to sit down patiently to investigate any law by itself . In metaphysical philosophy there is more of kindredness to the prophetic .
That philosophy aspires to pierce the mystery of Being , to identify itself with Infinite Being . But Being and Doing are near relations ; and as it is . the vocation of the prophet to stir up his brethren to do , revealings must occasionally come from the metaphysician ' s enquiries , which have almost a prophetic sound . In Spinoza , and in other great philosophers of the same stamp , there may now and then be found prophetic fervours which the prophet himself would not disavow . From chemistry , however , the science which Priestley so successfully cultivated , how could
you extract aught of the prophetic ? Of all sciences it is that which is most habitually conversant with details : that also which inspires the most superstitious reverence for the laws of Nature , which , as divorced from the God of Nature , are the convenient formulas of an atheistical creed . When you have said , therefore , that Priestley was a foremost chemist without the ' smallest particle of imagination and enthusiasm , you have indicated how signally unqualified ho was to be a prophet , a stormer of sp iritual strongholds , a bringer of light , redemption , omnipotent love to the sinful , the sorrowing , and the
oppressed . Priestley , besides , held two doctrines , which , whatever may be their philosophical truth , are the very worst weapons which a moral or spiritual reformer can wield , —the doctrine of Materialism and the doctrine of Necessity . Who knows not that the basis of all religion is spiritualism ? Who knows not that , if men are to be urged effectually to repentance , to the rejection of what is bad in belief , in habit , or institution , to the acceptance of new faith , to the performance of what is noble , they must be addressed as free and responsible agents . Teach man as a free and spiritual being , or else teach him not at all . The religious system which is the most spiritual will
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 26, 1850, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_26101850/page/16/
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