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Untitled Article
dom or an attachment to religious observances and a desire of religious instruction . The opinion prevails , that there must be a religion . It has been said ; and seen in the experience of many sensible persons , that a man without religion is deprived of his best guide in the day of prosperity , and of his only solace in
disappointment and adversity ; the result has been , of course , that attempts have been made to revive a moral and a devotional spirit . The Catholics have been active in their own sphere , not only to re-establish the old system , and renew the authority of their priesthood and their mother-church , but to form new com * munities in the bosom of the larger community , and also to draw
off its members into a kind of dissenting societies . I have said , that a large part of the male population of France have felt it as a point of honour , not to pay any regard to the external forms of religion . They are not now disposed to return to those idle ceremonies , those painful austerities , those expensive mummeries , to which their forefathers submitted . Yet it has been acknowledged by many of their periodical and by others of their distinguished writers , that the want is felt of the restraints of religion , of that social gratification and good will which it ' s rites are calculated to promote , and of that moral guidance and consolation , which the worship of the God of truth and of righteousness furnishes to creatures so imperfect , so frail , and so feeble as man .
Efforts have been , therefore , made to form new societies , religious and moral , in France ; yet , ^ while the authority of bishops can scarcely be said to exist , it is not a little extraordinary , that in these formations an authoritative and ruling power is recognized ; and these people , who had thrown off the government of the Bishop of Rome , have chosen a head , not extremely unlike that whose power they have denied . They
have now several associations of believers , each of which has a head , —a patriarch , a primate , a pope , or by some such name . They depend upon a chief , towards whom rise , so to say , the social steps . They all unite in one point—they have chosen to place a man at their head , and to give a visible chief to their
system/—( v . Le Protestant . } There are no means of ascertaining , at present , to what extent these new schemes have reached . The partisans of each are busy in making converts ; and the success they have met with leads us to the remark , that it is therefore evident the thought of religion is awake , and the people have discovered their want of it . Yet , with all the activity which these new apostles are discovering , and the strivings of the Catholic priesthood to bring back the ancient state of things , it is found , and generally acknowledged , that the . thoughtful part of the community will not be put off with anything so * little satisfactory to the reasoning powers a * what is thus offered in the name and . under the character at
Untitled Article
126 On the State ofTleligion in France .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1832, page 126, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1806/page/54/
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