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Untitled Article
judge from the fragments of their poetrv which have come down to Us , absorbed their imaginations-. Courage was the highest of virtues , cowardice the most unpardonable of vices , and the joys of their heaven consisted in a daily hewing in pieces of their friends , who , on their parts , were not slow and
ungrateful in returning the favour . But when these nations had spread over the South , and had quietly sat down upon the lands . which they had parcelled out among each other , a wonderful change took place in their polity . Their conversion to Christianity would at least give a new tone to their religion and their morals . But their whole course of life was altered . Where a
people exists by war , it is impossible for any very complicated systeiaa of aristocracy to gain ground . A man of thews and sinews must not be slighted , whatever may be the meanness of his fortune or his pedigree . Now , however , each ranked according to his
possessions ; or , indeed , by the establishment of the feudal system , the community was one of lands rather than of men . The estate was the substance , and of course the possessor became a shadow . Hereditary
succession , with all its train of consequences , good and evil , came in , and the old channels to riches and fame were either narrowed or entirely closed . Such was the state of Europe whea a power arose , the most extensive , deep laid and portentous ever recorded in history—the power of the church .
At a time when hereditary succession had entered into every ramification of civil life , stie opened her gates impartially to all ranks , offering to their ambition a splendid perspective of wealth and honour . She had a
complete monopoly of learning , science and art . The celibacy of the clergy protected them from the danger of being drawn aside from her interests by the ties of family , and ensured to her all their possessions . Living together in large bodies , and having no objects to
distract their thoughts and affections , her aggrandisement became with them the great end of existence ; finally , the hierarch y of which they were a part , extended throughout a large fraction of the civilized world .
If this picture shews how dangerous she might becdrae by her pmVery it is not less true that even more was to be
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dreaded from het weakness . Tfre empire of the chuTch , mighty as it was , depended altogether on opinion . The physical power by which her revenues were protected was , except in the Papal states , almost always in the hands from which they were drawn .
If public opinion were necessary to protect the ecclesiastical possessions ,, it was not less requisite for augmenting them ; and for these purposes every engine , which the combined ability of almost all the wprld could construct , was put into motion .
It ceases , then , to be a matter of wonder that the church held opinion in such bondage—her existence depended upon it . Free inquiry Bhe instinctively foresaw would be her ruin . Hence all her dogmas against the right
of private judgment—hence the Inquisition—hence the diabolical persecutions which have sunk modern Europe below the most degraded of the Pagan nations . I except not even those whose altars have streamed with human blood ,
because I can see no difference between a Mexican sacrifice to Zoehequetzil , and Spanish immolations to the deity of cruelty and superstition , except that the savage appears to have satisfied
himself with merely depriving his victim of life , while the Christian , more refined in his pleasures , could not forego the enjoyment of subjecting his fellowcreature to the most excruciating
torments . By a wise and benevolent provision , every bad institution contains within itself the seeds of destruction . The complete mastery which the Church of Rome had obtained over the mental
powers , urged her to acts of the most reckless extravagance . She forced upon the unwilling vision of the laity the sight of her enormities—rand she fell . But although the Reformation struck a fatal blow to ecclesiastical power ,
yet the mental habitudes which haft been engendered by it existed long at terwards . It is astonishing to see how little the subject of religious liberty was understood by the first Protestants . If they could have controuled the march
of events , we should only have had a change of tyrants . Fortunately for us * thfcir opposition to Popery had much wider effects than they wished or foresaw . The uftraopoly once destroyed , competition of necessity // arose , and
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The Nonconformist , No . XXt . 455
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1821, page 455, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2503/page/15/
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