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tnunity . Morality can scarcely be said to be taught at all in this country . A bit of it , indeed , comes in at the end of a sermon ; a solemn , pointless , useless admonition to do your duty , which leaves matters just where it found them , either as to knowledge or motive . How many of the clergy are moralists ? They have perhaps been examined in Paley , at the universities ,
as they were examined in Euclid ; but a scientific acquaintance with morality is far more rarely to be met with amongst them than a scientific acquaintance with geometry . Few people seem to have any notion that morality is a science : nor , in truth , is it yet ; it is only capable of becoming so , although so essential to the improvement of society . A poor man does what the parson does not like , and the parson blindly throws a scripture precept
at his head , hit or miss : or , the poor man does what the parson likes , and he gives him a scripture promise , like a sugar-plum wrapped up in paper for a child . But who tells the poor man whether it be his duty to himself and family to join in the next turn-out , or to sign the Factory Bill petition , or to do or abstain from twenty other things , in which there is a right and a wrong , because there is a useful and a pernicious course , and where the
calculation requires to be made with care , in proportion to its importance ? Where is instruction to be had on these matters ? They constitute , in the aggregate , the practical morality of life ; but , as thev involve questions not agitated in Judea in the days of the apostles , Scripture has only general principles , which the priest is usually as incapable of wisely applying to them , even were he disposed to do so , as the most ignorant of his hearers
Through the length and breadth of our land , from the lowest classes to the highest , there is not only no systematic , trustworthy , and influential instruction , but there is ( with the paltriest exceptions ) no instruction at all on the real morality of life ., — the science of interests , the art of happiness . And yet we are
told that the Church is ' powerful and effective machinery for improving both the moral and social condition of the people V The Church , that has never raised a finger to this salutary , this necessary work ! The Church , that so continually strives to deter and frighten men from the use of what poor and limited means they do possess for learning something of their rights , their interests , and , consequently , of their duties !
The Church can never be the fountain of public instruction , because there are three large classes of the community with which it must be continually embroiled ; viz ., tithe-payers , dissenters , and politicians . The spiritual excise can never become popular with the farmer : he will curse the black locust' to the
end of the chapter . No contrivances will ' allay the hatred towards this vexatious impost . It must be abrogated . The onl y object for all patriotic men to keep in view , is that it be Hot pocketed by the landlords . So long aB it exists , clergy ami
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Defence of the Church Establishment . 251
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1834, page 251, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2632/page/19/
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