THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
BOHN'S STANDARD LIBEAKY.
ESSAYS
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LONDON : PORTUGAL ST., KINGSWAY
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NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO.
BOMBAY : A. H. WHEELER AND CO.
ESSAYS *
IN A SERIES OF LETTERS
ON THE FOLLOWING SUBJECTS
I. ON A MAN'S WRITING MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF
II. ON DECISION OF CHARACTER
III. ON THE APPLICATION OF THE EPITHET ROMANTIC
tV. ON SOME OF THE CAUSES BY WHICH EVANGELICAL RELIGION
HAS BEEN RENDERED LESS ACCEPTABLE TO
PERSONS OF CULTIVATED TASTE
BY JOHN FOSTER
LONDON
G. BELL & SONS, LTD.
1912
[Reprinted from Stereotype plates.']
College
Liibrarjr
f 21 All*
ADVERTISEMENT.
PERHAPS it will be thought that pieces writteu so
much in the manner of set compositions as the follow-
ing, should not have been denominated Letters ; it
may therefore be proper to say, that they are so called
because they were actually addressed to a friend.
They were written however with an intention to
put them in print, if, when they were finished, the
writer could persuade himself thai they deserved it ;
and the temper of even the most inconsiderable pre-
tenders to literature in these times is too well known
for any one to be surprised that he could so persuade
Himself.
When he began these letters, his intention was to
confine himself within such limits, that essays on
twelve or fifteen subjects might be comprised in a
volume. But he soon found that so narrow a space
would exclude many illustrations not less appropriate
or useful than any which would be introduced.
A 2
1115947
IV ADVERTISEMENT.
It will not seem a very natural manner of com-
mencing a course of letters to a friend, to enter
formally on a subject in the first sentence. In excuse
for this abruptness it may be mentioned, that there
was an introductory letter ; but as it was written in the
presumption that a considerable variety of subjects
would be treated in the compass of a moderate number
of letters, it is omitted, as not being adapted to precede
what is executed in a manner so different from the
design.
When writing which has occupied a considerable
length, and has been interrupted by considerable
intervals, of time, which is also on very different
subjects, and was perhaps meditated under the in-
fluence of different circumstances, is at last all gone
over in one short course of perusal, this immediate
succession and close comparison make the writer
sensible of some things of which he was not aware in
the slow separate stages of the progress. On thus
bringing the following essays under one review, the
writer perceives some reason to apprehend, that the
spirit of the third may appear so different from that of
the second, as to give an impression of something like
inconsistency. The second may be thought to have
an appearance of representing that a man may effect
almost every thing, the third that he can effect scaicely
any thing. But the writer would say, that the one
does not assert the efficacy of human resolution and
effort under the same conditions under which the other
fXsserts their inefficacy ; and that therefore there is no
ADVERTISEMENT. V
real contrariety between the principles of the two
essays. From the evidence of history and familiar
experience we know that, under certain conditions,
and within certain limits, (strait ones indeed,) au
enlightened and resolute human spirit has great power,
this greatness being relative to the measures of things
within a small sohere : while it is equally obvious that
this enlightened anu resolute spirit, if disregarding
these conditions, and attempting to extend its agency
over a much wider sphere, shall find its power baffled
and annihilated, till it draws back within the boundary.
Now the great power of the human mind within the
narrow limit being forcibly and 'largely insisted on at
one time, and its impotence beyond that limit, at
another, the assemblage of sentiments and exempli
fications most adapted to illustrate, (and without real
or considerable exaggeration,) that power alone, will
form apparently so strong a contrast with the assem-
blage of thoughts and facts proper for illustrating
that imbecility alone, thac on a superficial view the
two representations may appear contradictory. The
author appeals to the experience of such thinking men
as are accustomed to commit their thoughts to writing,
whether sometimes, on comparing the pages in which
they had endeavoured to place one truth in the
strongest light, with those in which they have en-
deavoured a strong but yet not extravagant exhibition
of another, they have not felt a momentary difficulty
to reconcile them, even while satisfied of the substantial
justness of both. The whole doctrine on any extensive
VI ADVERTISEMENT.
moral subject necessarily includes two views which
may be considered as its extremes ; and if these are
strongly stated quite apart from their relations to each
other, both the representations may be perfectly true,
and yet may require, in order to the reader's perceiving
iheir consistency, a recollection of many intermediate
ideas.
In the fourth essay, it was not intended to take a
comprehensive or systematic view 01 the causes con-
tributing to prevent the candid attention and the
cordial admission due to evangelical religion, but
simply to select a few which had particularly attracted
the writer's observation. One or two more would
have been specified aud slightly illustrated, if the
eesay had not been already too long.
ADVERTISEMENT
TO TftE NINTH EDITION.
A* it is signified in the title-page that the book is
corrected in this edition, it may not be impertinent to
indicate by a few sentences the nature and amount of
the correction. After a revisal which introduced a
number of small verbal alterations in one of the later
of the preceding editions, the writer had been willing
to believe himself excused from any repetition of that
kind of task. But when it was becoming probable that
the new edition now printed would be called for, an
acute literary friend strongly recommended one more
and a final revisal ; enforcing his recommendation by
pointing out, in various places, what the writer readily
acknowledged to be faults in the composition. This
determined him to try the effect of a careful inspection
throughout with a view to such an abatement of the
imperfections of the book, as might make him decidedly
content to let it go without any future revision.
vlli ADVERTISEMENT TO
In this operation there has been no attempt at
novelty beyond such slight changes and diminutive
additions as appeared necessary in older to give a more
exact or full expression of the sense. There is not,
probably, mere of any thing that could properly be
called new, than might be contained in half-a-dozen
pages. Correction, in the strict sense, has been the
object. Sentences, of ill-ordered construction, or loose
or inconsequential in their connexion, have been
attempted to be reformed. In some instances a sentence
has been abbreviated, in others a little extended by the
insertion of an explanatory or qualifying clause. Here
and there a sentence has been substituted for one that
was not easily reducible to the exact direction of the
line of thought, or appeared feeble in expression.
In several instances some modification has been re-
quired to obviate a seeming or real inconsistency
with what is said in other places. This part of the
process may have taken off in such instances somewhat
of the cast of force and spirit, exhibited or attempted
in the former mode of expression ; and might have
been objected to as a deterioration, by a person not
aware of the reason for the change. Here and there
an epithet, or a combination of words, bordering on
extravagance, has yielded to the dictate of the maturer
judgment, or more fastidious taste, or less stimulated
feelings, of advanced life, and given place to a some-
what moderated language. The general course of
thought is not affected by these minute alterations;
e:icept that, (as the writer would persuade himself,) it
THE NINTH EDITION. ix
ia in parts a little more distinctly and palpably brought
out The endeavour has been to disperse any mists
that appeared to lie on the pages, that the ideas might
present themselves in as defined a form as the writer
could give to any of them which had seemed obscure,
and ineffective to their object, from indeterminate or
involved enunciation. In the revised diction, as in
the original writing, he has designedly and constantly
avoided certain artificial forms of phraseology, much
in conventional use among even good writers ; and
aimed at falling on the words most immediately,
naturally, and simply appropriate to the thoughts.
If his book be of a quality to impart any useful in-
struction, he will hope that the benefit may be con-
veyed with perhaps a little more clearness and facility,
in consequence of these last corrections it will receive
from his hand.
January, 1830.
CONTENTS.
ESSAY L
OH A MAN'S WRITING MEMOIRS OP HIMSKLP.
LETTER I.
Affectionate interest with which we revert to our past life. ...It deserves a
brief record for our own use.... Very few things to be noted of the multitude
that have occurred. ...Direction and use of such a review as would be re-
quired for writing a Memoir.... Importance of our past life considered as
the beginning of an endless duration of existence. ...General deficiency of
self-observation.. ..Oblivion of the greatest number of our past feelings....
Occasional glimpses of vivid recollection. ...Associations with things and
places.. ..The different and unknown associations of different persons witt
the same places ....^^..........PAGB 1
LETTER II.
All past life an education. ...Discipline and influence from. ..direct instruction
...companionship. ..books. ..scenes of nature. ..and the state of society, p. 10
LETTER III.
Very powerful impressions sometimes from particular facts, tending to form
discriminated characters. ...Yet very few strongly discriminated and indi-
vidual characters found.. ..Most persons belong to general classes of cha-
racter.... Immense number and diversity of impressions, of indefinitely
various tendency, which the moral being has undergone in the course of
life. ...Might be expected that such a confusion of influences would not
permit the formation of any settled character. ...That such a character is,
nevertbvless, acquired and maintained, is owing to some one leading
determination, given by whatever means, to the mind, generally in early
life. ...Common self-deceptive belief that we have maintained moral recti-
tude, and the exercise of sound reason, under the impressions that have
been forming our characters ...............................................p. 18
LETTER IV.
Most of the influences under which the characters of men are forming un
favourable to wisdom, virtue, and happiness. ...Proof of this if a number
of persons, suppose a hundred, were to give a clear account of the circum.
fiances that have most effected the state of their minds. ...A few examples
a misanthropist. ..a lazy prejudiced thinker...a man fancying himself a
genius. ..a projector. ..an antiquary in excessa petty tyrant......... p. 28
LETTER V.
An Atheist. ...Slight sketch of the process by which a man in the humbler
order of abilities and attainments may become one p. 34
LETTER VI.
Th Influence of Religion counteracted by almost all other influences....
Pensive reflections on the imperfect manifestation of the Supreme Being...
on the inefficacy of the belief of such a being... on the strangeness of that
inefficacy...and on the debasement and infelicity consequent on it.. ..Hap-
piness of a devout mail ..... ,....*...M.M*......**....*......*^*....P> 4J
XH CONTENTS.
LETTER VII.
Self-knowledge being supposed the principal object in writing the memoir,
the train of exterior fortunes and actions will claim but a subordinate
notice in it.. ..If it were intended for the amusement of the public, the
writer would do well to fill it rather with incident and action. ...Yet the
mere mental history of some men would be interesting to reflecting readers
...of a man, for example, of a speculative disposition, who has passed
through many changes of opinion.. ..Influences that warp opinion. ...Effects
of time and experience on the notions and feelings cherished in early life.
...Feelings of a sensible old man on viewing a picture of his own mind,
drawn by himself when he was young.. ..Failure of excellent designs;
disappointment of sanguine hopes. ...Degree of explicitness required in the
record. ...Conscience.. ..Impudence and canting false pretences of many
writers of " confessions."... Rousseau p. 51
ESSAY II.
ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
LETTER I.
Examples of the distress and humiliation incident to an Irresolute mind..*.
Such a mind cannot be said to belong to itself.. ..Manner in which a man of
decisive spirit deliberates, and passes into action. ...Caesar.. ..Such a spirit
prevents the fretting away, in harassing alternations of will, of the ani
mated feelings required for sustaining the vigour of action. ...Averts im
pertinent interference. ...Acquires, if free from harshness of manner, an
undisputed and beneficial ascendency over associates.. ..Its last resource
inflexible pertinacity.. ..Instance in a man on a jury p. 67
LETTER II.
Brief inquiry into the constituents of thi commanding quality.. ..Physical
constitution.. ..Possibility, nevertheless, of a firm mind in a feeble body....
Confidence in a man's own judgment. ...This an uncommon distinction....
Picture of a man who wants it.. ..This confidence distinguished from
obstinacy.. ..Partly founded on experience.... Takes a high tone of inde-
pendence in devising schemes.. ..Distressing dilemmas p. 77
LETTER III.
Energy of feeling as necessary as confidence of opinion. ...Conduct that
results from their combination. ...Effect and value of a ruling passion....
Great decision of character invests even wicked beings with something
which we are tempted to admire.... Satan. ...Zanga.... A Spanish assassin....
Remarkable example of this quality in a man who was a prodigal and
became poor, but turned miser and became rich.... Howard. ...Whitefield....
Christian missionaries p. 86
LETTER IV.
Courage a chief constituent of the character.. ..Effect of this in encountering
censure and ridicule.. ..Almagro, Pizarro, and De Luques.... Defiance of
danger.. ..Luther.. ..Daniel. ...Another indispensable requisite to decision is
the full agreement of all the powers of the mind.. ..Lady Macbeth....
Richard 1 1 1.. ..Cromwell. ...A father who had the opportunity of saving one
of two sons from death... .....p. yj
CONTENTS. xiil
LETTER V.
formidable power of mischief which this high quality gives to bad men....
Care required to prevent its rendering good men unconciliating and over-
bearing ...Independence and overruling manner In consultation ...Lord
Chatham.. ..Decision of character not incompatible with sensibility and
mild manners. ...But probably the majority of the most eminent examples
of it deficient in the kinder affections.. ..King of Prussia. ...Situations in
which it may be an absolute duty to act in opposition to the promptings of
those affections p. 104
LETTER VI.
Circumstances tending to consolidate this Character. ...Opposition.. ..Desertion.
...Marius ...Satan.. ..Charles de Moor. ...Success has the same tendency....
Caesar.. ..Habit of associating with inferiors. ...Voluntary means of forming
or conforming this character.. ..The acquisition of perfect knowledge in the
department in which we are to act.. ..The cultivation of a connected and
conclusive manner of reasoning. ...The resolute commencement of action,
In a manner to commit ourselves irretrievably.. ..Ledyard.... The choice of a
dignified order of concerns.. ..The approbation of conscience.. ..Yet melan-
choly to consider how many of the most distinguished possessors of the
quality have been wicked p. Ill
ESSAY III.
ON THE APPLICATION OP THE EPITHET ROMANTIC.
LETTER I.
Great convenience of having a number of words that will answer the purposes
of ridicule or reprobation without having any precise meaning.. ..Puritan.
...Methodist. ...Jacobin. ...The word Romantic of the greatest service to
persons, who, wanting to show their scorn, have not wherewithal in the
way of sense or wit.. ..Whenever this epithet is applied, '^t the exact
meaning be demanded.. ..Does it attribute, to what it is applied to, the
kind of absurdity prevalent in the works called Romances t... That absurdity
was from the predominance, in various modes, of imagination over judg-
ment.. ..Mental character of the early Romance writers.. ..Opposite cha
racter of Cervantes.. ..Delightful, delusive, and mischievous operation of a
predominant imagination.. ..Yet desirable, for several reasons, that the
Imagination should have this ascendency in early life p. 127
LETTER II.
One of the modes of this ascendency justly called Romantic, is, the unfounded
persuasion of something peculiar and extraordinary in a person's destiny
...This vain expectation may he relative to great talent and achievement,
or to great felicity. ...Things ardently anticipated which not only cannot be
attained, but would be unadapted to the nature and condition cf man if
they could. ...A person that hoped to out-do rather than imitate Gregory
Lopez, the hermit.... Absurd expectations of parents.. ..Utopian anticipations
of philosophers.. ..Practical absurdity of the age of chivalry. ...The extrava-
gant and exclusive passion for what is grand p. 140
LETTER III.
The epithet applicable to hopes and projects inconsistent with the known
relations between ends and means.. ..Reckoning on happy casualties....
Musing on instances of good luck.. ..Novels go more than half the length
of the older Romance in promoting this pernicious tendency of the mind.
...Specimen of what they do in this way.. ..Fancy magnifies the sinaMoct
XIV CONTENTS.
means into an apparent competence to the greatest ends.. ..This delosiro
calculation apt to be admitted in schemes of benevolence. ...Projects for
civilizing savage nations. ...Extravagant expectations of the efficacy of
direct instruction, in the lessons of education, and in preaching.. ..Re-
formers apt to overrate the power of means....The fancy abou* tne omni-
potence of truth. ...Our expectations ought to be limited by what we actually
see and know of human nature. ...Estimate of that nature.. ..Prevalence of
passion and appetite against conviction... p. 150
LETTER IV.
Christianity the grand appointed mean of reforming the world. ...But though
the religion itself be a communication from heaven, the administration of
it by human agents is to be considered as a merely human mean, excepting
go far as a special divine energy is made to accompany it.. ..Its comparatively
small success proves in what an extremely limited measure that energy, as
yet, accompanies it.. ..Impotence of man to do what it leaves undone....
Irrational to expect from its progressive administration a measure of success
indefinitely surpassing the present state of its operations, till we see some
signs of a great change in the Divine Government of the world. ...Folly of
projects to reform mankind which disclaim Religion.. ..Nothing in human
nature to meet and give effect to the schemes and expedients of the moral
revolutionist.... Wretched state of that nature.. ..Sample of the absurd esti-
mates of its condition by the irreligious menders of society p. 166
LETTER V.
Melancholy reflection....No consolation amidst the mysterious economy but
in an assurance that an infinitely good Being presides, and will at length
open out a new moral world. ...Yet many moral projectors are solicitous to
keep their schemes for the amendment of the world clear of any reference
to the Almighty.. ..Even good men are guilty of placing too much depend-
ence on subordinate powers and agents. ...The representations in this
Essay not intended to depreciate to nothing the worth and use of the whole
stock of means, but to reduce them, and the effects to be expected from
them, to a sober estimate.... A humble thing to be a man. ...Inculcation of
devout submission, and diligence, and prayer.. ..Sublime quality and inde-
finite efficacy of this last, as a mean. ...Conclusion; briefly marking out a
few general characters of sentiment and action to which, though very un-
common, the epithet Romantic is unjustly applied p. 175
ESSAY IV.
ON SOME Of THE CAUSES BY WHICH EVANGELICAL RELIGION HAS
BKKN RENDERED UNACCEPTABLE TO PERSONS OF CULTIVATED
TASTE.
LETTER I.
Nature of the displacency wVth which some of the most peculiar features of
Christianity are regarded by <iny cultivated men, who do not deny or
doubt the divine authority ^t the religion.. ..Brief notice L' the term
Evangelical -P- 18*
LETTER II.
One of the causes of the displacency is, that Christianity, being the religion
of a great number of persons of weak and uncultivated minds, presents
its doctrines to the view of men of taste associated with the characteristics
of those minds ; and though some parts of the religion instantaneously
redeem themselves from that association by their philosophic dignity, other
parts may require a considerable effort to detach them from it. ...This easilj
CONTENTS. XI
done If the men of taste were powerfully pre-occupied and affected by the
religion. ...Reflections of one of them in this case. ...But the men of taste
now in question are not in this case. ...Several specific causes of injurious
impression, from this association of evangelical doctrines and sentiments
with the intellectual littleness of the persons entertaining them....Their
deficiency and dislike of all strictly Intellectual exercise on religion. ...Their
reducing the whole of religion to one or two favourite notions, and con-
tinually dwelling on them. ...The perfect indifference of some of them to
general knowledge, even when not destitute of means of acquiring it; and
the consequent voluntary and contented poverty of their religious ideas and
language.. ..Their admiration of things in a literary sense utterly bad....
Their complacency in their deficiencies.. ..Their injudicious babits and
ceremonies. ...Their unfortunate metaphors and slmues....^uggeiition to
religious teachers, that they should not run to its last possible extent tb
parallel between the pleasures of piety, and those of eating and drinking.
...Mischief of such practices.... Effect of the ungracious collision between
uncultivated seniors and a young person of literary and philosophic taste.
...Expostulation with this intellectual young person, on the folly and guilt
of suffering his mind to take the impression of evangelical religion from
any thing which he knows to be inferior to that religion itself, as exhibited
by the New Testament, and by the most elevated of its disciples p. 199
LETTER III.
Another cause, the Peculiarity of Language adopted in religions discourse
and writing.. ..Classical standard of language. ...The theological deviation
from It barbarous. ...Surprise and perplexity of a sensible heathen foreigner
who, having learnt our language according to its best standard alone, should
be introduced to hear a public evangelical discourse. ...Distinctive characters
of this Theological Dialect. ...Reasons against employing it. ...Competence
of our language to express all religious ideas without the aid of this uncouth
peculiarity. ...Advantages that would attend the use of the language of mere
general intelligence, with the addition of an extremely small number of words
that may be considered as necessary technical terms in theology ......p. 218
LETTER IV.
Answer to the plea, in behalf of the dialect in question, that it is formed from
the language of the Bible.. ..Description of the manner in which it is so
formed.. ..This way of employing biblical language very different from
simple quotation. ...Grace and utility with which brief forms of words,
whether sentences or single phrases, may be introduced from the Bible, if
they are brought in as pure pieces and particles of the sacred composition,
tet in our own composition as something distinct from it and foreign to it.
...But the biblical phraseology in the Theological Dialect, instead of thus
appearing in distinct bright points and gems, is modified and mixed up
throughout the whole consistence of the diction, so as at once to lose its own
venerable character, and to give a pervading uncouthness, without dignity,
to the whole composition. ...Let the scripture language be quoted often, but
not degraded into a barbarous compound phraseology.. ..Even if it were
advisable to construct the language of theological instruction in some kind
of resemblance to that of the Bible, it would not fellow that it should be
constructed in imitation of the phraseology of an antique version.. ..License
to very old theologians to retain In a great degree this peculiar dialect ...
Young ones recommended to learn to employ in religion the language in
which cultivated men talk and write on general subjects.. ..The vast mast
of writing in a comprehensive literary sense bad. on the subjects of evan-
gelical theology, one preat cause of the distaste felt by men of intellectual
refinement. ...Several kinds of this bad writing specified p. 239
LETTER V.
A grand cause of displacenry encountered by evangelical religion among men
of taste is, that the great school in which that taste is formed, that of
polite literature, taken in the widest sense of the phrase, is hostile to that
A<TJ CONTENTS.
religion. ...Modern literature intended principa"y to be animadverted on..,.
Brief notice of the ancient. ...Heathen theology, metaphysics, and morality-
...Harmlessness of the two former; deceptiveness of the last. ...But the
chief influence is from so much of the history as may be called Biography,
and from the Poetry. ...Homer.. ..Manner in which the interest he excites is
hostile to the spirit of the Christian religion. ...Virgil p. 254
LETTER VI.
JLucan.... Influence of the moral sublimity of his heroes.. ..Plutarch.. ..The
Historians. ...Antichristian effect of admiring the moral greatness of the
eminent heathens. ...Points of essential difference between excellence ac-
cording to Christian principles, and the most elevated excellence of the
Heathens. ...An unqualified complacency in the latter produces an alienation
of affection and admiration from the former p. 269
LETTER VII.
When a communication, declaring the true theory of both religion and
morals, was admitted as coming from heaven, it was reasonable to expect
that, from the time of this revelation to the end of the world, all by whom
it was so admitted would be religiously careful to maintain, in whatever
they taught on subjects within its cognizance, a systematic and punctilious
conformity to its principles.... Absurdity, impiety, and pernicious effect, of
disregarding this sovereign claim to conformity.. ..The greatest number of
our fine writers have incurred this guilt, and done this mischief.. ..They are
antichristian, in the first place, by omission ; they exclude from their
moral sentiments the modifying interference of the Christian principles....
Extended illustration of the fact, and of its consequences p. 281
LETTER VIII.
More specific forms of their contrariety to the principles of Revelation....
Their good man not a Christian. ...Contrasted with St. Paul. ...Their theory
of happiness essentially different from the evangelical Short statement
of both. ...In moralizing on life, they do not habitually consider, and they
prevent their readers from considering, the present state as introductory to
another. Their consolations for distress, old age, and death, widely dif-
ferent, on the whole, from those which constitute so much of the value of
the Gospel. ...The grandeur and heroism in death, which they have repre-
sented with irresistible eloquence, emphatically and perniciously opposite
to the Christian doctrine and examples of sublimity and happiness in
death. ...Examples from tragedy p. 391
LETTER IX.
Pie estimate of the depraved moral condition of human nature is quite dif-
ferent in revelation and polite literature. ...Consequently, the Redemption
by Jesus Christ, which appears with such momentous importance in the
one, is, in comparison, a trifie in the other.. ..Our fine writers employ and
justify antichristian motives to action, especially the love of fame.. ..The
morality of this passion argued ...The earnest repression of it shown ID be
a duty.. ..Some of the lighter order of our popular writers have aided the
counteraction of literature to evangelical religion by careless or malignant
ridicule of things associated with it.. ..Brief notice of the several classes of
fine writers, as lying under the charge of contributing to alienate men of
taste from the doctrines and moral spirit of the New Testament.. ..Morai
philosophers... .Historians.... Essayists.... Addison....Johnson....The Poets....
Exception in favour of Milton, &c....Pope....Antichristian quality of hfc>
Essay on Man. ...Novels. ...Melancholy reflections on the Review.... Ce 1 ---
clusion p. 314
ESSAY 1.
ON A MAN'S WRITING MEMOIRS OP HIMSELF,
LETTER I.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
EVERY one knows with what interest it is natural to
retrace the course of our own lives. The past states
and periods of a man's being are retained in a connexion
with the present by that principle of self-love, which
is unwilling to relinquish its hold on what has once been
his. Though he cannot but be sensible of how little
consequence his life can have been in the creation,
compared with many other trains of events, yet he has
felt it more important to himself than all other trains
together ; and you will very rarely find him tired of
narrating again the little history, or at least the favourite
parts of the little history, of himself.
To turn this partiality to some account, I recollect
having proposed to two or three of my friends, that
they should write, each principally however for his
own use, memoirs of their own lives, endeavouring not
M) much to enumerate the mere facts and events of
life, as to discriminate the successive states of the mind,
and so trace the progress of what may be called the
character In this progress consists the chieJ imocr-
B
2 ON A MAN'S WRITING
tance of life ; but even on an inferior account also to
this of what the character has become, and regarded
merely as supplying a constant series of interests to the
affections and passions, we have all accounted our life
an inestimable possession which it deserved incessant
rares and labours to retain, and which continues in
most cases to be still held with anxious attachment.
What has been the object of so much partiality, and
has been delighted and pained by so many emotions,
might claim, even if the highest interest were out of
the question, that a short memorial should be retained
by him who has possessed it, has seen it all to this
moment depart, and can never recall it.
To write memoirs of many years, as twenty, thirty,
or forty, seems, at the first glance, a very onerous task.
To reap the products of so many acres of earth indeed
might, to one person, be an undertaking of mighty toil.
But the materials of any value that all past life ca*
supply to a recording pen, would be reduced by a dis-
cerning selection to a very small and modest amount.
Would as much as one page of moderate size be deemed
by any man's self-importance to be due, on an average,
to each of the days that he has lived ? No man would
vidge more than one in ten thousand of all his thoughts,
sayings, and actions, worthy to be mentioned, if memory
were capable of recalling them.* Necessarily a very
'arge portion of what has occupied the successive years
of life was of a kind to be utterly useless for a history
df if ; being merely for the accommodation of the time.
Perhaps in the space of forty or fifty years, millions of
sentences are proper to be uttered, and many thousands
of affairs requisite to be transacted, or of journeys to
An exception may be admitted for the few individuals whose
daily deliberations, discourses and proceedings, affect the interests
on a grand scale.
MEMOIRS OK HIMSELF. 3
be performed, which it would be ridiculous to record.
They are a kind of material for the common expenditure
and waste of the day. Yet it is often by a detail of
this subordinate economy of life, that the works of
fiction, the narratives of age, the journals of travellers,
and even grave biographical accounts, are made so
unreasonably long. As well might a chronicle of the
coats that a man has worn, with the colour and date of
each, be called his life, for any important uses of re-
lating its history. As well might a man, of whom I
inquire the dimensions, the internal divisions, and the
use, of some remarkable building, begin to tell me
how much wood was employed in the scaffolding, where
the mortar was prepared, or how often it rained while
the work was proceeding.
But, in a deliberate review of all that we can re-
member of past life, it will be possible to select a
certain proportion which may with the most propriety
be regarded as the history of the man. What I am
recommending is, to follow the order of time, and
reduce your recollections, from the earliest period to
the present, into as simple a statement and explanation
as you can, of your feelings, opinions, and habits, and
of the principal circumstances through each stage that
have influenced them, till they have become at last
what they now are.
Whatever tendencies nature may justly be deemed
to have imparted in the first instance, you would pro-
bably find the greater part of the moral constitution of
your being composed of the contributions of many
years and events, consolidated by degrees into what
we call character ; and by investigating the progress
of the accumulation, you would be assisted to judge
more clearly how far the materials are valuable, the
mixture congruous, and the whole conformation worthy
ON A MANS WRITING
to remain unaltered. With resoect to any friend who
greatly ''nterests us, we have curiosity to obtain an
accurate account of the past train of his life and
feelings : and whatever other reasons there may be for
such a wish, it partly springs from a consciousness how
much this retrospective knowledge would assist to
complete our estimate of that friend ; but our estimate
of ourselves is of more serious consequence.
The elapsed periods of life acquire importance too
from the prospect of its continuance. The smallest
thing rises into consequence when regarded as the
commencement of what has advanced, or is advancing
into magnificence. The first rude settlement of Ro-
mulus would have been an insignificant circumstance,
and might justly have sunk into oblivion, if Rome had
not at length commanded the world. The little rill
near the source of one of the great American rivers, is
an interesting object to the traveller, who is apprised,
as he steps across it, or walks a few miles along its
bank, that this is the stream which runs so far, and
which gradually swells into so vast a flood. So, while
I anticipate the endless progress of life, and wonder
through what unknown scenes it is to take its course,
its past years lose that character of vanity which would
seem to belong to a train of fleeting, perishing moments,
and I see them assuming the dignity of a commencing
eternity. In them I have begun to be that conscious
existence which I am to be through endless duration ;
md I feel a strange emotion of curiosity about this
ttle life, in which I am setting out on such a progress ;
i cannot be content without an accurate sketch of tin;
windings thus far of a stream which is to bear me on
for ever. I try to imagine how it will be to recollect,
at a far distant point of my era, what I was when here ;
nd wish if it were possible to retain, as I advance, soir.p
MliMOJKU (Jtf IIIMSk-LF. 5
clear trace of the whole course of my existence within
the scope of reflection ; to fix in my mind so strong an
idea of what I have been in this original period of my
time, that I may possess this idea in ages too remote
for calculation.
The review becomes still more important, when I
learn the influence which this first part of the progress
will have on the happiness or misery of the next.
One of the greatest difficulties in the way of executing
the proposed task will have been caused by the extreme
deficiency of that self-observation, which is of no common
habit either of youth or any later age. Men are content
to have no more intimate sense of their existence than
what they feel in the exercise of their faculties on ex-
traneous objects. The vital being, with all its agency
and emotions, is so blended and absorbed in these its
exterior interests, that it is very rarelj collected and
concentrated in the consciousness of its own absolute
self, so as to be recognised as a thing internal, apart
and alone, for its own inspection and knowledge. Men
parry their minds as for the most part they carry their
watches, content to be ignorant of the constitution and
action within, and attentive only to the little exterior
circle of things, to which the passions, like indexes, are
pointing. It is surprising to see how little self-knowledge
a person not watchfully observant of himself may have
gained, in the whole course of an active, or even an
inquisitive life. He may have lived almost an age, and
traversed a continent, minutely examining its curiosities,
and interpreting the half-obliterated characters on its
monuments, unconscious the while of a process operating
on his own mind, to impress or to erase characteristics
of much more importance to him than all the figured
brass or marble that Europe contains. After having
explored many u cavern or dark ruinous avenue, he
6 ox A MAN'S WRITING.
may have left undetected a darker recess within where
there would be much more striking discoveries. He
may have conversed with many people, in different lan-
guages, on numberless subjects ; but, having neglected
those conversations with himself by which his whole
moral being should have been kept continually dis-
closed to his view, he is better qualified perhaps to
describe the intrigues of a foreign court, or the progress
of a foreign trade ; to depict the manners of the Italians,
or the Turks ; to narrate the proceedings of the Jesuits,
or the adventures of the gypsies ; than to write the
history of his own mind.
If we had practised habitual self-observation, we
could not have failed to be made aware of much that
it had been well for us to know. There have been
thousands of feelings, each of which, if strongly seized
upon, and made the subject of reflection, would have
shown us what our character was, and what it was
likely to be become. There have been numerous in-
cidents, which operated on us as tests, and so fully
brought out our prevailing quality, that another person,
who should have been discriminatively observing us,
would speedily have formed a decided estimate. But
unfortunately the mind is generally too much occupied
by the feeling or the incident itself, to have the slightest
care or consciousness that any thing could be learnt, or
is disclosed. In very early youth it is almost inevitable
for it to be thus lost to itself even amidst its own feelings,
and the external objects of attention ; but it seems a
contemptible thing, and certainly is a criminal and
dangerous thing, for a man in mature life to allow
himself this thoughtless escape from self-examination.
We have not only neglected to observe what our
feelings indicated, but have also in a very great degree
erased to remember what they were. We may woiuiei
MEMOIRS OP IllMShLP. 7
/tow we could pass away successively from so many scenes
and conjunctures, each in its time of no trifling moment
in our apprehension, and retain so light an impressio.%
that we have now nothing distinctly to tell about whax
once excited our utmost emotion. As to my own mind, I
perceive that it is becoming uncertain of the exact nature
of many feelings of considerable interest, even of com-
paratively recent date ; and that the remembrance of
what was felt in very early life has nearly faded away.
I have just been observing several children of eight or
ten years old, in all the active vivacity which enjoys the
plenitude of the moment without " looking before or
after ;" and while observing, I attempted, but without
success, to recollect what I was at that age. I can
indeed remember the principal events of the period,
and the actions and projects to which my feelings im-
pelled me ; but the feelings themselves, in their own
pure juvenility, cannot be revived so as to be described
and placed in comparison with those of later life.
What is become of all those vernal fancies which
had so much power to touch the heart ? What a
number of sentiments have lived and revelled in the
soul that are now irrevocably gone ! They died like
the singing birds of that time, which sing no more. The
life we then had, now seems almost as if it could not
have been our own. We are like a man returning, after
the absence of many years, to visit the embowered
cottage where he passed the morning of his life, and
finding only a relic of its ruins.
Thus an oblivious shade is spread over that early tract
of our time, where some of the acquired propensities
which remain in force to this hour may have had their
origin, in a manner of which we had then no thought
or consciousness. When we met with the incident, or
heard the conversation, or saw the spectacle, or felt the
ON A MAN S WRITING
emotion, which were the first causes or occasions of
some of the chief permanent tendencies of future life,
how little could we think that long afterwards we might
be curiously and in vain desirous to investigate thosf
tendencies back to their origin.
In some occasional states of the mind, we can look
back much more clearly, and much further, than at
otner times. I would advise to seize those short in-
tervals of illumination which sometimes occur without
our knowing the cause, and in which the genuine
aspect of some remote event, or long-forgotten image,
is recovered with extreme distinctness in spontaneous
glimpses of thought, such as no effort could have com-
manded ; as the sombre features and minute objects of
a distant ridge of hills become strikingly visible in the
strong gleams of light which transiently fall on them.
An instance of this kind occurred to me but a few
hours since, while reading what had no perceptible
connexion with a circumstance of my early youth,
which probably I have not recollected for many years,
and which was of no unusual interest at the time it
happened. That circumstance came suddenly to my
mind with a clearness of representation which I was nol
able to retain to the end of an hour, and which I could
uot at this instant renew by the strongest effort. 1
seemed almost to see the walls and windows of a par-
ticular room, with four or five persons in it, who were
so perfectly restored to my imagination, that I could
recognise not only the features, but even the momentary
expressions, of their countenances, and the tones of
their voices.
According to different states of the mind too, retro-
spect appears longer or shorter. It may happen that
some memorable circumstance of verv early life shall
be so powerfully recalled, as to contract the wide
MEMOIRS OP HIMSELF. 9
intervening space, by banishing from the view, a hlti"
while, all the series of intermediate remembrances ,
but when this one object of memory retires again to its
r emoteness and indifference, and all the others resume
their proper places and distances, the retrospect appears
long.
Places and things which have an association with
any of the events or feelings of past life, will greatly
assist the recollection of them. A man of strong
associations finds memorials of himself already traced
on the places where he has conversed with happiness
or misery. If an old man wished to animate for a
moment the languid and faded ideas which he retains
of his youth, he might walk with his crutch across the
green, where he once played with companions who are
now laid to repose probably in another green spot not
far off. An aged saint may meet again some of the
affecting ideas of his early piety, in the place where he
first found it happy to pray. A walk in a meadow,
the sight of a bank of flowers, perhaps even of some
one flower, a landscape with the tints of autumn, the
descent into a valley, the brow of a mountain, the house
where a friend has been met, or has resided, or has
lied, have often produced a much more lively recol-
lection of our past feelings, and of the objects and events
which caused them, than the most perfect description
could have done ; and we have lingered a considerable
time for the pensive luxury of thus resuming the long-
departed state.
But there are many to whom local associations
present images which they fervently wish they could
exorcise ; images which haunt the places where crimes
had been perpetrated, and which seem to approach and
glare on the criminal as he hastily passes by, especially
f in the evening or the night. No local associations are
10 ON A MAN'S WRITING
so impressive as those of guilt. It may here be observecl
that as each one has his own separate remembrances,
giving to some places an aspect and a significance which
he alone can perceive, there must be an unknown
number of pleasing, or mournful, or dreadful asso-
ciations, spread over the scenes inhabited or visited by
men. We pass without any awakened consciousness
by the bridge, or the wood, or the house, where there
is something to excite the most painful or frightful
ideas in another man if he were to go that way, or it
may be in the companion who walks along with us.
How much there is in a thousand spots of the earth,
that is invisible and silent to all but the conscious
individual !
I hear a voice you cannot hear
I see a hand you cannot see.
LETTER II.
WE may regard our past life as a continued thougn
irregular course of education, through an order, or
rather disorder of means, consisting of instruction,
companionship, reading, and the diversified influences
of the world. The young mind, in the mere natural
impulse of its activity, and innocently unthinking of
any process it was about to undergo, came forward to
meet the operation of some or all of these plastic
circumstances. It would be worth while to examine in
what manner and measure they have respectively had
their influence on us.
Few persons can look back to the early period when
they were most directly the subjects of instruction,
without a regret for themselves, (which may be ex
MEMOIRS OF HI.MSKL*. 11
tended to the huinun race,) that the result of instruction,
excepting that which leads to evil, bears so small a
proportion to its compass and repetition. Yet some
good consequence must follow the diligent inculcation
of truth and precept on the youthful mind ; and our
consciousness of possessing certain advantages derived
from it will be a partial consolation, in the review which
will comprise so many proofs of its comparative in-
efficacy. You can recollect, perhaps, the instructions to
which you feel yourself permanently the most indebted,
and some of those which produced the greatest effect
at the time, those which surprised, delighted, or mor-
tified you. You can partially remember the facility or
difficulty of understanding, the facility or difficulty of
believing, and the practical inferences which you drew
from principles, on the strength of your own reason, and
sometimes in variance with those made by your in-
structors. You can remember what views of truth
and duty were most frequently and cogently presented,
what passions were appealed to, what arguments were
employed, and which had the greatest influence. Per-
haps your present idea of the most convincing and
persuasive mode of instruction, may ue derived from
your early experience of the manner of those persons
with whose opinions you felt it the most easy and
delightful to harmonize, who gave you the most agree-
able consciousness of your faculties expanding to the
light, like morning flowers, and who, assuming the
least of dictation, exerted the greatest degree of power.
You can recollect the submissiveness with which your
mind yielded to instructions as from an oracle, or
the hardihood with which you dared to examine and
oppose them. You can remember how far they became,
as to your own conduct, an internal authority 01
reason and conscience, when you wore not under the
12 ON A T.T AW 8 WRITING
inspection of those who inculcated them ; and what
classes of persons or things around you they contri-
outed to make you dislike or approve. And you can
perhaps imperfectly trace the manner and the particulars
in which they sometimes aided, or sometimes counter-
acted, those other influences which have a far stronger
efficacy on the character than instruction can boast.
Some persons can recollect certain particular sen-
tences or conversations which made so deep an im-
pression, perhaps in some instances they can scarcely
tell why, that they have been thousands of times re-
called, while innumerable others have been forgotten
or they can revert to some striking incident, coming in
aid of instruction, or being of itself a forcible instruction,
which they seem even now to see as plainly as when it
happened, and of which they will retain a perfect idea
to the end of life. The most remarkable circumstances
of this kind deserve to be recorded in the supposed
memoirs. In some instances, to recollect the instructions
of a former period will be to recollect too the excellence,
the affection, and the death, of the persons who gave
them. Amidst the sadness of such a remembrance, it
will be a consolation that they are not entirely lost to
us. Wise monitions, when they return on us with this
melancholy charm, have more pathetic cogency than
when they were first uttered by the voice of a living
friend. It will be an interesting occupation of the
pensive hour, to recount the advantages which we
havve received from the beings who have left the world,
and to reinforce our virtues from the dust of those who
first taught them.
In our review, we shall find that the companions of
our childhood, and of each succeeding period, have
bad a great influence on our characters. A creature
so prone to conformity as man, and at the same time
MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 11
so capable of being moulded into partial dissimilarity
by social antipathies, cannot have conversed with his
fellow beings thousands of hours, walked with them
thousands of miles, undertaken with them numberless
enterprises, smaller and greater, and had every passion,
by turns, awakened in their company, without being
immensely affected by all this association. A large
share, indeed, of the social interest may have been of so
common a kind, and with persons of so common an
order, that the effect on the character has been too
little peculiar to be perceptible during the progress.
We were not sensible of it, till we came to some of those
circumstances and changes in life, which make us aware
of the state of our minds by the manner in which new
objects are acceptable or repulsive to them. On re-
moving into a new circle of society, for instance, we
could perceive, by the number of things in which we
found ourselves uncomplacent and unconformable with
the new acquaintance, the modification which our senti-
ments had received in the preceding social intercourse.
But in some instances we have been in a short time
sensible of a powerful force operating on our opinions,
tastes, and habits, and reducing them to a greatly
altered cast. This effect is inevitable, if a young sus-
ceptible mind happens to become familiarly acquainted
with a person in whom a strongly individual charactt-i
is sustained and dignified by uncommon mental re-
sources ; and it may be found that, generally, the
greatest measure of effect has been produced by the
influence of a very small number of persons ; often of
one only, whose master-spirit had more power to
surround and assimilate a young ingenuous being, than
the collective influence of a multitude of the persons,
whose characters were moulded in the manufactory of
custom, and sent *nrtl likp images of clay of kinder 1
14 ON A MAN'S WRIT1HO
si ape and varnish from a pottery. I am supposing,
all along, that the person who writes memoirs of him-
self, is conscious of something more peculiar than a
mere dull resemblance of that ordinary form and in-
significance of character, which it strangely depreciates
our nature to see such a multitude exemplifying. As
to the crowd of those who are faithfully stamped, like
bank notes, with the same marks, with the difference
only of being worth more guineas or fewer, they are
mere particles of a class, mere pieces and bits of the
great vulgar or the small ; they need not write their
history, it may be found in the newspaper chronicle,
or the gossip's or the sexton's narrative.
It is obvious, in what I have suggested respecting
the research through past life, that all the persons who
are recalled to the min^, as having had an influence on
us, must stand before it in judgment. It is impossible
to examine our moral and intellectual growth without
forming an estimate, as we proceed, of those who re-
tarded, advanced, or perverted it. Our dearest relations
and friends cannot be exempted. There will be in some
instances the necessity of blaming where we would wish
to give entire praise ; though perhaps some worthy
motives and generous feelings may, at the same time,
be discovered in the conduct, where they had hardly
been perceived or allowed before. But, at any rate, it
is important that in no instance the judgment be duped
into delusive estimates, amidst the examination, and so
as to compromise the principles of the examination, by
which we mean to bring ourselves to rigorous justice.
For if any indulgent partiality, or mistaken idea, of
that duty which requires a kind and candid feeling to
accompany the clearest discernment of defects, may be
permitted to beguile our judgment out of the decisions
ni justice in favour of others, self-love, a still more
MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF 1.5
indulgent hnd partial feeling, will not fail to practise
tlie same beguilemcnt in favour of ourselves. But indeed
it would seem impossible, besides being absurd, tc
apply one set of principles to judge of ourselves, an
another to judge of those with whom \\e have associated.
Every person of tolerable education has been con-
siderably influenced by the books he has read ; and
remembers with a kind of gratitude several of those
that made without injury the earliest and the strongest
impression. It is pleasing at a more advanced period
to look again into the early favourites ; though the
mature person may wonder how some of them had once
power to absorb his passions, make him retire into a
lonely wood in order to read unmolested, repel the
approaches of sleep, or, when it came, infect it with
visions. A capital part of the proposed task would be
to recollect the books that have been read with the
greatest interest, the periods when they were read, the
partiality which any of them inspired to a particular
mode of life, to a study, to a system of opinions, or to
a rlass of human characters ; to note the counteraction
of later ones (where we have been sensible of it) to
the effect produced by the former ; and then to en-
deavour to estimate the whole and ultimate influence.
Considering the multitude of facts, sentiments, and
characters, which have been contemplated by a person
who has read much, the effect, one should think, must
have been very great. Still, however, it is probable
that a very small number of books will have the pre-
eminence in our mental history. Perhaps your memory
will promptly recur to six or ten that have contributed
more to your present habits of feeling and thought
than all the rest together. It may be observed here,
that when a few books of the same kinii have pleased
us emphatically, it is a possible ill consequence that
16 ON A MANS WRITING
they may create an almost exclusive taste, which is
carried through all future reading, and is pleased onlv
with books of that kind.
It might be supposed that the scenes of nature, ar
amazing assemblage of phenomena if their effect v/ere
not lost through familiarity, would have a powerful
influence on opening minds, and transfuse into the in-
ternal economy of ideas and sentiment something of a
character and a colour correspondent to the beauty,
/icissitude, and grandeur, which press on the senses.
They have this effect on minds of genius; and Beattie's
Minstrel maybe as just as it is a captivating description
of the perceptions and emotions of such a spirit. But
on the greatest number this influence operates feebly;
you will not see the process in children, nor the result
in mature persons. That significance is unfelt, which
belongs to the beauties of nature aa something more
than their being merely objects of the senses. And in
many instances even the senses themselves are so
deficient in attention, so idly passive, and therefore
apprehend these objects so slightly, undefinedly, and
transiently, that it is no wonder the impressions do not
go so much deeper than the senses as to infuse a mood
of sentiment, awaken the mind to thoughtful and
imaginative action, and form in it an order of feelings
and ideas congenial with what is fair and great in ex-
ternal nature. This defect of sensibility and fancy is
unfortunate amidst a creation infinitely rich with grand
and beautiful objects, which can impart to a mind
adapted and habituated to converse with nature an
exquisite sentiment, that seems to <*.ome as by an
emanation from a spirit dwelling in those objects. It
js unfortunate I have thought within these few minutes
while looking out on one jf the most enchanting
jights of the most interesting reason of the year, and
MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. | f
hearing the voices of a company of persons, to whom
I can perceive that this soft and solemn shade over the
earth, the calm sky, the beautiful stripes of cloud, the
stars, the waning moon just risen, are things not in the
least more interesting than the walls, ceiling, and
randle-light of a room. I feel no vanity in this instance ;.
for perhaps a thousand aspects of night not less striking
than this, have appeared before my eyes and departed,
not only without awaking emotion, but almost without
attracting notice.
If minds in general are not made to be strongly
affected by the phenomena of the earth and heavens,
they are however all subject to be powerfully influenced
by the appearances and character of the human world.
I suppose a child in Switzerland, growing up to a man,
would Lave acquired incomparably more of the cast of
his mind from the events, manners, and actions of the
next village, though its inhabitants were but his occa-
sional companions, than from all the mountain scenes,
the cataracts, and every circumstance of beauty or
sublimity in nature around him. We are all true to
our species, and very soon feel its importance to us,
(though benevolence be not the basis of the interest,)
far beyond the importance of any thing that we see
besides. Beginning your observation with children,
you may have noted how instantly they will turn their
attention away from any of the aspects of nature, how-
ever rare or striking, if human objects present them-
selves to view in any active manner. This " leaning
to our kind" brings each individual not only under the
influence attending immediate association with a few, but
under the operation of numberless influences, from all the
moral diversities of which he is a spectator in the living
world ; a complicated though insensible tyranny, of
which every fashion, folly, and vice, may exercise itsp.tr>.
a
' ON A MAN'S WHITING
Some persons woi'ld be able to recollect very strong
and influential impressions made, in almost the first
years of life, by some of the events and appearances
which they witnessed in surrounding society. But
whether the operation on us of the formative power of
the community began with impressions of extraordinary
force or not, it has been prolonged through the whole
course of our acquaintance with mankind. It is no
little effect for the living world to have had on us, that
very many of our present opinions are owing to what
we have seen and experienced in it. That thinking
which has involuntarily been kept in exercise on it,
however remiss and desultory, could not fail to result
in a number of settled notions, which may be said to
be shaped upon its facts and practices. We could not
be in sight of it, and in intercourse with it, without
the formation of opinions adjusted to what we found
in it ; and thus far it has been the creator of our mental
economy. But its operation has not stopped here. It
will not confine itself to occupying the understanding,
and yield to be a mere subject for judgments to be
formed upon ; but all the while that the observer is
directing on it the exercise of his judicial capacity, it
is reactively throwing on him various moral influences
and infections.
LETTER III.
A PERSON capable of being deeply interested, and
accustomed to reflect on his feelings, will have observed
in himself thia subjection to the influences of what has
been presented to him in society. Their force may
have been sufficient in some instances to go far toward
MEMOJHS OF HIMSELF. 19
new-modelling the habit of the mind. Recollect your
own experience. After witnessing some remarkabie
transaction, :>r some new and strange department of life
and manners, or some striking disclosure of character,
or after listening to some extraordinary conversation,
or impressive recital of facts, you may have been
conscious that what you have heard or seen has given
your mind some one strong determination of a nature
resulting from the quality of that which has made tht
impression. It is true, that your receiving the effect
in this one manner implies the existence of an adapted
predisposition, for many other persons might not have
been similarly affected ; yet the newly acquired impulse
might be so different from the former action of your
mind, and at the same time so strong, as to give you
the consciousness of a greatly altered moral being. In
the state thus suddenly formed, some of the previously
existing dispositions had sunk subordinate, while others,
which had been hitherto inert, were grown into an im-
perious prevalence : or even a new one appeared to
have been originated.* While this state continues, a
man is in character another man ; and if the moral
tendency thus excited or created, could be prolonged
into the sequel of his life, the difference might be such,
that it would be by means only of his person that he
would be recognised for the same ; while an observer
ignorant of the cause would be perplexed and sur-
prised at the change. Now this permanence of the
new moral direction might be effected, if the impression
which causes it were so intensely powerful as to haunt
him ever after ; or if he were subjected to a long suc-
cession of impressions of the same tendency, without
So great an effect, however, as this last, is perhaps rarely ex
penenced from even the most powerful causes, except in t-vly life.
c 2
ox A MAN'S WRITING
any powerfully opposite ones intervening to break the
process.
You have witnessed perhaps a scene of injustice and
oppression, and have retired with an indignation which
has imprecated vengeance. Now supposing that the
image of this scene were to be revived in your mind
in all its odiousness, as often as any iniquitous circum-
stance in society should present itself to your notice,
and that you had an entire persuasion that your feeling
was the pure indignation of virtue ; or, supposing that
you were rrpratedly to witness similar instances, without
diminution oi the abhorrence by familiarity with them ;
the consequence might be that you would acquire the
spirit of Draco or Minos.
It is easy to imagine the impression of a few atro-
cious facts on an ardent constitution, converting a
humane horror of cruelty into the vindictive fanaticism
of Montbar, the Buccaneer.* A person of gentler
sensibility, by accidentally witnessing a scene of distress,
of which none of the circumstances caused disgust
toward the sufferers, or indignation against others as
the cause of the suffering, having once tasted the
pleasure of soothing woes which perhaps death alone
can terminate, might be led to seek other instances of
distress, acquire both an aptitude and a partiality for
the charitable office, and become a pensive philan-
thropist. The repulsion which has struck the observer
of some extravagance of ostentatious wealth, or some
exces-s of frivolity and dissipation, and acted on him
again at sight of every succeeding and inferior instance
of the same kind, with a greater force than would
have been felt in these inferior instances, if the offensive
<tfect did not run into the vestiges of the first indelible
A.bbe Raynal's History of the Indies.
MEMOIKS OF HIMSELF. 21
impression, may produce a cynic or a miser, a reclust
or a philosopher. Numberless other illustrations might
be brought to shew how much the characters of human
beings, entering on life with unwarned carelessness of
heart, are at the mercy of the incalculable influence!*
which may strike them from any point of the sur-
rounding world.
It is true that, notwithstanding so many influences
are acting on men, and some of them apparently of a
kind and of a force to produce in their subjects a
notable peculiarity, comparatively few characters de-
terminately marked from all around them are found to
arise. In looking on a large company of persons
whose dispositions and pursuits are substantially alike,
we cannot doubt that several of them have met with
circumstances, of which the natural tendency must
nave been to give them a determination of mind ex-
tremely dissimilar to the character of those whom they
now so much resemble. And why does the influence
of such circumstances fail to produce such a result ?
Partly, because the influences which are of a more
peculiar and specific operation are overborne and lost
in that wide general influence, which accumulates and
conforms each individual to the crowd ; and partly,
because even were there no such general influence to
steal away the impressions of a more peculiar tendency,
few minds are of so fixed and faithful a consistence as
to retain, in continued efficacy, impressions of a kind
which the common course of life is not adapted to
reinforce, nor prevailing example l"> confirm. The
mind of the greater proportion of human beings, if
attempted to be wrought into any boldly specific form,
proves like a half-fluid substance, in which angles or
circles, or any otner figures may be cut, but which re-
covers, while you are look'ng, its forme" state ai;/
SM ON A MAN S WRITING
closes them up ; or like a quantity of dust, which may be
raised into momentary reluctant shapes, but which is re-
lapsing, amidst the operation, to wards its undefined mass.
But if characters of strong individual peculiarity are
somewhat rare, such as are marked with the respective
distinctions which discriminate moral classes are very
numerous ; the decidedly avaricious for instance ; the
devoted slaves of fashion ; and the eager aspirers to
power, in however confined a sphere, the little Alex-
anders of a mole-hill, quite as ambitious, in their way,
as the great Alexander of a world. It is observable
here, how much more largely the worse prominences of
human character meet our attention than the better.
And it is a melancholy illustration of the final basis of
character, human nature itself, that both the dis-
tinctions which designate a bad class, and those which
constitute a bad individual peculiarity, are attained
with far the greatest frequency and facility. While,
however, I have the most entire conviction of this
mighty inclination to evil, which is the grand cause of
all the diversified forms of evil ; and while, at the same
time, I hold the vulgar belief of a great native dif-
ference between men, in the original temperament of
those principlesj which are to be unfolded by the
progress of time i^ta intellectual powers and moral
dispositions ; I yet cannot but perceive that the im-
mediate and occasional causes of the greater portion of
the prominent actual character of human beings, are to
be found in those moral elements through which they
pass. And if one might be pardoned for putting in
words so fantastic an idea, as that of its being possible
for a man to live back again to his infancy, through all
the scenes of his life, and to give back from his mind
and character, at each time and circumstance, as he
it, exactly that which he took from it, when
MKMOIIIS OF HIMSELF. 23
he was there before, it would be most curious to see the
fragments and exvvite of the moral man lying here and
there along the retrograde path, and to find what he
was in the beginning of this train of modifications ana
acquisitions. Nor can it be doubted that any man,
whose native tendencies were ever so determinate, and
who has passed through a course of events and interests
adapted to develope and confirm them according to
their determination, might, by being led through a dif-
ferent train, counteractive to those native tendencies,
have been an extremely different man from what he now
is. I am supposing his mind to be in either case equally
cultivated, and referring to another kind of difference
than that which would in any case be made by the dif-
ferent measure or quantity, if I may express it so, of
intellectual attainment.
Here a person of your age might pause, and "look
back with great interest on the world of circumstances
through which life has been drawn. Consider what
thousands of situations, appearances, incidents, persons,
you have been present with, each in its time. The
review would carry you over something like a chaos,
with all the moral, and all other elements, confounded
together ; and you may reflect till you begin almost to
wonder how an individual retains the same essence
through all the diversities, vicissitudes, and counter-
actions of influence, that operate on it during its
progress through the confusion. While the essential
being might, however, defy <' universe to extinguish,
absorb, or transmute it, you will find it has come out
with dispositions and habits which will shew where it
bas been, and what it has undergone. You may desc-y
ti it the marks and colours of many of the things by
^hich it has, in passing, been touched or arrested.
Consider the number of meetings with acauaintance.
'J4- ON A MAN'S WRITING
friends, or strangers ; the number c f conversations you
have held or heard ; the number of exhibitions of good
or evil, virtue or vice ; the number of occasions on
which you have been disgusted or pleased, moved to
admiration or to abhorrence ; the number of times
that you have center plated the town, the rural cottage,
or verdant fields ; the number of volumes you have read ;
the times that you "Have /ooked over the present state of
the world, or gone by means of history into past ages ;
the number of comparisons of yourself with other
persons, alive or dead, and comparisons of them with
one another; the number of solitary musings, of solemn
contemplations of night, of the successive subjects of
thought, and of animated sentiments that have been
kindled and extinguished. Add all the hours and
causes of sorrow which you have known. Through
this lengthened, and, if the number could be told,
stupendous multiplicity of things, you have advanced,
while all their heterogeneous myriads have darted in-
fluences upon you, each one of them having some
definable tendency. A traveller round the globe would
not meet a greater variety of seasons, prospects, and
winds, than you might have recorded of the circum-
stance capable of affecting your character, during
your journey of life. You could not wish to have
drawn to yourself the agency of a vaster diversity of
causes ; you could not wish, on the supposition that
you had gained advantage from all these, to wear the
spoils of a greater number of regions. The formation
of the character from so many materials reminds one
of that mighty appropriating attraction, which, on the
fanciful hypothesis that the resurrection should re-
assemble the same particles which composed the body
before, must draw them from dust, and trees, and
animals, from ocean, and winds.
MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 2.5
Jt would scarcely be expected that a being which
should be conducted through such anarchy of discipline,
in which the endless crowd of influential powers seem
waiting, each to take away what the last had given,
should be permitted to acquire, or to retain, any settled
form of qualities at all. The more probable result
would be, either several qualities disagreeing with one
another, or a blank neutrality. And in fact, a great
number of nearly such neutralities are found every
where ; persons, who, unless their sharing of the
general properties of human nature, a little modified
by the insignificant distinction of some large class, can
be called character, have no character. It is therefore
somewhat strange, if you, and if other individuals, have
come forth with moral features of a strongly marked
and consistently combined cast, from the infinity of
miscellaneous impressions. If the process has been so
complex, how comes the result to be apparently so
simple ? How has it happened that the collective effect
of these numerous and jarring operations on your mind,
is that which only a, few of these operations would have
seemed adapted to product), Jtiul quite different from that
which many others of them should naturally have pro-
duced, and do actually produce in many other persons ?
Here you will perceive that some one capital determi-
nation must long since have been by some means esta-
blished in your mind, and that, during your progress,
this predominant determination has kept you susceptible
of the effect of some influences, and fortified against
many others. Now, what was the prevailing determi-
nation, whence did it come, how did it acquire its
power ? Was it an original tendency and insuppressible
impulse of your nature ; or the result of your earliest
impressions ; or of some one class of impressions
repeated oftener than any other ; or of one single iin-
-6 ON A MANS
pression of extreme force ? What was it, a.uJ whence
did it come 'i This is the great secret in the history of
character; for, it is scarcely necessary to observe, that
as soon as the mind is under the power of a predo-
minant tendency, the difficulty of growing into the
maturity of that form of character, which this tendency
promotes or creates, is substantially over. Because,
when a determined principle is become ascendant, it
not only produces a partial insensibility to all im-
prpssions that would counteract it, but also continually
augments its own ascendency, by means of a faculty or
ratality of finding out every thing, and attracting to
itself every cause of impression, that is adapted to
coalesce with it and strengthen it ; like the instinct o.
animals, which instantly selects from the greatest
variety of substances those which are fit for their nu-
triment. Let a man have some leading and decided
propensity, and it will be surprising to see how many
more things he will find, and Low many more events
will happen, than any one could have imagined, of a
nature to reinforce it. And sometimes even circum-
stances which seemed of an entirely counteractive
order, are strangely seduced by this predominant
principle into an operation that confirms it; just in the
?ame manner as polemics most self-complacently avow
their opinions to be more firmly established by the
strongest objections of the opponent.
It would be easy to enlarge without end on the
influences of the surrounding world in forming the
character of each individual. Yet while there is no
denying that such influences are effectively operating,
a man may be unwilling to allow that he has been
quite so servilely passive, as he would probably find
that he has been, if it were possible for him to make a
complete examination. He may be disposed to think
MEMOIRS OF HIMSULr. 27
that hia reason has been an independent power, lias
kept a strict watch, and passed a right judgment oil
his moral progress, has met the circumstances of the
external world on terms of examination and authority,
and has permitted only such impressions to be received,
or at least only such consequences to follow from them,
as it wisely approved. But I would tell him, that he
has been a very extraordinary man, if the greater part
of his time has not been spent entirely without a thought
of reflecting what impressions were made on him, or
what their tendency might be ; and even without a
consciousness that the effect of any impressions was
of importance to his moral habits. He may be assured
that he has been subjected to many gentle gradual
processes, and has met many critical occasions, on
which, and on the consequences of which to himself,
he exercised no attention or opinion. And again, it is
unfortunately true, that even should attention be awake,
and opinions be formed, the faculty which fortns them
is very servile to the other parts of the human con-
stitution. If it could be extrinsic to the man, a kind
of domestic Pythia, or an attendant genius, like the
demon of Socrates, it might then be a dignified
regulator of the influences 'vhich are acting on his
character, to decide what should or should not be per-
mitted to affect him, and in what manner; though even
then its disapproving dictates might fail against some
extremely powerful impression which might give a
temporary bias, and such repetitions of that impression
as should confirm it. But the case is, that this faculty,
though mocked with imperial names, being condemned
to dwell in the company of far more active powers than
itself, and earlier exercised, becomes humbly obsequious
to them. The passio easily beguile this majestic
reason, or judgment, into neglect, or bribe it into
L'8 UN A MAN'S WRITING
acquiescence, or repress it into silence, while they
receive the impressions, and while they acquire from
those impressions that determinate direction, which will
constitute the character. If, after thus much is done
during the weakness, or without the notice, or without
the leave, or under the connivance or corruption of
the judgment, it be called upon to perform its part in
estimating the quality and actual effect of the modifying
influences, it has to perform this judicial work with just
that degree of rectitude which it can have acquired
and maintained under the operation of those very in-
fluences. In acting the judge, it is itself in subjection
to the effect of those impressions of which its office
was, to have previously decided whether they should
not be strenuously repelled. Thus its opinions will
unconsciously be perverted ; like the answers of the
ancient oracles, dictated for the imaginary god bj
beings of a very terrestrial sort, though the sly inter-
vention could not be perceived. It is quite a vulgar
observation, how pleased a UIHII may be with the for-
mation of his own character, though you smile at the
gravity of his persuasion, that his tastes, preferences,
and qualities, have on the whole grown up under the
sacred and faithful guardianship of judgment, while, in
fact, his judgment has accepted every bribe that ha'
been offered to betray him.
LETTER IV.
You will agree with me, that in a comprehensive view
of the influences which have formed, and are forming,
the characters of men, we shall find, religion excepted,
bat little cause to felicitate our species. Make the sup
MEMOIRS UK HIMSELF. 29
position that any assortment of persons, of sufficient
number to comprise the most remarkable distinctions
of character, should write memoirs of themselves, so
exactly and honestly telling the story, and exhibiting
so clearly the most effective circumstances, as to explain,
to your discernment at least, if not to their own con-
sciousness, the main process by which their minds have
attained their present state. If they were to read these
memoirs to you in succession, and if your benevolence
could so long be maintained in full exercise, and your
rules^ for estimating lost nothing of their determinate
principle in thnir application to such a confusion of
subjects, you would often, during the disclosure, regret
to obscivc how many things may be the causes of irre-
trievable mischief. Why is the path of life, you would
say, so haunted as if with evil spirits of every diversity
of noxious agency, some of which may patiently ac-
company, or others of which may suddenly cross, the
unfortunate wanderer? And you would regret to
observe into how many forms of intellectual and moral
perversion the human mind readily yields itself to be
modified.
As one of the number concluded the account of
himself, your observation would be, I perceive with
compassion the process under which you have become
a misanthropist. If your juvenile ingenuous ardour
had not been chilled on your entrance into society,
where your most favourite sentiments were not at all
comprehended by some, and by others deemed wise and
proper enough perhaps for the people of the millen-
nium ; if you had not felt the mortification of relations
"oeing uncongenial, of persons whom you were anxious
co render happy being indifferent to your kindness, or
of apparent friendships proving treacherous or trans-
tory; if you had not nipt with such striking instances
30 ON A MAN S WRITING
of hopeless stupidity in the vulgar, or of vain self-
importance in the learned, o~ of the coarse or super-
cilious arrogance of the persons whose manners were
always regulated by the consideration of the proportion
of gold and cilver by which they were better than you ;
if your mortifications had not given you a keen faculty
of perceiving the all -pervading selfishness of mankind,
while, in addition, you had perhaps a peculiar oppor-
tunity to observe the apparatus of systematic villany,
by which combinations of men are able to arm their
selfishness to oppress or ravage the world you might
even now, perhaps, have been the persuasive instructor
of beings, concerning whom you are wondering why
they should have been made in the form of rationals ;
you might have conciliated to yourself and to goodness,
where you repel and are repelled; you might have been
the apostle and pattern of benevolence, instead of
envying the powers and vocation of a destroying angel
Yet not that the world should bear all the blame.
Frail and changeable in virtue, you might perhaps have
been good under a series of auspicious circumstances ;
but the glory had- been to be victoriously good against
malignant ones. Moses lost none of his generous
concern for a people, on whom you would have invoked
the waters of Noah or the fires of Sodom to return;
and that Greater than Moses, who endured from men
such a matchless excess of injustice, while for their
sake alone ne sojourned and suffered on parth, was not
alienated to misanthropy, in his life, or at his death.
A second sketch might exhibit external circumstances
not producing any effect more serious than an in-
tellectual stagnation. When it was concluded, your
reflection might be, if I did not know that mental
freedom is a dangerous thing, peculiarly in situations
where the possessor would feel it a singular attainment :
MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. Hi
and if 1 did not prefer even the quiescence of un-
examining belief, when tolerably right in the most
material points, to the indifference or scepticism which
feels no assurance or no importance in any belief, or to
the weak presumption that darts into the newest and
most daring opinions as therefore true I should deplore
that your life was destined to preserve its sedate course
so entirely unanimated by the intellectual novelties of
the age, the agitations of ever-moving opinion ; and
under the habitual and exclusive influence of one in-
dividual, worthy perhaps and in a certain degree sen-
sible, but of contracted views, whom you have been
taught and accustomed to regard as the comprehensive
repository of all the truth requisite for you to know, and
from whom you have derived, as some of your chief
acquisitions, a contented assurance that the trouble of
inquiry is needless, and a superstitious horror of inno-
vation, without even knowing what points are threatened
by it.
At the end of another's disclosure, you would say,
How unfortunate, that you could not believe there
might be respectable and valuable men, who were not
born to be wits or poets. And how unfortunate were
those first evenings that you were privileged to listen
to a company of men, who could say more fine things
in an hour than their biographers will be able, even with
the customary aid of laudatory fiction, to record them
to have done in the whole space of life. It was then you
discovered that you too were of the progeny of Apollo,
and that you had been iniquitously transferred at
your nativity into the hands of ignorant foster-parents,
who had endeavoured to degrade and confine you to
the sphere of regular employments and sober satis-
factions. But, you would "tower up to the region of
jour sire." You saw what wonderful things might Ixa
32 ON A MAN'S WRITING
found to be said on all subjects; you fouiid it not so
very difficult yourself to say different things from other
people : and every thing that was not common dulness,
was therefore pointed, every thing that was not sense
by any vulgar rule, was therefore sublime. You adopted
a certain vastitude of phrase, mistaking extravagance
of expression for greatness of thought. You set your-
self to dogmatize on books, and the abilities of men,
but especially on their prejudices; and perhaps to de-
molish, with the air of an exploit, some of the trite
observations and maxims current in society. You
awakened and surprised your imagination, by imposing
on it a strange new tax of colours and metaphors; a
tax reluctantly and uncouthly paid, but perhaps in some
one instance so luckily, as to gain the applause of the
gifted (if they were not merely eccentric) men, into
whose company you had been elated by admittance.
This was to you the proof and recognition of fraternity r
and it has since been the chief question that has inter-
ested you with each acquaintance and in each company,
whether they too could perceive what you were so happy
to have discovered, yet so anxious that the acknow-
ledgment of others should confirm. Your own per-
suasion, however, became as pertinacious as ivy climbing
a wall. It was almost of course to attend to necessary
pursuits with reluctant irregularity, though suffering
by the consequences of neglecting them, and to feel
indignant that genius should be reproached for the
disregard of these ordinary duties and employments
to which it ought never to have been subjected.
During a. projector's story of life and misfortunes, you
might regret that he should ever have heard of Harri-
son's time-piece, the perpetual motion, or the Greek fire.
After an antiquary's history, you might be allowed
.o congratulate yourself on not having fallen under
MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 33
the spell which confines a human soul to inhabit, like
a spider in one of the corners, a dusty room, con-
secrated with religious solemnity to old coins, rusty
knives, illuminated mass books, swords and spurs ol
forgotten kings, and slippers of their queens; with
perhaps a Roman helmet, the acquisition of which was
the first cause of the collection and of the passion,
elevated imperially over the relics of kings and queens
and the whole museum, as the eagle was once in "proud
eminence" over subjugated kingdoms. And you might
be inclined to say, I wish that helmet had been a pan
for charcoal, or had been put on the head of one of
the quiet equestrian warriors in the Tower, or had aided
the rattlings of Sir Godfrey, haunting the baron's castle
where he was murdered, or had been worn by Don
Quixote, instead of the barber's basin, or had been the
cauldron of Macbeth's witches, or had been in any
other shape, place, or use, rather than dug up an anti-
quity, in a luckless hour, in a bank near your garden.
I compassionate you, would, in a very benevolent
hour, be your language to the wealthy unfeeling tyrant
of a family and a neighbourhood, who seeks, in the
overawed timidity and unretaliated injuries of the un-
fortunate beings within his power, the gratification that
should have been sought in their happiness. Unless
you had brought into the world some extraordinary
refractoriness to the influence of evil, the process that
you have undergone could not fail of being efficacious.
If your parents idolized their own importance in their
son so much, that they never themselves opposed your
iclinations, nor permitted it to be done by any subject
to their authority; if the humble companion, sometimes
summoned to the honour of amusing you, bore your
caprices and insolence with the meekness without which
he had lost his privilege; if you could despoil the garden
?! ON A MAN S WRITING
of some harmless dependent neighbour of the carefully
reared flowers, and torment his little do<r or cat, without
his daring to punish you or to appeal to your infatuated
parents ; if aged men addressed you in a submissive
tone, and with the appellation of " Sir," and their aged
wives uttered their wonder at your condescension, and
pushed their grandchildren away from around the fire
for your sake, if you happened, though with the stru*
of supercilious pertness, and your hat on your head,
to enter one of their cottages, perhaps to express your
contempt of the homely dwelling, furniture, and fare ;
if, in maturer life, you associated with vile persons,
who would forego the contest of equality, to be your
allies in trampling on inferiors ; and if, both then and
since, you have been suffered to deem your wealth the
compendium or equivalent of every ability, and every
good quality it would indeed be immensely strange
f you had not become, in due time, the miscreant, who
may thank the power of the laws in civilized society,
that he is not assaulted with clubs and stones ; to whom
one could cordially wish the opportunity and the con-
sequer^es of attempting his tyranny among some such
people as those submissive sons of nature in the forests
of North America ; and whose dependents and domestic
relations may be almost forgiven when they shall one
day rejoice at his funeral.
LETTER V.
1 WILL imagine only one case more, on which you
would emphatically express your compassion, though
for one of the most daring beings in the creation, a
oontemner of God, who explodes his laws by denying
his ex
MEMOIRS OP HIMSELF. 35
If you were so unacquainted with mankind, that
such a being might be announced to you as a rare or
singular phenomenon, your conjectures, till you saw
and heard the man, at the nature and the extent of the
discipline through which he must have advanced, would
be led toward something extraordinary. And you
might think that the term of that discipline must have
been very long; since a quick train of impressions, a
short series of mental gradations, within the little space
of a few months and years, would not seem enough to
have matured such a portentous heroism. Surely the
creature that thus lifts his voice, and defies all invisible
power within the possibilities of infinity, challenging
whatever unknown being may hear him, and may ap-
propriate that title of Almighty which is pronounced
in scorn, to evince his existence, if he will, by his
vengeance, was not as yesterday a little child that
would tremble and cry at the approach of a diminutive
reptile.
But indeed it is heroism no longer, if he know that
there is no God. The wonder then turns on the great
process, by which a man could grow to the immense
intelligence which can know that there is no God.
What ages and what lights are requisite for THIS
attainment! This intelligence involves the very attri-
butes of Divinity, while a God is denied. For unless
this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment in
every place in the universe, he cannot know but there
may be in some place manifestations of a Deity, by
which even he would be overpowered. If he does not
know absolutely every agent in the universe, the one
that he does not know may be God. If he is not
himself the chief agent in the universe, and does not
know what is so, that which is so may be God. If he
is not in absolute possession of all the propositions
B*
' w ON A MANS WRITING
that constitute universal truth, the one which he want 1 ?
may be, that there is a God. If he cannot with cer-
tainty assign the cause of ail that he percei/es to exist,
that cause may be a God. If he does not know every
thing that has been done in the immeasurable ages that
are past, some things may have been done by a God.
Thus, unless he knows all things, that is, precludes all
other divine existence by being Deity himself, he
cannot know that the Being whose existence he rejects,
does not exist. But he must know that he does not
exist, else he deserves equal contempt and compassion
for the temerity with which he firmly avows his rejec-
tion and acts accordingly. And yet a man of ordinary
age and intelligence may present himself to you with
the avowal of being thus distinguished from the crowd ;
and if he would describe the manner in which he has
attained this eminence, you would feel a melancholy
interest in contemplating that process of which the
result is so prodigious.
If you did not know that there are more than a few
such examples, you would say, in viewing this result,
I should hope this is the consequence of some malig-
nant intervention so occasional that ages may pass
away before it return among men ; some peculiar con-
junction of disastrous influences must have lighted on
your selected soul ; you have been struck by that
energy of evil which acted upon tlie spirits of Pharao
and Epiphanes. But give youi own description of
what you have met with, in a world which has be ^n
deemed to present in every part the indications of a
Deity. Tell of the mysterious voices which have
spoken to you from the deeps of the creation, falsifying
the expressions marked on its face. Tell of the new
ideas, which, ?:ke meteors passing over the solita y
Wanderer, gave you the first glimpses of truth while
MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF.
benighted in the common belief of the Divine exis-
tence. Describe the whole train of causes which have
operated to create and consolidate that state of mind,
which you carryforward to the great experiment of fu-
turity under a different kind of hazard from all other
classes of men.
It would be found, however, that those circum-
stances, by which even a man who had been presented
from his infancy with the ideas of religion, could be
elated into a contempt of its great object, were far
from being extraordinary. They might have been
incident to any man, whose mind had been cultivated
and exercised enough to feel interested about holding
any system of opinions at all ; whose pride had been
gratified in the consciousness of having the liberty of
selecting and changing opinions ; and whose habitual
assent to the principles of religion, had neither the
firmness resulting from decisive arguments, nor the
warmth of pious affection. * Such a person had only, in
the first place, to come into intimate acquaintance with
a man, who had the art of alluding to a sacred subject
in a manner which, without appearing like intentional
* It will be obvious that I am describing the progress of one of
the humbler order of aliens from all religion, and not that by which
the gre.it philosophic leaders have ascended the dreary eminence
where they look with so much complacency up to a vacant heaven,
and down to the gulf of annihilation. Their progress undoubtedly' is
much more systematic and deliberate, and accompanied often by a
laborious speculation, which, though in ever so perverted a train, the
mind is easily persuaded to identify, because it is laborious, with the
search after truth and the love of it. While, however, it is in a
persevering train of thought, and not by the hasty movements of a
more vulgar mind, that they pursue their deviation from some of the
principles of religion into a final abandonment of it all, they are very
greatly mistaken if they assure themselves that the moral causes
which contribute to guide and animate their progress are all of a
cublime order; and if they could be fully revealed to their own
view, they might pernaps be severely mortified to find what vulgar
38 ON A MANS WAITING
contempt, divested it of its solemnity : and who had
possessed himself of a few acute observations or plau-
sible maxims, not explicitly hostile to revealed religion,
but which, when opportunely bro ght into view in
connexion with some points of it, t nded to throw a
degree of doubt on their truth and authority. Espe-
cially if either or both of these men had any decided
moral tendencies and pursuits of a kind which Chris-
tianity condemned, the friend of intellectual and moral
freedom was assiduous to insinuate, that, according to
the principles of reason and nature at least, it would
be difficult to prove the wisdom or the necessity of
some of those dictates of religion, which must, how-
ever, be admitted, be respected, because divine. Let
the mind have once acquired a feeling, as if the sacred
system might in some points be invalidated, and the
nvoluntary inference would be rapidly extended to
other parts, and to the whole. Nor was it long pro-
bably before this new instructor plainly avowed his own
entire emancipation from a popular prejudice, to which
he was kindly sorry to find a sensible young man still
in captivity. But he had no doubt that the deductions
motives, while they were despising vulgar men, have ruled their
intellectual career. Pride, which idolizes self, which revolts at
every thing that comes in the form of dictates, and exults to find
that there is a possibility of controverting whether any dictates come
from a greater than mortal source : repugnance as well to the severe
and comprehensive morality of the laws reputed of divine appoint-
ment, as to the feeling of accountableness to an all-powerful
Authority, that will not leave moral laws to be enforced solely by
their own sanctions ; contempt of inferior men ; the attraction of a
few brilliant examples; the fashion of a class; the ambition of
showing what ability can do, and what boldness can dare if such
things as these, after all, have excited and directed the efforts of a
philosophic spirit, the unbelieving philosopher must be content to
acknowledge plenty of companions and rivals among little men,
who are quite as capable of beinjj nctuated by such elevated prin-
ciples as himself!
MEMOIRS OF IlliflSELF. 39
of enlightened reason would successfully appeal to
every liberal mind. And accordingly, after perhaps a
few months of frequent intercourse, with the addition
of two or three books, and the ready aid of all the
recollected vices of pretended Christians, and pretended
Christian churches, the whole venerable magnificence
of revelation was annihilated. Its illuminations re*
specting the Divinity, its miracles, its Messiah, its
authority of moral legislation, its regions of immor-
tality and retribution, the sublime virtues and devotion
of its prophets, apostles, and martyrs, together with
the reasonings of so many accomplished advocates, and
the credibility of history itself, were vanished all away ;
while the convert, exulting in his disenchantment, felt a
strange pleasure to behold nothing but a dreary train
of impostures and credulity stretching over those past
ages which lately appeared a scene of divine govern-
ment ; and the thickest Egyptian shades fallen on that
total vast futurity toward which the spirit of inspiration
had thrown some grand though partial gleams.
Nothing tempts the mind so powerfully on, as to
have successfully begun to demolish what has been
long regarded as most sacred. The soldiers of Caesar
probably had never felt themselves so brave, as after
they had cut down the Massilian grove ; nor the Phi-
listines, as when the ark of the God of Israel was
among their spoils : the mind is proud of its triumphs
in proportion to the reputed greatness of what it has
overcome. And many examples would seem to in-
dicate, that the first proud triumphs over religious
faith, involve some fatality of advancing, however
formidable the mass of arguments which may obstruct
the progress, to further victories. But perhaps the
intellectual difficulty of the progress might be less than
a zealous believer would be apt to imagine. As the
40 ON A MAN S WRITING
ideas which give the greatest distinctness to our con-
ception of a Divine Being are imparted by revelation f
and rest on its authority, Ihe rejection of that reve-
lation would in a great measure banish those ideas, and
destroy that distinctness. We have but to advert to
oure heathenism, to perceive what a faint conception of
this Being could be formed by the strongest intellect .in
the absence of revelation ; and after the rejection of it,
the mind would naturally be carried very far back
toward that darkness ; so that some of the attributes of
the Deity would immediately become, as they were
with the heathens, subjects of doubtful conjecture and
hopeless speculation. But from this state of thought
it is perhaps no vast transition to that, in v/hich his
being also shall begin to appear a subject of doubt ;
since the reality of a being is with difficulty appre-
hended, in proportion as its attributes are undefinable.
And when the mind is brought into doubt, we know it
easily advances to disbelief, if to the smallest plausi-
bility of arguments be added any powerful moral cause
for wishing such a conclusion. In the present case,
there might be a very powerful cause, besides that
pride of victory which I have just noticed. The
progress in guilt, which generally follows a rejection of
revelation, makes it stiJl more and more desirable that
no object should remain to be feared. It was not
strange, therefore, if this man read with avidity, or
even strange if he read with something which his
wishes completed into conviction, a few of the writers,
who have attempted the last achievement of pre-
sumptuous man. A fter inspecting these pages awhile,
he raised his eyes, and the Great Spirit was gone.
Mighty transformation of all things I The luminaries
of heaven no longer shone with his splendour; the
adorned earth no longer looked fair with his beauty
OF HIMSELF. 41
the darkness of night had ceased to be rendered solemn
by his majesty ; life and thought were not an effect of
nis all-pervading energy ; it was not his providence
that supported an infinite charge of dependent beings ;
his empire of justice no longer spread over the universe ;
nor had even that universe sprung from his all-creating
power. Yet when you saw the intellectual course
brought to this signal conclusion, though aware of the
force of each preceding and predisposing circumstance,
you might nevertheless be somewhat struck with the
suddenness of the final decision, and might be curious
to know what kind of argument and eloquence could
so quickly finish the work. You would examine those
pages with the expectation probably of something more
powerful than subtlety attenuated into inanity, and, in
that invisible and impalpable state, mistaken by the
writer, and willingly admitted by the perverted reader,
for profundity of reasoning ; than attempts to destroy
the certainty, or preclude the application, of some of
those great familiar principles which must be taken as
the basis of human reasoning, or it can have no basis
than suppositions which attribute the order of the
universe to such causes as it would be felt ridiculous
to pronounce adequate to produce the most trifling
piece of mechanism ; than mystical jargon which,
under the name of nature, alternately exalts almost
into the properties of a god, and reduces far below
those of a man, some imaginary and uudefinable agent
or agency, which performs the most amazing works
without power, and displays the most amazing wisdom
without intelligence; than a zealous preference of that
part of every great dilemma which merely confounds
and sinks the mind to that which elevates while it
overwhelms it ; than a constant endeavour to degrade
as far as possible every thing that is sublime in oui
4-2 ON A MAN'S WRITING
speculations and feelings ; or than monstrous parallels
between religion and mythology. You would be still
more unprepared to expect on so solemn a subject the
occasional wit, or affectation of wit, which would seem
rather prematurely expressive of exultation that the
grand Foe is retiring.
A feeling of complete certainty would hardly be
thus rapidly attained ; but a slight degree of remaining
doubt, and of consequent apprehension, would not
prevent this disciple of darkness from accepting the
invitation to pledge himself to the cause in some asso-
ciated band, where profaneness and vice would conso-
lidate impious opinions without the aid of augmented
conviction ; and where the fraternity, having been
elated by the spirit of social daring to say, What is the
Almighty that we should serve him ? the individuals
might acquire each a firmer boldness to exclaim, Who
is the Lord that / should obey his voice ? Thus easy
it is, my friend, for a man to meet that train of influ-
ences which may seduce him to live an infidel, though
it may betray him to die a terrified believer ; of which
the infatuation, while it promises him the impunity of
non-existence, and degrades him to desire it, impels
him to till the measure of his iniquity, till the divine
wrath come upon him to the uttermost
LETTER VI.
IN recounting so many influences that operate on
man, it is grievous to observe that the incomparably
noblest of all, religion, is counteracted with a fatal
success by a perpetual conspiracy of almost all the rest,
a : ded by the intrinsic predisposition of this our per-
Ml VOlIC OK II I MSM K 43
nature, which yields itself with such consenting
facility, to every impression tending to estrange it still
further from God.
It is a cause for wonder and sorrow, to see millions
of rational creatures growing into their permanent
habits, under the conforming efficacy of every thing
which it were good for them to resist, and receiving no
part of those habits from impressions of the Supreme
Object. They are content that a narrow scene of a
diminutive world, with its atoms and evils, should usurp
and deprave and finish their education for endless
existence, while the Infinite Spirit is here, whose sacred
energy, received on their minds, might create the most
excellent condition of their nature, and, in defiance of
a thousand malignant forces attempting to stamp on
them an opposite image, convey them into eternity in
his likeness. Oh, why is it so possible that this greatest
inhabitant of every place where men are living, should
be the last to whose society they are attracted, or of
whose continual presence they feel the importance f
Why is it possible to be surrounded with the intelligent
Reality, which exists wherever we are, with attributes
that are infinite, and not feel respecting all other things
which may be attempting to press on our minds and
affect their character, as if they retained with difficulty
their shadows of existence, and were continually on
the point of vanishing into nothing? Why is this
stupendous Power so unperceived and silent, while
present, over all the scenes of the earth, and in all the
paths and abodes of men ? Why does he keep his
glory veiled behind the shades and visions of the
material world ? Why does not this latent glory some-
times beam forth with such a manifestation as could
never be forgotten, nor could ever be remembered
without an emotion of religious awe? And why, in
44 ON A MAN'S WRITING
contempt of all that he has displayed to excite either
fear or love, is it still possible for a rational creature so
to live, that it must finally come to an interview with
him in a character completed by the full assemblage of
those acquisitions, which have separately been disap-
proved by him through every stage of the accumu-
lation ? Why is it possible for feeble creatures to
maintain their little dependent beings fortified and
invincible in sin, amidst the presence of essential
purity ? Why does not the apprehension of such a
Being strike through the mind with such intense anti-
pathy to evil, as to blast with death every active prin-
ciple that is beginning to pervert it, and render gradual
additions of depravity, growing into the solidity of
habit, as impossible as for perishable materials to be
raised into structures amidst the fires of the last day ?
How is it possible to escape the solicitude, whici.
should be inseparable from the knowledge that the
beams of all-searching intelligence are continually
darting on us, and pervading us ; that we arc exposed
to the piercing inspection, compared to which the
concentrated attention of all the beings in the universe
besides, would be but as the powerless gaze of an
infant ? Why is faith, that faculty of spiritual appre-
hension, so absent, or so incomparably less perceptive
of the grandest of its objects, than the senses are of
theirs ? While there is a Spirit in infinite energy
through the universe, why have the few particles of
dust which enclose our spirits the power to intercept
all sensible communication with him, and to place them
as in a vacuity, where the sovereign Essence had been
precluded or extinguished?
The reverential submission, with which you con
template the mystery of omnipotent benevolence for
bearing to exert the agency, which could assume a
MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 45
instantaneous ascendancy in every mind over the causes
f depravation and ruin, will not avert your compassion
from the unhappy persons who are practically "without
God in the world." And if your intellect could be
enlarged to a capacity for comprehending the whole
measure and depth of disaster contained in this ex-
clusion, (an exclusion uuder which a human being
having the full and fearful truth of his situation revealed
to him would behold, as relatively to his happiness, the
whole resources of the creation sunk as into dust and
ashes, and all the causes of joy and hope reduced to
insipidity and lost in despair,) you would feel a dis-
tressing emotion at each recital of a life in which
religion had no share ; and you would be tempted to
wish that some spirit from the other world, empowered
with an eloquence that might threaten to alarm the
slumbers of the dead, would throw himself in the way
)f this one mortal, and this one more, to protest, in
sentences of lightning and thunder, against the in-
fatuation that can at once acknowledge there is a God,
and be content to forego every connexion with him, but
that of danger. You would wish they should rather
be assailed by the " terror of the Lord," in whatever
were its most appalling form, than retain the satisfaction
of carelessness till the day of his mercy be past.
But you will need no such enlargement of compre-
hension, in order to compassionate the situation of
persons who, with reason sound to think, and hearts
not strangers to feeling, have advanced far into lift,
perhaps near to its close, without having felt the in-
fluence of religion. If there is such a Being as we
mean by the term God, the ordinary intelligence of a
serious mind will be quite enough to see that it must
be a melancholy thing to pass through life, and quit it,
just as if there were not. And sometimes it will appear
46 ON A MAN'S WRITING
as strange as it is melancholy ; especially to a person who
has been pious from his youth. He would be inclined
to say, to a person who has nearly finished an irreligious
Hie, What would have been justly thought of you, if
you could have been habitually in the society of the
wisest and best men on earth, and have acquired no
degree of conformity ; much more, if you could all the
while have acquired progressively the meanness, pre-
judices, follies, and vices, of the lowest society, with
which you might have been at intervals thrown in
unavoidable contact? You might have been asked
how that was possible. But then through what fatality
have you been able, during so many years spent in the
presence of a God, to continue even to this hour as
clear of all signs of assimilation or impression as if the
Deity were but a poetical fiction, or an idol in some
temple of Asia ? Evidently, as the immediate cause,
trough want of thought concerning him.
And why did you not think of him ? Did a most
solemn thought of him never once penetrate your soul,
while admitting it true that there is such a Being ? If
it never did, what is reason, \vhat is mind, what is man?
If it did once, how could its effects stop there ? How
could a deep thought on so transcendent a subject, fail
to impose on the mind a permanent necessity of fre-
quently recalling it ; as some awful or magnificent
spectacle would haunt you with a long recurrence of
its image, even were the spectacle itself seen no more?
Why did you not think of him ? How could you
estimate so meanly your mind with all its capacities, as
to feel no regret that an endless series of trifles should
seize, and occupy as their right, all your thoughts, and
deny them both the liberty and the ambition of going
on to the greatest Object ? How, while called to the
contemplations which absorb the spirits of Heaven,
MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 47
.jould you be so patient of the task of counting the
Hies of a summer's day ?
Why did you not think of him ? You knew yoursell
to be in the hands of some Being from whose power
you could not be withdrawn ; was it not an equal defect
of curiosity and prudence to indulge a careless con-
fidence that sought no acquaintance with his nature,
as regarded in itself and in its aspect on his creatures ;
nor ever anxiously inquired what conduct should be
observed toward him, and what expectations might be
entertained from him ? You would have been alarmed
to have felt yourself in the power of a mysterious
stranger, of your own feeble species ; but let the
stranger be omnipotent, and you oared no more.
Why did you not think of him ? One would deem
that the thought of him must, to a serious mind, come
second to almost every thought. The thought of virtue
would suggest the thought of both a lawgiver and a
rewarder ; the thought of crime, of an avenger ; the
thought of sorrow, of a consoler ; the thought of an
inscrutable mystery, of an intelligence that understands
it ; the thought of that ever-moving activity which
prevails in the system of the universe, of a supreme
agent ; the thought of the human family, of a great
father ; the thought of all being not necessary and
self-existent, of a creator ; the thought of life, of a pre-
server ; and the thought of death, of an uncontrollable
disposer. By what dexterity, therefore, of irreligious
caution, did you avoid precisely every track where the
idea of him would have met you, or elude that idea
if it came ? And what must sound reason pronounce
of a mind which, in the train of millions of thoughts,
has wandered to all things under the sun, to all the per-
nanent objects or vanishing appearances in the creation,
Vwt never fixed its thought on the Supreme Realitr
*8 ON A MAN S WRITING
never approached, like Moses, " to see this great
sight ?"
If it were a thing which we might be allowed to
imagine, that the Divme Being were to manifest himself
in some striking manner to the senses, as by some re-
splendent appearance at the midnight hour, or by
rekindling on -an elevated mountain the long extin-
guished fires of Sinai, and uttering voices from those
fires ; would he not compel from you an attention
which you now refuse ? Yes, you will say, he would
then seize the mind with irresistible force, and religion
would become its most absolute sentiment ; but he only
presents himself to faith. Well, and is it a worthy
reason for disregarding him, that you only believe him
to be present and infinitely glorious ? Is it the office
of faith to veil, to frustrate, to annihilate in effect, its
object ? Cannot you reflect, that the grandest repre-
entation of a spiritual and divine Being to the senses
would bear not only no proportion to his glory, but no
relation to his nature ; and could be adapted only to
an inferior dispensation of religion, and to a people
who, with the exception of a most extremely small
number of men, had been totally untaught to carry their
thoughts beyond the objects of sense ? Are you not
aware, that such a representation would considerably
tend to restrict you in your contemplation to a defined
tnage, and therefore a most inadequate and subordi-
nate idea of the divine Being ? while the idea admitted
by faith, though less immediately striking, is capable of
an illimitable expansion, by the addition of all that pro-
gressive thought can accumulate, under the continual
certainty that all is still infinitely short of the reality.
On the review of a character thus grown, in the
exclusion of the religious influences, to the nature and
perhaps ultimate state, the sentiment of pious lece-
MF.MOIK , OF HIMSELF. 49
volence would be, I regard you as an object of great
compassion, unless there can be no felicity in friendship
with the Almighty, unless there be no glory in beinu
assimilated to his excellence, unless there be no
eternal rewards for his devoted servants, unless there
be no danger in meeting him, at length, after a life
estranged equally from his love and his fear. I deplore,
at every period and crisis in the review of your life,
that religion was not there. If that had been there,
your youthful animation would neither have been dis-
sipated in the frivolity which, in the morning of tin-
short day of life, fairly and formally sets aside ail
serious business for that day, nor would have sprung
forward into the emulation of vice, or the bravery of
profaneness. If religion had been there, that one
despicable companion, and that other malignant one,
would not have seduced you into their society, or would
not have retained you to share their degradation. And
If religion had accompanied the subsequent progress of
your life, it would have elevated you to rank, at this
hour, with those saints who will soon be added to " the
spirits of the just." Instead of which, what are you
now, and what are your expectations as looking to that
world, where piety alone can hope to find such a sequel
of existence, as will inspire exultation in the retrospect
of this introductory life, in which the spirit took its
impress for eternity from communication with God ?
On the other hand, it would be interesting to record,
or to hear, the history of a character which has received
its form, and reached its maturity, under the strongest
efficacy of religion. We do not know that there is a
more beneficent or a more direct mode of the divine
agency in any part of the creation than that which
" apprehends " a man, (as apostolic language expresses
it.) amidst the unthinking crowd, constrains him to
50 ON A WAN'S WRITING
serious reflection, subdues him under persuasive con-
viction, elevates him to devotion, and matures him in
progressive virtue, in order to his passing finally to a
nobler state of existence. When he has long been
commanded by this influence, he will be happy to look
back to its first operations, whether they were mingled
in early life almost insensibly with his feelings, or came
on him with mighty force at some particular time, and
in connexion with some assignable and memorable cir-
cumstance which was apparently the instrumental cause.
He will trace the progress of this his better life, with
grateful acknowledgment to the sacred power that has
wrought him to a confirmation of religious habit which
puts the final seal on his character. In the great
majority of things, habit is a greater plague than ever
afflicted Egypt : in religious character, it is eminently
a felicity. The devout man exults to feel that in aid
of the simple force of the divine principles within him,
there has grown by time an accessional power, which
has almost taken place of his will, and holds a firm
though quiet domination through the general action of
his mind. He feels this confirmed habit as the grasp
of the hand of God, which will never let him go
From this advanced state he looks with confidence on
futurity, and says, I carry the indelible mark upon me
that I belong to God ; by being devoted to him I am
*ree of the universe ; and I am ready to go to any
world to which he shall please to transmit me, certain
that every where, in height or depth, he will acknow-
me for ever.
MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. . j J
LETTER VII.
THE preceding letters have attempted to exhibit only
general views of the influences, by which a reflective
man may perceive the moral condition of his mind to
have been determined.
In descending into more particular illustrations, there
would have been no end of enumerating the local cir-
cumstances, the relationships of life, the professions
and employments, and the accidental events, which
may have affected the character. A person who feels
any interest, in reviewing what has formed thus far his
education for futurity, may carry his own examination
into the most distinct particularity. A few miscel-
'aneous observations will conclude the essay.
You will have observed that I have said comparatively
little of that which forms the exterior, and in general
account the main substance, of the history of a man's life
the train of his fortunes and actions. If an adventurer
or a soldier writes memoirs of himself for the infor-
mation or amusement of the public, he may do well to
keep his narrative alive by a constant crowded course
of facts ; for the greater part of his readers will excuse
him the trouble of investigating, and he might occa-
sionally feel it a convenience to be excused from dis-
closing, if he had investigated, the history and merits
of his internal principles. Nor can this ingenuousness
be any part of his duty, any more than it is that of an
exhibiter in a public show, as long as he tells all thut
probably he professes to tell where he has been, what
he has witnessed, and the more reputable portion of
what he has done. Let him go on with his lively
anecdotes, or his legends of the marvellous, or hi*
K2
52 ON A MAN S WRITIKU
gazettes of marches, stratagems and skirmishes, and
there is no obligation for him to turn either penitent
or philosopher on our hands. But I am supposing a
man to retrace himself through his past life, in order
to acquire a deep self-knowledge, and to record the
investigation for his own i-nstruction. Through such
a retrospective examination, the exterior life will hold
but the second place in attention, as being the im-
perfect offspring of that internal state, which it is the
primary and more difficult object to review. From an
effectual inquisition into this inner man, the investigator
may proceed outward, to the course of his actions ; of
which he will thus have become qualified to form a
much juster estimate, than he could by any exercise of
judgment upon them regarded merely as exterior facts.
No doubt that sometimes also, in a contrary process,
the judgment will be directed upon the dispositions
ind principles within by a consideration of the actions
without, which will serve as a partial explication of
the interior character. Still it is that interior cha-
racter, whether displayed in actions or not, which
forms the leading object of inquiry. The chief cir-
cumstances of his practical life will, however, require
to be noted, both for the purpose of so much illus-
tration as they will afford of the state of his mind,
and because they mark the points, and distinguish the
stages, of his progress.
Though in memoirs intended for publication, a
large share of incident and action would generally be
necessary, yet there are some men whose mental history
alone might be very interesting to reflective reader- ;
as, for instance, that of a thinking man, remarkable
for a number of complete changes of his speculative
system. From observing the usual tenacity of views
once deliberately adopted in mature life, we regard as
MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. .',.',
a curious phenomenon the man whose mind has been
a kind of caravansera of opinions, entertained awhile,
and then sent on pilgrimage ; a man who has admired
and dismissed systems with the same facility with
which John Buncle found, adored, married, and in-
terred, his succession of wives, each one being, for the
time, not only better than all that went before, but the
best in the world. You admire the versatile aptitude
of a mind, sliding into successive forms of belief, in
this intellectual metempsychosis by which it animates
so many new bodies of doctrines in their turn. And
as none of those dying pangs which hurt you in a tale
of India, attend the desertion of each of these specu-
lative forms which the soul has awhile inhabited, you
are extremely amused by the number of transmigrations,
and curious to see what is to be the next ; for you never
reckon on the present state of such a man's views, as
to be for permanence, unless perhaps when he has
terminated his course of believing every thing, in ulti-
mately believing nothing. Even then, unless he be
very old, or feel more pride in being a sceptic, the
conqueror of all systems, than he ever felt in being the
champion of one, even then, it is very possible he may
spring up again, like an igneous vapour from a bog,
and glimmer through new mazes, or retrace his course
through half of those he went errant through before.
You will observe, that no respect is attached to this
Proteus of opinion, after his changes have been mul-
tiplied ; as no party expect him to remain with them,
or account him much of an acquisition if he should.
One, or perhaps two, considerable changes, will be
regarded as signs of a liberal inquirer, and therefore
the party to which his first or his second intellectual
conversion may assign him, will receive him gladly.
But he will be doemed to have abdicated the dignity of
54- ON A MAN S WRJ1ING
reasc 11, when it is found that he can adopt no principles
but to betray them ; and it will be perhaps justly
suspected that there is something extremely infirm in
the structure of that mind, whatever vigour may mark
some of its operations, to which a series of very dif-
ferent and sometimes contrasted theories, can appear
in succession demonstratively tn 6, and which imitates
sincerely the perverseness which Petruchio only affected,
declaring that which was yesterday, to a certainty, the
sun, to be to-day, as certainly, the moon.
It would be curious to observe in a man who should
make such an exhibition of the course of his mind, the
sly deceit of self-love. While he despises the system
which he has rejected, it must not imply so great a
want of sense in him once to have embraced it, as in
the rest, who were then or are now its adherents and
advocates. No, in him it was no debility of intellect,
it was at most but its immaturity or temporary lapse ;
and probably he is prepared to explain to you that
such peculiar circumstances, as might warp a very
strong and liberal mind, attended his consideration of
the subject, and misled him to admit the belief of what
others prove themselves fools by believing.
Another thing apparent in a record of changed
opinions would be, what I have noticed before, that
there is scarcely any such thing in the world as simple
conviction. It would be amusing to observe how the
judgment had, in one instance, been overruled into
acquiescence by the admiration of a celebrated name,
or in another, into opposition by the envy of it ; how
most opportunely judgment discovered the truth just
at the time that interest could be essentially served by
avowing it ; how easily the impartial examiner could
be induced to adopt some part of another man's
Opinions, after that other had zealously approved some
MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF 5ft
fkvourite, especially if unpopular part of his; as the
Pharisees almost became partial even to Christ, at the
moment that he defended one of their doctrines against
*he Sadducees. It would be curious to see how a
respectful estimate of a man's character and talents
might be changed, in consequence of some personal
inattention experienced from him, into depreciating
invective against him or his intellectual performances,
and yet the railer, though actuated solely by petty
revenge, account himself, all the while, the model of
equity and sound judgment.* It might be seen how
th patronage of power could elevate miserable pre-
judices into revered wisdom, while poor old Experience
was mocked with thanks for her instruction ; and hov.
the vicinity and society of the rich, and as they are
termed, great, could perhaps transmute a mind that
seemed to be of the stern consistence of the early
Roman republic, into the gentlest wax on which Cor-
ruption could wish to imprint the venerable creed,
" The right divine of kings to govern wrong," with the
pious and loyal inference of the flagrant iniquity of
expelling Tarquin. I am supposing the observer to
perceive all these accommodating dexterities of reason ;
for it were probably absurd to expect that any mind
should itself be able, in its review, to detect all its own
obliquities, after having been so long beguiled, like the
mariners in a story which I remember to have read,
who followed the direction of their compass, infallibly
right as they could have no doubt, till they arrived at
an enemy's port, where they were seized and made
slaves. It happened that the wicked captain, in order
to betray the ship, had concealed a large loadstone at
A little distance on one side of the needle.
On the notions and expectations of one stage of life,
I remember several remarkable instancei of thik.
56 ON A MANS WRITING
I suppose most reflecting men look back with a kin
of compassionate contempt, though it may be often
with a mingling wish that some of its enthusiasm of
feeling could be recovered, I mean the period between
childhood and maturity. They are prompted to exclaim,
What fools we have been while they recollect how
sincerely they entertained and advanced the most ridi-
culous speculations on the interests of life, and the
questions of truth; how regretfully astonished they
were to find the mature sense of some of those around
them so completely wrong; yet in other instances what
veneration they felt for authorities for which they have
since lost all their respect; what a fantastic importance
they attached to some most trivial things;* what
complaints against their fate were uttered on account
of disappointments which they have since recollected
with gaiety or self-congratulation; what happiness 01
Elysium they expected from sources which would soon
have failed to impart even common satisfaction ; and
how sure they were that the feelings and opinions then
predominant would continue through life.
If a reflective aged man were to find at the bottom
of an old chest, where it had lain forgotten fifty years,
a record which he had written of himself when he was
young, simply and vividly describing his whole heart
and pursuits, and reciting verbatim many recent pas-
sages of the language sincerely vittered to his favourite
companions ; would he not read it with more wonder
than almost any other writing could at his age excite ?
His consciousness would be strangely confused in the
attempt to verify his identity with such a being. He
I recollect a youth of some acquirements, who earnestly wisned
the time might one day arrive, when his name should be adorned
with the addition of D.D., which he deemed one of thesublimest oi
human distinctions.
MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 57
would feel the young man, thus introduced to him,
separated by so wide a distance as to render all con-
genial communion impossible. At every sentence, he
might repeat, Foolish youth ! I have no sympathy with
your feelings, I can hold no converse with your un-
derstanding. Thus you see that in the course of a
long life a man may be several moral persons, so dis-
similar, that if you could find a real individual that
should nearly exemplify the character in one of these
stages, and another that should exemplify it in the next,
and so on to the last, and then bring these several
persons together into one company, which would thus
be a representation of the successive states of one man,
they would feel themselves a most heterogeneous party,
would oppose and probably despise one another, and
soon separate, not caring if they were never to meet
again. The dissimilarity in mind between the. two
extremes, the youth of seventeen and the sage of
seventy, might perhaps be little less than that in coun-
tenance ; and as the one of these contrasts might be
contemplated by an old man, if he had a true portrait
for which he sat in the bloom of life, and should hold
it beside a mirror in which he looks at his present
countenance, the other would be powerfully felt if he
had such a genuine and detailed memoir a^ I have
supposed. Might it not be worth while for a self-
observant person in early life, to preserve, for the
inspection of the old man, if he should live so long,
such a mental likeness of the young one ? If it be
not drawn near the time, it can never be drawn with
sufficient accuracy.*
It is to be acknowledged that the above representation of the
changes and the contrast is given in the strongest colouring it will
admit. Many men, perhaps the majority, retain through life so
much of the chief characteristic quality of the dispositions ilevelooe-J
ON A MAN'S WRITING
If this sketch of life were not written till a very
mature or an advanced period of it, a somewhat in
teresting point would be, to distinguish the periods
during which the mind made its greatest progress in
the enlargement of its faculties, and the time when
they appear to have reached their insuperable limits.
And if there have been vernal seasons, (if I may so
express it,) of goodness also, periods separated off from
the latter course of life by some point of time sub-
sequent to which the Christian virtues have had a less
generous growth, this is a circumstance still more
worthy to be strongly marked. No doubt it will be
with a reluctant hand that a man marks either of these
circumstances ; for he could not reflect, without regret,
that many children have grown into maturity and great
talent, and many unformed or defective characters into
established excellence, since the period when he ceaseo
to become abler or better. Pope, at the age of fifty,
would have been incomparably more mortified than, as
Johnson says, his readers are, at the fact, if he had
perceived it, that he could not then write materially
better'than he had written at the age of twenty. And
the consciousness of having passed many years without
any moral and religious progress, ought to be not merely
the regret for an infelicity, but the remorse of guill ;
since, though natural causes must somewhere have cir-
cumscribed and fixed the extentof the intellectual power,
an advancement in the nobler distinctions has still con-
tinued to be possible, and will be possible till the evening
of rational life. The instruction resulting from a clear
or acquired in youth, and of the order of notions then taken in, that
they remain radically of the same character, notwithstanding very
great modifications effected by time and events ; so that, in a general
account of men, the mental difference between the two extremes ol
life may be less than the physical.
MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 59
estimate of what has been effected or not in this capital
concern, is the chief advantage to be derivc'.l from
recording the stages of life, comparing one part with
another, and bringing the whole into a comparison
with the standard of perfection, and the illustrious
human examples which have approached that standard
the nearest. In forming this estimate, we shall keep
in view the vast series of advantages and monitions,
which has run parallel to the train of years ; and it
will be inevitable to recollect, witli severe mortification,
the sanguine calculations of improvement of the best
kind, which at various periods the mind delighted itself
in making for other given future periods, should life
be protracted till then, and promised itself most cer-
tainly to realize by the time of their arrival. The
mortification will be still more grievous, if there was
at those past seasons something more hopeful than mere
confident presumptions, if there were actual favour-
able omens, which partly justified while they raised, in
ourselves and others, anticipations that have mournfully
failed. My dear friend, it is very melancholy that EVIL
must be so palpable, so hatefully conspicuous to an en-
lightened conscience, in every retrospect of a human life.
If the supposed memoirs be to be carried forward as
life advances, each period being recorded as soon as it
has elapsed, they should not be composed by small
daily or weekly accumulations, (though this practice
may have its use, in keeping a man observant of
himself,) but at certain considerable intervals, as at
the end of each year, or any other measure of time
that is ample enough for some definable alteration to
have taken place in the character or attainments.
It is needless to say that the style should be as simple
as possible unless indeed the writer accounts the theme
worthy of being bedecked with brilliants and flowers.
60 ON A MANS WRITING
If he idolize his own image so much as to think it
deserves to be enshrined in a frame or cabinet of gold,
why, let him enshrine it.
Should it be asked what degree of explicitness ought
to prevail through this review, in reference to those
particulars on which conscience has fixed the most
condemning mark ; I answer, that if a man writes it
exclusively for his own use, he ought to signify the
quality and measure of the delinquency, so far ex-
plicitly, as to secure to his mind a defined recollection
of the verdict pronounced by conscience before its
emotions were quelled by time ; and so far as, in
default of an adequate sentence then, to constrain him
to pronounce it now. Such honest distinctnesses
necessary, because this will be the most useful part of
his record for reflection to dwell upon ; because this i?
the part which self-love is most willing to diminish and
memory to dismiss ; because mere general terms or
allusions of censure will but little aid the cultivation of
"his humility ; and because this license of saying so
much about himself in the character of a biographer
may become only a temptation to the indulgence of
vanity, and a protection from the shame of it, unless he
can maintain the feeling in earnest that it is really at a
confessional, a severe one, that he is giving his account.
But perhaps he wishes to hold this record open to
an intimate relation or friend ; perhaps even thinks it
might supply some interest and some lessons to his
children. And what then ? Why then it is perhaps
too probable that though he could readily confess some
of his faults, there may have been certain states of his
mind, and certain circumstances in bis conduct, which
he cannot persuade himself to present to such inspection.
Such a difficulty of being quite ingenuous, when it is
actually guilt, and not merely some propriety of dis-
MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 61
cretion or good taste, that creates it, is in every instance
a cause for deep regret. Should not a man tremble to
feel himself not daring to confide to an equal and a
mortal, what has been all observed by the Supreme
Witness and Judge ? And the consideration of the
large proportion of men constituting such instances,
throws a melancholy hue over the general human cha-
racter. It has several times, in writing this essay,
occurred to me what strangers men may be to one
another, whether as to the influences which have deter-
mined their characters, or as to the less obvious parts
of their conduct. What strangers too we may be, with
persons who have the art of concealment, to the prin-
ciples which are at this moment prevailing in the heart.
Kach mind has an interior apartment of its own, into
which none but itself and the Divinity can enter. In
this secluded place the passions mingle and fluctuate in
unknown agitations. Here all the fantastic and all the
tragic shapes of imagination have a haunt, where they
can neither be invaded nor descried. Here the sur-
rounding human beings, while quite insensible of it,
are made the subjects of deliberate thought, and many
of the designs respecting them revolved in silence. Here
projects, convictions, vows, are confusedly scattered,
and the records of past life are laid. Here in solitary
state sits Conscience, surrounded by her own thunders,
which sometimes sleep, and sometimes roar, while the
world does not know. The secrets of this apartment,
could they have been even but very partially brought
forth, might have been fatal to that eulogy and splen-
dour with which many a piece of biography has been
exhibited by a partial and ignorant friend. If, in a
man's own account of himself, written on the suppo-
sition of being seen by any other person, the substance
of the secrets of this apartment be brought forth, he
62 ON A MAN'S WRITING
throws open the last asylum of his character, where it
is well if there be nothing found that will distress and
irritate his most partial friend, who may thus become
the ally of his conscience to condemn, without the
leniency which even conscience acquires from self-love.
And if it be not brought forth, where is the integrity
or value of the history, supposing it pretend to afford
a full and faithful estimate ; and what ingenuous man
could bear to give a delusive assurance of his being,
or having been, so much more worthy of applause or
affection than conscience all the while pronounces ? It
s obvious then that a man whose sentiments and designs,
or the undisclosed parts of whose conduct, have been
deeply criminal, must keep his record sacred to himself;
unless he feels such an unsupportable longing to relieve
his heart, by confiding its painful consciousness, that he
can be content to hold the regard of his friend on the
strength of his penitence and recovered virtue. As to
those, whose memory of the past is sullied by shades if
not by stains, they must either in the same manner
retain the delineation for solitary use, or limit them-
selves in writing it, to a deliberate and strong expression
of the measure of conscious culpabilities, and their effect
in the general character, with a certain, not deceptive
but partially reserved explanation, that shall equally
avoid particularity and mystery ; or else they must
consent to meet their friends, who share the human
frailty and have had their deviations, on terms of
mutual ingenuous acknowledgment. In this confi-
dential communication, each will learn to behold the
other's transgressions fully as much in that light in
which they certainly are infelicities to be commiserated,
as iu that in which they are also faults or vices to be
condemned; while both earnestly endeavour to improve
by their remembered ermrs.
MEMOIKS OF HIMSF.LF. fcl
But I shall find myself in danger of becoming ridi-
culous, amidst these scruples about an entire inge-
nuousness to a confidential friend or two, while I glance
into the literary world, and observe the number of
historians of their own lives, who magnanimously throw
the complete cargo, both of their vanities and their
vices, before the whole public. Men who can gaily
laugh at themselves for ever having even pretended to
goodness ; who can tell of having sought consolation
for the sorrows of bereaved tenderness, in the recesses
of debauchery; whose language betrays that they deem
a spirited course of profligate adventures a much h'nor
thing than the stupidity of vulgar virtues, and who
seem to claim the sentiments with which we regard an
unfortunate hero, for the disasters into which these
adventures led them ; venal partisans whose talents
would hardly have been bought, if their venom had not
made up the deficiency ; profane travelling coxcombs ;
players, and the makers of immoral plays all can
narrate the course of a contaminated life with the most
ingenuous hardihood. Even courtezans, grieved at the
excess of modesty with which the age is afflicted, have
endeavoured to diminish the evil, by presenting them-
selves before the public in their narratives, in a manner
very analogous to that in which the Lady Godiva is said
to have consented, from a most generous inducement,
to pass through the city of Coventry. They can
gravely relate, perhaps with Intermingled paragraphs
and verses of plaintive sensibility, (a kind of weeds in
which sentiment without principle apes and mocks
mourning virtue,) the whole nauseous detail of their
transitions from proprietor to proprietor. They can
tell of the precautions for meeting some " illustrious
personage," accomphsned in depravity even in his early
youth, with the proper adjustment of time and circum-
stances lo save him the scandal af such a meeting ; the
54 ON A MAN S WRITING
hour when they crossed the river in a boat ; the
arrangements about money; the kindness of the "per-
sonage" at one time, his contemptuous neglect at
another ; and every thing else that can turn the com-
passion with which we deplore their first misfortunes
and errors, into detestation of the effrontery which can
take to itself a merit in proclaiming the commencement
sequel, and all, to the wide world.
With regard to all the classes of self-describers who
thus think the publication of their vices necessary to
crown their fame, one should wish there were some
public special mark and brand of emphatic reprobation,
to reward this tribute to public morals. Men that
court the pillory for the pleasure of it, ought to receive
the honour of it too, in all those contumelious salu-
tations which suit the merits of vice grown proud of
its impudence. They who " glory in their shame "
should, like other distinguished personages, " pay a tax
for being eminent." Yet I own the public itself is to
be consulted in this case ; for if the public welcomes
such productions, it shows there are readers who feel
themselves akin to the writers, and it would be hard to
deprive congenial souls of the luxury of their appro-
priate sympathies. If such is the taste, it proves that
a considerable portion of the public deserves just that
kind of respect for its virtue, which is very signifi-
cantly implied in this confidence of its favour.
One is indignant at the cant pretence and title of Con-
*essions, sometimes adopted by these exhibiters of
their own disgrace ; as if it were to be believed, that
penitence and humiliation would ever excite men to
call thousands to witness a needless disclosure of what
oppresses them with grief and shame. If they would
be mortified that only a few readers should think it
worth while to see them thus performing the work of
self-degradation, like the fetid heroes of the Dunciad
MEMOIRS OF HIMSK.r.K. (]',
in a ditch, would it be because they are desirous that
the greatest possible number should have the benefit
of being averted from vice through disgust and
contempt of them as its example? No, this title of
Confessions is only a nominal deference to morality,
necessary indeed to be paid, because mankind never for-
get to insist, that the name of virtue shall be respected,
even while vice obtains from them that practical
favour on which these writers place their reliance for
toleration or applause. This slight homage being duly
rendered and occasionally repeated, they trust in the
character of the community that they shall not meet
the kind of condemnation, and they have no desire for
the kind of pity, which would strictly belong to cri-
minals : nor is it any part or effect of their penitence,
to wish that society may be made better by seeing in
them how odious are folly and vice. They are glad
the age continues such, that even they may have claims
to be praised; and honour of some kind, and from
some quarter, is the object to which they aspire, and
the consequence which they promise themselves. Let
them once be convinced, that they make such exhi-
bitions under the absolute condition of subjecting them-
selves irredeemably to opprobrium, as in Miletus the
persons infected with a rage for destroying themselves
were by a solemn decree assured of being exposed in
naked ignominy after the perpetration of the deed and
these hterarv suicides will be heard of no more.
Rousseau has given a memorable example of this
voluntary humiliation. And he has very honestly
assigned the decree of contrition which accompanied
che self-inflioted penance, in the declaration that this
document, with all its dishonours, shall be presented in
his justification before the Eternal Judge. If we could,
in any case, pardon the kind of ingenuousness which
he has displayed, it would certainly be in the disclosure
66 ON A MAN S WHITING, ire
of a mind so wonderfully singular as his.* We an
almost will/ng to have such a being preserved to at
the unsightly minutiae and anomalies ot its form, to be
placed, as an unique in the moral museum of the world
Rousseau's impious reference to the Divine Judge,
leads me to suggest, as 1 conclude the consideration,
that the history of each man's life, though it should
not be written by himself or by any mortal hand, is
thus far unerringly recorded, will one day be finished
in truth, and one other day yet to come, will be
brought to a final estimate. A mind accustomed to
grave reflections is sometimes led involuntarily into a
curiosity of awful conjecture, which asks, What are
those words which I should read this night, if, as to
Belshazzar, a hand of prophetic shade were sent to
write before me the identical expression, or the mo-
mentous import, of the sentence in which that final
estimate will be declared ?
* There is indeed one case in which this kind of honesty would
be so signally useful to mankind, that it would deserve almost to be
canonized into a virtue. If statesmen, including monarchs, courtiers,
ministers, senators, popular leaders, ambassadors, &c., would publish,
before they go in the triumph of virtue, to the " last audit," or leave
to be published after they are gone, each a frank exposition of
motives, intrigues, cabals, and manoeuvres, the worship which man-
kind have rendered to power and rank would cease to be, what
it has always been, a mere blind superstition, when such rational
grounds should come to be shown for the homage. It might
contribute to a happy exorcism of that spirit which has never
suffered nations to be at peace ; while it would give an altered and
less delusive character to history. Great service in this way, but
unfortunately late, is in the course of being rendered in our times,
by the publication of private memoirs, written by persons connected
or acquainted with those of the highest order. Let any one look at
the exhibition of the very centre of the dignity and power of a great
nation, as given in Pepys's Memoirs, though with the omission in
that publication, as I am informed on the best authority, of sundry
passages contained in the manuscript, of such a colour that their
production would have exceeded the very utmost license allowable
by public decorum. I need not revert to works now comparatively
ncient. such aa Lord iicioourn s Diary.
ESSAY II.
ON DECISION OF CHARAOTKiJ.
LETTEK L
\n DEAR FRIEND,
WE have several times talked of this bold quality, and
acknowledged its great importance. Without it, a
human being, with powers at best but feeble and
.urrounded by innumerable things tending to perplex,
to divert, and to frustrate, their operations, is indeed a
pitiable atom, the sport of divers and casual impulses
It is a poor and disgraceful thing, not to be able tf
reply, with some degree of certainty, to the simple
questions, What will you be ? What will you do ?
A little acquaintance with mankind will supply
numberless illustrations of the importance of this
qualification. You will often see a person anxiously
hesitating a long time between different, or opposite
determinations, though impatient of the pain of such
a state, and ashamed of the debility. A faint impulse
of preference alternates toward the one, and toward the
other; and the mind, while thus held in a trembling
balance, is vexed that it cannot get some new thought,
or feeling, or motive ; that it has not more sense, more
resolution, more of any thing that would save it front
envying even the decisive instinct of brutes. It wuthcs
r 2
6S ON DECISION OF C11.A KACTEH.
that any circumstance might happen, or any person
might appear, that could deliver it from the miserable
suspense.
In many instances, when a determination is adopted,
it is frustrated by this temperament. A man, for
example, resolves on a journey to-morrow, which he is
not under an absolute necessity to undertake, but the
inducements appear, this evening, so strong, that he
floes not think it possible he can hesitate in the morning.
In the morning, however, these inducements have
unaccountably lost much of their force. Like the sun
that is rising at the same time, they appear dim through
a mist ; and the sky lowers, or he fancies that it does,
and almost wishes to see darker clouds than there
actually are ; recollections of toils and fatigues ill
repaid in past expeditions rise and pass into antici-
pation ; and he lingers, uncertain, till an advanced
nour determines the question for him, by the certainty
that it is now too late to go.
Perhaps a man has conclusive reasons for wishing
to remove to another place of residence. But when
he is going to take the first actual step towards ex-
ecuting his purpose, he is met by a new train of ideas,
presenting the possible and magnifying the unques-
tionable, disadvantages and uncertainties of a new
bituation ; awakening the natural reluctance to quit a
/)lace to which habit has accommodated his feelings, and
which has grown warm to him, (if I may so express it,)
by his having been in it so long ; giving a new impulse
to his affection for the friends whom he must leave;
and so detaining him still lingering, long after his
judgment may have dictated to him to be gone.
A man may think of some desirable alteration in his
plan, of the ; perhaps in the arrangements of his
family, or in the mode of bis intercourse with society,
ON DECISION OF ChAKACTKR. 6t>
Would it he a good thing ? He thinks it would Lc a good
thing. It certainly would be a very good thing. HA
wishes it were done. He will attempt it almost imme-
diately. The following day, he doubts whether it
would be quite prudent. M my things are to be con-
sidered. May there not be in tne change some evil of
which he is not aware ? Is this a prooer time ? What
will people say? And thus, thonh^ ue does not
formally renounce his purpose, ho shrinks out of it,
with an irksome wish that he could be fully satisfied of
the propriety of renouncing it. Perhaps he wishes
that the thought had never occurred to him, since it
has diminished his self-complacency, without promoting
his virtue. But next week, his conviction ol the
wisdom and advantage of such a reform comes again
with great force. Then, Is it so practicable as I \va.s
at iirst willing to imagine? Why not? Other men
have done much greater things ; a resolute mind may
brave and accomplish every thing ; difficulty is a
stimulus and a triumph to a strong spirit ; " the joys
of conquest are the joys of man." What need I care
for people's opinion r It shall be done. He makes
the first attempt. But some unexpected obstacle
presents itself; he feels the awkwardness of attempting
an unaccustomed manner of acting ; the questions or
the ridicule of his friends disconcert him ; his ardour
abates and expires. He again begins to question,
whether it be wise, whether it be necessary, whether it
be possible ; and at last surrenders his purpose to be
perhaps resumed when the same feelings return, and
to be in the same manner again relinquished.
While animated by some magnanimous sentiments
which he has heard or read, or while musing on some
great example, a man may conceive the design, and
}>ai tlv sketch the plan, of a generous enterprise ; and
70 ON DECISION OF CHAR AC TEH.
his imagination revels in the felicity, to others and
himself, that would follow from its accomplishment.
The splendid representation always centres in himself
as the hero who is to realize it.
In a moment of remitted excitement, a faint whisper
from within may doubtfully ask, Is this more than a
dream ; or am I really destined to achieve such an
enterprise ? Destined ! and why are not this con-
viction of its excellence, this conscious duty of per-
forming the noblest things that are possible, and this
passionate ardour, enough to constitute a destiny ?
He feels indignant that there should be a failing part
of his nature to defraud the nobler, and cast him below
the ideal model and the actual examples which he is
admiring ; and this feeling assists him to resolve, tha*
he will undertake this enterprise, that he certainly will,
though the Alps or the Ocean lie between him and the
object. Again, his ardour slackens ; distrustful of
himself, he wishes to know how the design would
appear to other minds ; and when he speaks of it to
Ins associates, one of them wonders, another laughs,
and another frowns. His pride, while with them,
attempts a manful defence ; but his resolution gradually
crumbles down toward their level ; he becomes in a
little while ashamed to entertain a visionary project,
which therefore, like a rejected friend, desists from
intruding on him or following him, except at lingering
distance ; and he subsides, at last, into what he labours
to believe a man too rational for the scnemes of ill-
calculating enthusiasm. And it were strange if the
effort to make out this favourable estimate of himself
did not succeed \v ile it is so much more pleasant to
attribute one's deftct of enterprise to wisdom, which
on maturer thought disapproves it, than to imbecility
which shrinks from it
ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 71
A person of undecisive character wonders how all
the embarrassments in the world happened to meet
exactly in fiis way, to place him just in that one situa-
tion for which he is peculiarly unadapted, but in which
he is also willing to think no other man could have
acted with facility or confidence. Incapable of setting
up a firm purpose on the basis of tilings as they are,
he is often employed in vain speculations on some
different supposable state of things, which would have
*uved him from all this perplexity and irresolution.
He thinks what a determined course he could have
pursued, // his talents, his health, his age, had been
different ; if he nad been acquainted with some ono
person sooner ; if his friends were, in this or the other
point, different from what they are ; or if fortune had
showered her favours on him. And he gives himself
as much license to complain, as if all these advantages
had been among the rights of his nativity, but refused,
by a malignant or capricious fate, to his life. Thus
ne is occupied instead of marking with a vigilant
eye, and seizing with a strong hand, all the possibi-
lities of his actual situation.
A man without decision can never be said to belong
to himself; since, if he dared to assert that he did, the
puny force of some cause, about as powerful, you
would have supposed, as a spider, may make a seizure
of the hapless boaster the very next moment, and
contemptuously exhibit the futility of the determina
tions by which he was to have proved the independence
of his understanding at/d his will. He belongs to
whatever can make capture of him ; and one thing
after another vindicates its right to him, by arresting
him while he is trying to go on ; as twigs and chips,
Hoating near the edge of a river, are intercepted by
every weed, and whirled in every little eddy. Having
72 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
concluded on a design, he may pledge himself to accom-
plish it if the hundred diversities of feeling which
may come within the week, will let him. His character
precluding all foresight of his conduct, he may sit
and wonder what form and direction his views and
actions are destined to take to-morrow ; as a farmer
has often to acknowledge that next day's proceedings
are at the disposal of its winds and clouds.
This man's notions and determinations always depend
very much on other human beings ; and what chance
for consistency and stability, while the persons with
whom he may converse, or transact, are so various ?
This very evening, he may talk with a man whose
sentiments will melt away the present form and outline
of his purposes, however firm and defined he may have
fancied them to be. A succession of persons whose
faculties were stronger than his own, might, in spite 01
his irresolute re-action, take him and dispose of him as
they pleased. Such infirmity of spirit practically con-
fesses him made for subjection, and he passes, like a
slave, from owner to owner. Sometimes indeed it
happens, that a person so constituted falls into the
train, and under the permanent ascendency, of some
one stronger miiid, which thus becomes through life
the oracle and guide, and gives the inferior a steady
will and plan. This, when the governing spirit is wise
and virtuous, is a fortunate relief to the feeling, and
an advantage gained to the utility, of the subordinate,
and as it were, appended mind.
The regulation of every man's plan must greatly
depend on the course of events, which come in an order
not to be foreseen or prevented. l?ut in accommodating
the plans of conduct to the train of events, the dif-
ference between two men may be no less than that, in
the one instance, the man is subservient to the events,
ON DECISION OF CIIAUACTKK. 7i$
and ill tlie other, the events are made subservient to
the man. Some men seem to have been taken along
by a succession of events, and, as it were, handed
forward in helpless passiveness ti om one to another ;
having no determined principle in their own characters,
by which they could constrain those events to serve a
design formed antecedently to them, or apparently in
defiance of them. The events seized them as a neutral
material, not they the events. Others, advancing
through life v/ith an internal invincible determination,
have seemed to make the train of circumstances, what-
ever they were, conduce as much to their chief design as
if they had, by some directing interposition, been brought
about on purpose. It is wonderful how even the casual-
ties of life seem to bow to a spirit that will not bow to
them, and yield to subserve a design which they may, in
their first apparent tendency, threaten to frustrate.
You may have known such examples, though they
are comparatively not numerous. You may have seen
a man of this vigorous character in a state of indecision
concerning some affair in which it was necessary for
him to determine, because it was necessary for him
to act. But in this case, his manner would assure
vou that he would not remain long undecided ; you
would wonder if you found him still balancing and
hesitating the next day. If he explained his thoughts,
you would perceive that their clear process, evidently
at each effort gaining something toward the result,
must certainly reach it ere long. The deliberation of
such a mind is a very different thing from the fluc-
tuation of one whose second thinking only upsets the
first, and whose third confounds both. To know how
to obtain a determination, is one of the first requisites
and indications of a rationally decisive character.
the decision was arrived at, and a plan of
?* ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
action approved, you would feel an assurance that
something would absolutely be done. It is charac-
teristic of such a mind, to think for effect ; and the
pleasure of escaping from temporary doubt gives an
additional impulse to the force with which it is earned
into action. The man will not re-examine his con,
elusions with endless repetition, and he will not be
delayed long by consulting other persons, after he had
ceased to consult himself. He cannot bear to sit still
among unexecuted decisions and unattempted projects.
We wait to hear of his achievements, and are confident
we shall not wait long. The possibility or the means
may not be obvious to us, but we know that every
thing will be attempted, and that a spirit of such de-
termined will is like a river, which, in whatever manner
it is obstructed, will make its way somewhere. It must
have cost Caesar many anxious hours of deliberation,
before he decided to pass the Rubicon ; but it is pro-
bable he suffered but few to elapse between the decision
and the execution. And any one of his friends, who
should have been apprised of his determination, and
understood his character, would have smiled contemp-
tuously to hear it insinuated that though Caesar had
resolved, Caesar would not dare ; or that though he
might cross the Rubicon, whose opposite bank pre-
sented to him no hostile legions, he might come to
other rivers, which he would not cross ; or that either
rivers, or any other obstacle, would deter him from
prosecuting his determination from this ominous com-
mencement to its very last consequence.
One signal advantage possessed by a mind of this
character is, that its passions are not wasted. The
whole measure of passion of which any one, with im-
portant transactions before him, is capable, is not more
flian enough to supply interest and energy for the
ON DliCIMON OF CHARACTER. 75
required practical exertions ; the therefore as little a*
possible of this costly .flame should be expended in a
way that does not augment the force of action. But
nothing can less contribute or be more destructive to
vigour of action, than protracted anxious fluctuation,
through resolutions adopted, rejected, resumed, sus-
pended ; while yet nothing causes a greater expense of
feeling. The heart is fretted and exhausted by being
subjected to an alternation of contrary excitements,
with the ultimate mortifying consciousness of their con-
tributing to no end. The long-wavering deliberation,
whether to perform some bold action of difficult virtue,
has often cost more to feeling than the action itself, or
a series of such actions, would have cost; with the
great disadvantage too of not being relieved by any of
that invigoration which the man in action finds in the
activity itself, that spirit created to renovate the energy
which the action is expending. When the passions are
not consumed among dubious musings and abortive
resolutions, their utmost value and use can be secured
by throwing all their animating force into effective
operation.
Another advantage of this character, is, that it
exempts from a great deal of interference and ob-
structive annoyance, which an irresolute man may be
almost sure to encounter. Weakness, in every form,
tempts arrogance ; and a man may be allowed to wish
for a kind of character with which stupidity and im-
pertinence may not make so free. When a firm decisive
spirit is recognised, it is curious to see how the space
clears around a man, and leaves him room and freedom.
The disposition to interrogate, dictate, or banter, pre-
serves a respectful and politic distance, judging it not
unwise to keep the peace with a person of so much
energy. A conviction that lie understands and that h
76 ON T DECISION OF CHARACTER
wills with extraordinary force, silences the conceit that
intended to perplex or instruct him, and intimidates
the malice that was disposed to attack him. There is
a feeling, as in respect to Fate, that the decrees of so
inflexible a spirit must be right, or that, at least, they
will be accomplished.
But not only will he secure the freedom of acting
for himself, he will obtain also by degrees the coinci-
dence of those in whose company he is to transact the
business of life. If the manners of such a man be
free from arrogance, and he can qualify his firmness
with a moderate degree of insinuation ; and if his
measures have partly lost the appearance of being the
dictates of his will, under the wider and softer sanction
of some experience that they are reasonable ; both
competition and fear will be laid to sleep, and his will
may acquire an unresisted ascendency over many who
will be pleased to fall into the mechanism of a system,
which they find makes them more successful and happy
than they could have been amidst the anxiety of ad-
justing plans and expedients of their own, and the
consequences of often adjusting them ill. I have
known severa 1 parents, both fathers and mothers, whose
management of their families has answered this de-
scription ; and has displayed a striking example of the
facile complacency with which a number of persons,
of different ages and dispositions, will yield to the
decisions of a firm mind, acting on an equitable and
enlightened system.
The last resource of this character, is, hard inflexible
pertinacity, on which it may be allowed to rest its
strength after finding it can be effectual in none of its
milder forms. I remember admiring an instance of
this kind, in a firm, sagacious and estimable old man,
*-hoiu I well knew and who has long been dead. Being
CM DECISION O* CHAKACTKR. 77
on a jury, in a trial of life and death, he was satisfied
of the innocence of the prisoner; the other eleven were
of the opposite opinion. But he was resolved the man
should not be condemned; and as the first effort for pre-
venting it, very properly made application to the minds
of his associates, spending several hours in labouring to
convince them. But he found he made no impression,
while he was exhausting the strength which it was
necessary to reserve for another mode of operation. He
then calmly told them that it should now be a trial who
could endure confinement and famine the longest, and
that they might be quite assured he would sooner die
than release them at the expense of the prisoner's life.
In this situation they spent about twenty-four hours ;
when at length all acceded to his verdict of acquittal.
It is not necessary to amplify on the indispensable
importance of this quality, in order to the accomplish-
ment of any thing eminently good. We instantly see,
that every path to signal excellence is so obstructed
and beset, that none but a spirit so qualified can pass.
But it is time to examine what are the elements of that
mental constitution which is displayed in the character
in question.
LETTER II.
F'ERHAPS the best mode would be, to bring into our
thoughts, in succession, the most remarkable examples
of this character that we have known in real life, or
that we have read of in history or even in fiction ; and
attentively to observe, in their conversations, manners,
and actions, what principles appear to produce, or to
constitute, this commanding distinction You w'J
78 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
easily pursue this investigation yourself. I lately made
a partial attempt, and shall offer you a number o*
suggestions.
As a previous observation, it is beyond all doubt that
very much depends on the constitution of the body. It
would be for physiologists to explain, if it were expli-
cable, the manner in which corporeal organization affects
the mind; I only assume it as a fact, that there is in the
material construction of some persons, much more than
of others, some quality which augments, if it do not
create, both the stability of their resolution, and the
energy of their active tendencies. There is something
that, like the ligatures which one class of the Olympic
combatants bound on their hands and wrists, braces
round, if I may so describe it, and compresses the
powers of the mind, giving them a steady forcible
spring and reaction, which they would presently lose if
they could be transferred into a constitution of soft,
yielding, treacherous debility. The action of strong
character seems to demand something firm in its mate-
rial basis, as massive engines require, for their weight
and for their working, to be fixed on a solid foundation.
Accordingly I believe it would be found, that a majority
of the persons most remarkable for decisive character,
have possessed great constitutional physical firmness.
I do not mean an exemption from disease and pain,
nor any certain measure of mechanical strength, but a
tone of vigour, the opposite to lassitude, and adapted
to great exertion and endurance. Tiiis is clearly evinced
in respect to many of them, by the prodigious labours
and deprivations which they have borne in prosecuting
their designs. The physical nature has seemed a proud
ally of the moral one, and with a hardness that would
never shrink, nas sustained the energy that could never
remit
ON DECISION OF CHARACTUt. 79
A view of the disparities between the different races
of animals inferior to man, will show the effect of'
organization on disposition. Compare, for instance, a
lion with the common beasts ot' our fields, many of them
larger in bulk of animated substance. What a vast
superiority of courage, and impetuous and determined
action ; which difference we attribute to some great
dissimilarity of modification in the composition of the
animated material. Now it is probable that a difference
somewhat analogous subsists between some human
beings and others in point of what we may call mere
physical constitution ; and that this is no small part of
the cause of the striking inequalities in respect to deci-
sive character. A man who excels in the power of
decision has probably more of the physical quality of a
lion in his composition than other men.
It is observable that women in general have less in-
flexibility of character than men ; and though many
moral influences contribute to this difference, the prin-
cipal cause may probably be something less firm in the
corporeal constitution. Now that physical quality,
whatever it is, from the smaller measure of which in
tha constitution of the frame, women have less firmness
than men, may be possessed by one man more than by
men in general in a greater degree of difference than
that by which men in general exceed women.
If there have been found some resolute spirits power-
fuMy asserting themselves in feeble vehicles, it is so
much the better; since this would authorize a hope,
that if all the other grand requisites can be combined,
they may form a strong character, in spite of an un-
adapted constitution. And on the other hand, no
constitutional hardness will form the true character,
without those superior properties ; though it may pro-
duce that false and contemptible kind of decisi m which
tfO ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
we term obstinacy; a stubbornness of temper, wliicii
can assign no reasons but mere will, for a constancy
which acts in the nature of dead weight rather than of
strength ; resembling less the reaction of a powerful
spring than the gravitation of a big stone.
The first prominent mental characteristic of the
person whom I describe, is, a complete confidence in
his own judgment. It will perhaps be said, that this is
not so uncommon a qualification. I however think it
is uncommon. It is indeed obvious enough, that almost
all men have a flattering estimate of their own under-
standing, and that as long as this understanding has no
harder task than to form opinions which are not to
be tried in action, they have a most self-complacent
assurance of being right. This assurance extends to
the judgments which they pass on the proceedings of
others. But let them be brought into the necessity of
adopting actual measures in an untried situation, where,
unassisted by any previous example or practice, they
are reduced to depend on the bare resources of judgment
alone, and you will see in many cases, this confidence
of opinion vanish away. The mind seems all at once
placed in a misty vacuity, where it reaches round on
all sides, but can find nothing to take hold of. Or if
not lost in vacuity, it is overwhelmed in confusion ;
and feels as if its faculties were annihilated in the
attempt to think of schemes and calculations among
the possibilities, chances, and hazards which overspread
a wide untrodden field ; and this conscious imbecility
becomes severe distress, when it is believed that con-
sequences, of serious or unknown good or evil, are
depending on the decisions which are to be formed
amidst so much uncertainty. The thought painfully
recurs at each step and turn, I may by chance be right,
but it is fully as probable I am wronjr. It is like the
ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 81
case of a rustic walking in London, who, having nc
(crtaiu direction through the vast confusion of street*
to the place where he wishes to be, advances, and hesi-
tates, and turns, and inquires, and becomes, at each
corner, still more inextricably perplexed.* A man in
this situation feels he snail be very unfortunate if ho
cannot accomplish more than he can understand. i-
rot this frequently, when brought to the practical test,
the state of a mind not disposed in general to under-
value its own judgment?
In cases where judgment is not so completely be-
wildered, you will yet perceive a great practical distrust
of it. A man has perhaps advanced a considerable
way towards a decision, but then lingers at a small
distance from it, till necessity, with a stronger hand
than conviction, impels him upon it. lie cannot see
the whole length of the question, and suspects the part
beyond his sight to be the most important, for the most
essential point and stress of it may be there. He fears
that certain possible consequences, if they should
follow, would cause him to reproach himself for his
present determination. He wonders how this or the
other person would have acted in the same circum-
stances ; eagerly catches at any thing like a respectable
precedent; would be perfectly willing to forego the
pride of setting an example, for the safety of following
one ; and looks anxiously round to know what each
person may think on the subject ; while the various
and opposite opinions to which he listens, perhaps only
serve to confound his perception of the track of thought
u Why does not the man call a hackney-coach 7" a gay reader,
I am aware, will say of the person so bemazed ii> the great town.
So he might, certainly; (that is. if he know where to find one ;) and
the gay reader and 1 hare only to deplore that there is no parallel
convenience for the assistance of perplexed understandings.
U
82 C> DECISION OF CHARACTER.
by which he had hoped to reach his conclusion. Even
when that conclusion is obtained, there are not many
.uinds that might not be brought a few degrees back
into dubious hesitation, by a man of respected un-
derstanding saying, in a confident tone, Your plan is
injudicious ; your selection is unfortunate ; the event
will disappoint you.
It cannot be supposed that I am maintaining such
an absurdity as that a man's complete reliance on his
own judgment is a proof of its strength and rectitude.
Intense stupidity may be in this point the rival of
clear-sighted wisdom. I had once some knowledge
of a person whom no mortal could have surpassed,
not Cromwell or Straflbrd, in confidence in his own
judgment and consequent inflexibility of conduct ;
while at the same time his successive schemes were
ill-judged to a degree that made his disappointments
ridiculous still more than pitiable. He was not an
example of that simple obstinacy which I have men
tioned before ; for he considered his measures, and did
not want for reasons which seriously satisfied himself
of their being most judicious. This confidence of
opinion may be possessed by a person in whom it will
be contemptible or mischievous ; but its proper place
is in a very different character, and without it there
can be no dignified actors in human affairs.
If, after it is seen how foolish this confidence appears
as a feature in a weak character, it be inquired what,
in a rightfully decisive person's manner of thinking
it is that authorizes him in this firm assurance that his
view of the concerns before him is comprehensive and
accurate ; he may, in answer, justify his confidence on
such grounds as these : that he is conscious that objects
arc presented to his mind with an exceedingly distinct
and perspicuous aspect, not like the shapes of moon-
ON DECISION OF CHARACTKK. 8H
light, or like Ossmn's ghosts, dim forms of uncircun.
scribed shade ; that he sees the different parts of the
subject in an arranged order, not in unconnected
fragments : that in each deliberation the main object
keeps its clear pre-eminence, and he perceives the
bearings which the subordinate and conducive ones
have on it ; that perhaps several trains of thought,
drawn from different points, lead him to the same con-
clusion ; and that he finds his judgment does not vary
in servility to the moods of his feelings.
It may be presumed that a high degree of this cha-
racter is not attained without a considerable measure
of that kind of certainty, with respect to the relations
of things, which can be acquired only from experience!
and observation. A very protracted course of time,
however, may not be indispensable for this discipline.
An extreme vigilance in the exercise of observation,
and a strong and strongly exerted power of generalizing
on experience, may have made a comparatively short
time enough to supply a large share of the wisdom
derivable from these sources ; so that a man may long
before he is old be rich in the benefits of experience,
and therefore may have all the decision of judgment
legitimately founded on that accomplishment. ThN
knowledge from experience he will be able to apply iii
a direct and immediate manner, and without refining
it into general principles, to some situations of affairs,
so as to anticipate the consequences of certain actions
in .those situations by as plain a reason, and as confi-
dently, as the kind of fruit to be produced by a given
kind of tree. Thus far the facts of his experience will
serve him as precedents ; cases of such near resem-
blance to those in which he is now to act as to afford
him a rule by the most immediate inference. At the
next step, he will be able to apply this knowledge, now
c 2
84> Ow DECISION OF CHARACTER.
converted into general principles, to a multitude of
cases bearing but a partial resemblance to any thing he
has actually witnessed. And then, in looking forward
to the possible occurrence of altogether new combi-
nations of circumstances, he can trust to the resources
which he is persuaded his intellect will open to him, 01
is humbly confident, if he be a devout man, that the
Supreme Intelligence will not suffer to be wanting to
him, when the occasion arrives. In proportion as his
views include, at all events, more certainties than those
of other men, he is with good reason less fearful of
contingencies. And if, in the course of executing his
design, unexpected disastrous events should befall, but
which are not owing to any thing wrong in the plan
and principles of that design, but to foreign causes ;
it will be characteristic of a strong mind to attribute
these events discriminatively to their own causes, and
not to the plan, which, therefore, instead of being dis-
liked and relinquished, will be still as much approved
as before, and the man will proceed calmly to the
sequel of it without any change of arrangement ;
unless indeed these sinister events should be of such
consequence as to alter the whole state of things to
which the plan was correctly adapted, and so create a
necessity to form an entirely new one, adapted to that
altered state.
Though he do not absolutely despise the under-
standings of other men, he will perceive their dimen-
sions as compared with his own, which will preserve
its independence through every communication and
encounter. It is however a part of this very inde-
pendence, that he will hold himself free to alter his
opinion, if the information which may be communi-
cated to him shall bring sufficient reason. And as
no one in so sensible of the importance ot a complete
ON ULCISION OF CHARACTER. 85
tcquaintaiice with a subject as the man who is alwayr
endeavouring to t'nink conclusively, he will listen with
the utmost attention to the information, which may
sometimes be received from persons for whose judyment
he has no great respect. The information which they
may afford him is not at all the less valuable for the
circumstance, that his practical inferences from it may
be quite different from theirs. If they will only give
him an accurate account of facts, he does not care how
indifferently they may reason on them. Counsel will
in general have only so much weight with him as it
supplies knowledge which may assist his judgment ;
he will yield nothing to it implicitly as authority,
except when it comes from persons of approved and
emiruMit wisdom ; but he may hear it with more candom
and good temper, from being conscious of this inde-
pendence of his judgment, than the man who is afraid
'>st the first person that begins to persuade him, should
oaffle his determination. He feels it entirely a work of
his own to deliberate and to resolve, amidst all the
advice which may be attempting to control him. If,
with an assurance of his intellect being of the highest
order, he also holds a commanding station, he will feel
it gratuitous to consult with anyone, excepting merely
to receive statements of facts. This appears to be
exemplified in the man, who has lately shown the
nations of Europe how large a portion of the world
may, when Heaven permits, be at the mercy of tho
solitary workings of an individual mind.
The strongest trial of this determination of judgment
;s in those cases of urgency where something must
immediately be done, and the alternative of rieiit or
wrong iti of important consequence-- as in the oiiy of
a medical man, treating a patient whose situation at
ouce requires a daring practve, and puts it in paiului
86 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
doubt what to dare. A still stronger illustration is the
case of a general who is compelled, in the very instant,
to make dispositions on which the event of a battle,
the lives of thousands of his men, or perhaps almost the
fate of a nation, may depend. He may even be placed
in a dilemma which appears equally dreadful on both
sides. Such a predicament is described in Denon's
Account of one of the sanguinary conflicts between the
French and Mamelukes, as having for a while held in
the most distressing hesitation General Desaix, though
a prompt and intrepid commander.
LETTER III.
THIS indispensable basis, confidence of opinion, is
however not enough to constitute the character in
question. For many persons, who have been conscious
and proud of a much stronger grasp of thought than
ordinary men, and have held the most decided opinions
on important things to be -done, have yet exhibited, in
the listlessness or inconstancy of their actions, a contrast
and a disgrace to the operations of their understandings.
For want of some cogent feeling impelling them U
carry every internal decision into action, they have
bee still left where they were ; and a dignified judg-
ment has been seen in the hapless plight of having no
etfpctive forces to execute its decrees.
It is evident then, (and I perceive I have partly
anticipated this article in the first letter,) that another
essential principle of the character is, a total incapa-
oility of surrendering to indifference or delay the
serious determinations of the mind. A strenuous will
must accompany the conclusions of thought, and ton-
ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 87
Bluntly incite the utmost efforts to give them a prac-
tical result. The intellect must be invested, if I ma)
so describe it, with a glowing atmosphere of passion,
under the influence of which, the cold dictates of
reason take fire, arid spring into active powers.
Revert once more in your thoughts to the persons
most remarkably distinguished by this quality. You
will perceive, that instead of allowing themselves tc
sit down delighted after the labour of successful think-
ng, as if they had completed some great thing, the)
regard this labour but as a circumstance of preparation,
and the conclusions resulting from it as of no more
value, (till going into effect,) than the entombed lamps
of the Rosicrucians. They are not disposed to be
content in a region of mere ideas, while they ought to
be advancing into the field of corresponding realities ;
they retire to that region sometimes, as ambitious
adventurers anciently went to Delphi, to consult,
but not to reside. You will therefore find them
almost uniformly in determined pursuit of some object,
on which they fix a keen and steady look, never losing
sight of it while they follow it through the confused
multitude of other things.
A person actuated by such a spirit, seems by his
manner to say, Do you think that I would not disdain
to adopt a purpose which I would not devote my
utmost force to effect; or that having thus devoted my
exertions, I will intermit or withdraw them, through
indolence, debility, or caprice ; or that I will surren-
der my object to any interference except the uncon-
trollable dispensations of Providence ? No, I am
linked to my determination with iron bands ; it clings
to me as if a part of my destiny ; and if its frustration
be, on the contrary, doomed a part of that destiny, it
is doomed so only through calamity or death.
88 ON DECISION OF OHAEACTER.
This display of systematic energy seems to indicate
a constitution of mind in which the passions are com-
mensurate with the intellectual part, and at the same
time hold an inseparable correspondence with it, i:ke
the faithful sympathy of the tides with the phases of
the moon. There is such an equality and connexion,
that subjects of the decisions of judgment become pro-
portionally and of course the objects of passion. When
the judgment decides with a very strong preference,
that same strength of preference, actuating also the
passions, devotes them with energy to the object, as long
as it is thus approved; and this will produce such a con-
duct as I have described. When therefore a firm, self-
confiding, and unaltering judgment fails to make a
decisive character, it is evident either that the passions
in that mind are too languid to be capable of a strong
and unremitting excitement, which defect makes an
indolent or irresolute man ; or that they perversely
sometimes coincide with judgment and sometimes clash
with it, which makes an inconsistent or versatile man.
There is no man so irresolute as not to act with
determination in many single cases, where the motive
is powerful and simple, and where there is no need of
plan and perseverance ; but this gives no claim to the
term character, which expresses the habitual tenour of
a man's active being. The character may be displayed
in the successive unconnected undertakings, which are
each of limited extent, and end with the attainment of
their particular objects. But it is seen in its most
commanding aspect in those grand schemes of action,
which have no necessary point of conclusion, \vhicli
continue on through successive years, and extend even
to that dark period when the agent himself is with-
drawn from human sight.
I have repeatedly, iu conversation, remarked to you
ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 89
the effect of what has been called a Ruling Passion.
When its object is noble, and an enlightened under-
standing regulates its movements, it appears to me a
great felicity; but whether its object be noble or not,
it infallibly creates, where it exists in great force, that
active ardent constancy, which I describe as a capital
feature of the decisive character. The Subject of
such a commanding passion wonders, if indeed he were
at leisure to wonder, at the persons who pretend to
attach importance to an object which they make none
but the most languid efforts to secure. The utmost
powers of the man are constrained into the service of
the favourite Cause by this passion, which sweeps
away, as it advances, all the trivial objections and
little opposing motives, and seems almost to open a
way through impossibilities. This spirit comes on him
in the morning as soon as he recovers his conscious-
ness, and commands and impels him through the day,
with a power from which he could not emancipate
himself if he would. When the force of habit is added,
the determination becomes invincible, and seems to
assume rank with the great laws of nature, making
it nearly as certain that such a man will persist in his
course as that in the morning the sun will rise.
A persisting untameable efficacy of soul gives a
seductive and pernicious dignity even to a character
which every moral principle forbids us to approve.
Often in the narrations of history and fiction, an agent
of the most dreadful designs compels a sentiment of
deep respect for the unconquerable mind displayed in
their execution. While we shudder at his activity, we
say with regret, mingled with an admiration which
borders on partiality, What a noble beine this would
have been, if goodness had been his destiny ! The
uartiality is evinced in the very selection of terms,
90 OtJ DECISION OF CHARACTER.
by which we show that we are tempted to refer his
atrocity rather to his destiny than to his choice. I
wonder whether an emotion like this, have not been
experienced by each reader of Paradise Lost, relative
to the Leader of the infern.il spirits; a proof, if such
were the fact, of some insinuation of evil into the
magnificent creation of the poet. In some of the hign
examples of ambition (the ambition which is a vice),
we almost revere the force of mind which impelled
them forward through the longest series of action,
superior to doubt and fluctuation, and disdainful of
ease, of pleasures, of opposition, and of danger. We
bend in homage before the ambitious spirit which
reached the true sublime in the reply of Pompey to his
friends, who dissuaded him from hazarding his life
on a tempestuous sea in order to be at Rome on an
important occasion : " It is necessary for me to go,
it is not necessary for me to live."
Revenge has produced wonderful examples of this
unremitting constancy to a purpose. Zanga is a well-
supported illustration. And you may have read of a real
instance of a Spaniard, who, being injured by another
inhabitant of the same town, resolved to destroy him
the other was apprised of this, and removed with the
utmost secresy, as he thought, to another town at a
considerable distance, where however he had not
been more than a day or two, before he found that
his enemy also was there. He removed in the same
manner to several parts of the kingdom, remote from
each other; but in every place quickly percehed that
his deadly pursuer was near him. At last he went to
South America, where he had enjoyed his security but
a very short time, before his relentless pursuer came
up with him, and accomplished his purpose.
VGU may recollect the Mention in one of our cou-
ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 91
versations, of a young man who wasted in two or three
.years a large patrimony, in profligate revels with a
number of worthless associates calling themselves his
friends, till his last means were exhausted, when they
of course treated him with neglect or contempt. Re-
duced to absolute want, he one day went out of the
house with an intention to put an end to his life ; but
wandering awhile almost unconsciously, he came to
the brow of an eminence which overlooked what were
lately his estates. Here he sat down, and remained
fixed in thought a number of hours, at the end of
which he sprang from the ground with a vehement
exulting emotion. He had formed his resolution,
whicli was that all these estates should be his again ;
he had formed his plan too, which he instantly began
to execute. He walked hastily forward, determined to
seize the very first opportunity, of however humble a
kind, to gain any money, though it were ever so de-
spicable a trifle, and resolved absolutely not to spend, if
he could help it, a farthing of whatever he might obtain.
The first thing that drew his attention was a heap of
coals shot out of carts on the pavement before a house.
He offered himself to shovel or wheel them into the
place where they were to be laid, and was employed.
He received a few pence for the labour; and then, in
pursuance of the saving part o his plan, requested
some small gratuity of meat and drink, which was
given him. He then looked out for the next thing
that might chance to offer; and went, with inde-
fatigable industry, through a succession of servile
employments, in different places, of longer and shorter
duration, still scrupulously avoiding, as far as possible,
the expense of a penny. He promptly seized every
opportunity which could advance his design, without
tg:irding the meanness of occupation or appearance.
92 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
By this method he had gained, after a Considerable
time, money enough to purchase, in order to se!5
again, a few cattle, of which he had taken pains to
understand the value. He speedily but cautiously
turned his first gains into second advantages ; retained
without a single deviation his extreme parsimony ;
and thus advanced by degrees into larger transactions
and incipient wealth. I did not hear, or have forgotten
the continued course of his life ; but the final result
was, that he more than recovered his lost possessions,
and died an inveterate miser, worth 60,()00/. I have
always recollected this as a signal instance, though
in an unfortunate and ignoble direction, of decisive
character, and of the extraordinary effect, which,
according to general laws, belongs to the strongest
form of such a character.
But not less decision has been displayed by men o
virtue. In this distinction no man ever exceeded, or ever
will exceed, for instance, the late illustrious Howard.
The energy of his determination was so great, that
if, instead of being habitual, it had been shown only
for a short time on particular occasions, it would have
appeared a vehement impetuosity; but by being unintei-
mitted, it had an equability of manner which scarcely
appeared to exceed the tone of a calm constancy, it
was so totally the reverse of any thing like turbulence
or agitation. It was the calmness of an intensity kept
uniform by the nature of the human mind forbidding
it to be more, and by the character of the individual
forbidding it to be less. The habitual passion of his
mind was a pitch of excitement and impulsion almost
equal to the temporary extremes and paroxysms of
common minds ; as a great river, in its customary
state, is equal to a small or model ate one when swollen
to & torrent,
ON DECISION OK CliAKACTLK. &
The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation,
and commencing them in action, was the same. I
tvonder what must have been the amount of that bribe,
in emolument cr pleasure, that would have detained
him a week inactive after their final adjustment. The
law which carries water down a declivity was not more
unconquerable and invariable than the determination
of his feelings toward the main object. The importance
of this object held his faculties in a state of determi-
nation which was too rigid to be affected by lighter
interests, and on which therefore the beauties of nature
and of art had no power. He had no leisure feeling
which he could spare to be diverted among the innu-
merable varieties of the extensive scene which he
traversed ; his subordinate feelings nearly lost their
separate existence and operation, by falling into the
grand one. There have not been wanting trivial minds,
to mark this as a fault in his character. But the mere
men of taste ought to be silent respecting such a man
as Howard ; he is above their sphere of judgment.
The invisible spirits, who fulfil their commission of
philanthropy among mortals, do not care about pictures,
statues, and sumptuous buildings ; and no more did he.
when the time in which he must have inspected and
admired them, would have been taken from the work
to which he had consecrated his life. The curiosity
which he might feel, was reduced to wait till the hour
should arrive, when its gratification should be presented
by conscience, (which kept a scrupulous charge of all
his time,) as the duty of that hour. If he was still at
every hour, when it came, fated to feel the attractions
of the fine arts but the second claim, they might be
pure of their revenge ; for no other man will ever visit
Home under such a despotic acKnowiedft^d ruie of
iutv * to refuse himsell tiiue tor Hiirveyiu lue
94 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER
nificence of its ruins. Such a sin against taste is very
far beyond the reach of common saintship to commit.
It implied an inconceivable severity of conviction, that
he had one thing to do, and that he who would do some
great thing in this short life, must apply himself to tho
work with such a concentration of his forces, as, to id!"
spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, looks
like insanity.
His attention was so strongly and tenaciously fixed
on his object, that even at the greatest distance, as the
Egyptian pyramids to travellers, it appeared to him
with a luminous distinctness as if it had been nigh, and
beguiled the toilsome length of labour and enterprise
by which he was to reach it. So conspicuous was it
before him, that not a step deviated from the direction,
and every movement and every day was an approxi-
mation. As his method referred every thing he did
and thought to the end, and as his exertion did not
relax for a moment, he made the trial, so seldom made,
what is the utmost effect which may be granted to the
last possible efforts of a human agent : and therefore
what he did not accomplish, he might conclude to be
placed beyond the sphere of mortal activity, and calmlv
ieave to the immediate disposal of Providence.
Unless the eternal happiness of mankind be an in-
significant concern, and the passion to promote it an
inglorious distinction, I may cite George Whitefield as
a noble instance of this attribute of the decisive cha-
racter, this intense necessity of action. The great
cause which was so languid a thing in the hands of
many of its advocates, assumed in his administrations
an unmitigab'le urgency.
Many of the Christian missionaries among the
heathens, such as Brainerd, Elliot, and Schwartz, have
displayed memorable examples of this dedication of
ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 96
their whole being to their office, this abjuration of all
the quiescent feelings.
This would be the proper place for introducing (if
I did not hesitate to introduce in any connexion with
merely human instances) the example of him who said,
" I must be about my Father's business. My meat and
drink is to do the will of him that sent me, and to
finish his work. I have a baptism to be baptized with
and how am I straitened till it be accomplished !"
LETTER IV.
AFTER the illustrations on the last article, it will seem
but a very slight transition when J proceed to specify
Courage, as an essential part of the decisive character.
An intelligent man, adventurous only in thought, may
sketch the most excellent scheme, and after duly ad-
miring it, and himself as its author, may be reduced to
say, What a noble spirit that would be which should
dare to realize this ! A noble spirit ! is it I ? And
his heart may answer in the negative, while he glonces
a mortified thought of inquiry round to recollect
persons who would venture what he dares not, and
almost hopes not to find them. Or if by extreme effort
tie has brought himself to a resolution of braving the
difficulty, he is compelled to execrate the timid Im-
gerings that still keep him back from the trial. A man
endowed with the complete character, might say, with
a sober consciousness as remote from the spirit of
bravado as it is from timidity, Thus, and thus, is my
conviction and my determination ; now for the phantoms
of fear; let me look them in the face; their menacing
glare and ominous tones will be lost on me ; "I dare
90 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
do all that may become a man." I trust I shall firm.)
confront every thing that threatens me while prosecuting
my purpose, and I am prepared to meet the conse-
quences of it when it is accomplished. I should despise a
being, though it were myself, whose agency could be
held enslaved by the gloomy shapes of imagination, by
the haunting recollections of a dream, by the whistling
or the howling of winds, by the shriek of owls, by the
shades of midnight, or by the threats or frowns of man.
I should be indignant to feel that, in the commencement
of an adventure, I could think of nothing but the deep
pit by the side of the way where I must walk, into
which I may slide, the mad animal which it is not im-
possible that I may meet, or the assassin who may lurk
in a thicket of yonder wood. And I disdain to com-
promise the interests that rouse me to action, for the
privilege of an ignoble security.
As the conduct of a man of decision is always in-
dividual, and often singular, he may expect some serious
trials of courage. For one thing, he may be encoun-
tered by the strongest disapprobation of many of his
connexions, and the censure of the greater part of the
society where he is known. In this case, it is not a
man of common spirit that can show himself just as at
other times, and meet their anger in the same undis-
turbed manner as he would meet some ordinary in-
clemency of the weather ; that can, without harshness
or violence, continue to eftect every moment some part
of his design, coolly replying to each ungracious look
and indignant voice, I am sorry to oppose you : I am
not unfriendly to you, while thus persisting in what
excites your displeasure ; it M r ould please me to have
your approbation and concurrence, and I tnink I should
have them if you would seriously consider my reasons ;
but meanwhile, I am superior to opinion, I am \iot to
ON DECISION OF OHARACTEH. 97
bo intimidated by reproaches, nor would your favour
and applause be any reward for the sacrifice of my
object. As you can do without my approbation, I can
certainly do without yours ; it is enough that I oan
approve myself, it i> enough that I appeal to tne last
authority in the creation. Amuse yourselves as you
may, by continuing to censure or to rail ; 1 must con-
tinue to act.
The attack of contempt and ridicule is perhaps a
still greater trial of courage. It is felt by all to be an
admirable thing, when it can in no degree be ascribed
to the hardness of either stupidity or confirmed de-
pravity, to sustain for a considerable time, or in nume-
rous instances, the looks of scorn, or an unrestraineu
shower of taunts and jeers, with perfect composure,
and proceed immediately after, or at the time, on the
business that provokes all this ridicule. This invinci-
bility of temper will often make even the scoffers
themselves tired of the sport : they begin to feel that
against such a man it is a poor sort of hostility to joke
and sneer ; and there is nothing that people are more
mortified to spend in vain than their scorn. Till,
however, a man shall become a veteran, he must reckon
on sometimes meeting this trial in the course of virtuous
enterprise. And if, at the suggestion of some meri-
torious but unprecedented proceeding, I hear him ask,
with a look and tone of shrinking alarm, But will they
not laugh at me ? I know that he is not the person
whom this essay attempts to describe. A man of the
right kind would say, They will smile, they will laugh,
will they ? Much good may it do them. I have
something else to do than to trouble myself about their
mirth. I do not care if the whole neighbourhood were
to laugh in a chorus. I should indeed be sorry to see
or hear such a number of fools, but pleased em. jgh to
H
98 ON DECIS/ON OF CHARACTER.
find that they considered me as an outlaw to their tribe.
The good to result from my project will not be less,
because vain and shallow minds that cannot understand
it, are diverted at it and at me. What should I think
of my pursuits, if every trivial thoughtless being could
comprehend or would applaud them ; and of myself,
if my courage needed levity and ignorance for their
allies, or could be abashed at their sneers ?
I remember, that on reading the account of the
project for conquering Peru, formed by Almagro,
Pizarro, and De Luques, while abhorring the actuating
principle of the men, I could not help admiring the
hardihood of mind which made them regardless of scorn.
These three individuals, before they had obtained any
associates, or arms, or soldiers, or more than a very
imperfect knowledge of the power of the kingdom they
were to conquer, celebrated a solemn mass in one 01
.he great churches, as a pledge and a commencement
of the enterprise, amidst the astonishment and contempt
expressed by a multitude of people for what was deemed
a monstrous project. They, however, proceeded through
the service, and afterwards to their respective depart-
ments of preparation, with an apparently entire insen-
sibility to all this triumphant contempt ; and thus gave
the first proof of possessing that invincible firmness
with which they afterwards prosecuted their design,
till they attained a success, the destructive process
and many of the results of which humanity has ever
deplored.
Milton's Abdiel is a noble illustration of the courage
that rises invincible above the derision not only of the
multitude, but of the proud and elevated.
But there may be situations where decision of cha-
racter will e brought to trial against evils of a darker
aspect than disapprobation or contempt There may
ON DECISION OF CHAUACTBR. 99
be the threatening of serious sufferings ; and very
often, to dare as far as conscience or a great cause
required, has been to dare to die. In almost all plans
of great enterprise, a man must systematically dismiss,
at the entrance, every wish to stipulate with his destiny
for safety. He voluntarily treads within the precincts
of danger ; and though it be possible he may escape,
he ought to be prepared with the fortitude of a self-
devoted victim. This is the inevitable condition on
which heroes, travellers or missionaries among savage
nations, and reformers on a grand scale, must commence
their career. Either they must allay their fire of
enterprise, or abide the liability to be exploded by it
from the world.
The last decisive energy of a rational courage, which
confides in the Supreme Power, is very sublime. It
makes a man who intrepidly dares every thing that
can oppose or attack him within the whole sphere of
mortality ; who will still press toward his object while
death is impending over him ; who would retain his
purpose unshaken amidst the ruins of the world.
It was in the true elevation of this character that
Luther, when cited to appear at the Diet of Worms,
under a very questionable assurance of safety from
high authority, said to his friends, who conjured him
not to go, and warned him by the example of John
Huss, whom, in a similar situation, the same pledge
of protection had not saved from the fire, " I am
called in the name of God to go, and I would go,
though I were certain to meet as many devils in
Worms as there are tiles on the houses."
A reader of the Bible will not forget Daniel, braving
in calm devotion the decree which virtually consigned
him to the den of lions : or Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abed-nego, saying to the tyrant, " We are not careful
Hi
100 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
to answer thee in this matter," when the " burning
tiery" furnace was in sight.
The combination of these several essential principles
Constitutes that state of mind which is a grand requisite
to decision of character, and perhaps its most striking
distinction the full agreement of the mind with
tself, the consenting oo-operation of all its powers
ind all its dispositions.
What an unfortunate task it would be for a cha-
rioteer, who had harnessed a set of horses, however
strong, if he could not make them draw together ; if
while one of them would go forward, another was
restiff, another struggled backward, another started aside.
If even one of the four were unmanageably perverse,
while the three were tractable, an aged beggar with
his crutch might leave Phaeton behind. So in a human
oeing, unless the chief forces act consentaneously,
there can be no inflexible vigour, either of will or
execution. One dissentient principle in the mind not
only deducts so much from the strength and mass
of its agency, but counteracts and embarrasses all
the rest. If the judgment holds in low estimation that
which yet the passions incline to pursue, the pursuit
will be irregular and inconstant, though it may have
occasional fits of animation, when those passions
happen to be highly stimulated. If there is an oppo-
sition between judgment and habit, though the man
will probably continue to act mainly under the sway
of habit in spite of his opinions, yet sometimes the
intrusion of those opinions will have for the moment
an effect like that of Prospero's wand on the limbs
of Ferdinand ; and to be alternately impelled by habit,
and checked by opinion, will be a state of vexatious
(lability. If two principal passions are opposed to
ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 10l
each other, they will utterly distract any mind, what-
ever might be the force of its faculties if acting
without embarrassment. The one passion may h-.*
somewhat stronger than the other, and therefore just
prevail barely enough to give a feeble impulse to the
conduct of the man ; a feebleness which will continue
till there be a greater disparity between these rivals,
in consequence of a reinforcement to the slightly
ascendent one, by new impressions, or the gradual
strengthening of habit forming in its favour. The
disparity must be no less than an absolute predomi-
nance of the one and subjection of the other, before
the prevailing passion will have at liberty from the
intestine conflict any large measure of its force to
throw activity into the system of conduct. If, foi
instance, a man feels at once the love of fame which
is to be gained only by arduous exertions, and an
equal degree of the love of ease or pleasure which
precludes those exertions ; if he is eager to show off
in splendour, and yet anxious to save money ; if he
has the curiosity of adventure, and yet that solicitude
for safety, which forbids him to climb a precipice,
descend into a cavern, or explore a dangerous wild;
if he has the stern will of a tyrant, and yet the relent-
ings of a man ; if he has the ambition to domineer over
his fellow-mortals, counteracted by a reluctance w>
inflict so much mischief as it might cost to subdue
them ; we may anticipate the irresolute contradictory
tenour of bis actions. Especially if conscience, that
great troubier of the human breast, loudly declares
against a man's wishes or project*., it will be a iktal
enemy to decision, till it either reclaim the delinquent
passions, or be debauched or laid dead by them.
Lady Macbeth may be cited as a harmonious cha*
racter, though the epithet seem strangely applied.
She had capacity, ambition, and courage ; and she
102 OV UECIMON Ok' CHARACTER.
vilied the death of the king. Macbeth had still more
capacity, ambition, and courage ; and he also willed
ilie murder of the king. But he had, besides, hu-
manity, generosity, conscience, and some measure of
rt hat forms the power of conscience, the fear of a
.'juperior Being. Consequently, when the dreadful
moment approached, he flt an insupportable conflict
between these opposite principles, and when it was
arrived his utmost courage began to fail. The worst
part of his nature fell prostrate under the pow^r of the
better ; the angel of goodness arrested the demon that
grasped the dagger ; and would have taken that dagger
away, if the pure demoniac firmness of his wife, who
had none of these counteracting principles, had not
sliamed and hardened him to the deed.
The poet's delineation of Richard III. offers a
dreadful specimen of this indivisibility of mental im-
pulse. Alter his determination was fixed, the whole
mind with the compactest fidelity supported him in
prosecuting it. Securely privileged from all interference
of doubt that could linger, or humanity that could
soften, or timidity that could shrink, he advanced witb
a concentrated constancy through scene after scene of
atrocity, still fulfilling his vow to " cut his way through
with a bloody axe." He did not waver while he
pursued his object, nor relent when he seized it.
Cromwell (whom I mention as a parallel, of course
not to Richard's wickedness, but to his inflexible
vigour,) lost his mental consistency in the latter end (if
a career which had displayed a superlative example of
decision. It appears that the wish to be a king, at
last arose in a mind which had contemned royalty, and
1 muled it from the land. As far as he really had any
republican principles and partialities, this new desire
must have been a very untoward associate for them,
and must have, nro luced a schism in the breast where
ON DECISION OF CIiAKACTER. 103
ah the strong forces of thought and passion had acted
till then in concord. The new form of ambition
became just predominant enough to carry him, by slow
degrees, through the embarrassment and the shame of
this incongruity, into an irresolute determination to
assume the crown ; so irresolute, that he was reduced
again to a mortifying indecision by the remonstrances
of some of his friends, which he could have slighted,
and by an apprehension of the public disapprobation,
which he could have braved, if some of the principles
of his own mind had not shrunk or revolted from the
design. When at last the motives for relinquishing
this design prevailed, it was by so small a degree of
preponderance, that his reluctant refusal of the offered
crown was the voice of only half his soul.
Not only two distinct counteracting passions, but
one passion interested for two objects, both equally
desirable, but of which the one must be sacrificed, may
annihilate in that instance the possibility of a resolute
promptitude of conduct. I recollect reading in an old
divine, a story from some historian, applicable to this
remark. A father went to the agents of a tyrant, to
endeavour to redeem his two sons, military men, who,
with some other captives of war, were condemned to
die. He offered, as a ransom, a sum of money, and to
surrender his own life. The tyrant's agents who had
them in charge, informed him that this equivalent
would be accepted for one of his sons, and for OLC
only, because they should be accountable for the execu-
tion of two persons ; he might therefore choose which
he would redeem. Anxious to save even one of them
thus at the expense of his own life, he yet was unable
to decide which should die, by choosing the other to
live, and remained in the agony of this dilemma so long
that they were both irreversibly ordered for execution.
10* OX DECISION OF CHARACTER
LETTER V.
IT were absurd to suppose that any human being can
attain a state of mind capable of acting in all instances
invariably with the full power of determination ; but
it is obvious that many have possessed a habitual and
very commanding measure of it ; and I think the pre-
ceding remarks have taken account of its chief cha-
racteristics and constituent principles. A number of
additional observations remains.
The slightest view of human affairs shows what
fatal and wide-spread mischief may be caused by men
of this character, when misled or wicked. You have
but to recollect the conquerors, despots, bigots, unjust
conspirators, and signal villains of every class, who
have blasted society by the relentless vigour which
could act consistently and heroically wrong. Till
therefore the virtue of mankind be greater, there is
reason to be pleased that so few of them are endowed
with extraordinary decision.
Even when dignified by wisdom and principle, this
quality requires great care in the possessors of it to
prevent its becoming unamiable. As it involves much
practical assertion of superiority over other human beings,
it should be as temperate and conciliating as possible in
manner ; else pride will feel provoked, affection hurt,
and weakness oppressed. But this is not the manner
which will be most natural to such a man ; rather it
will be high-toned, laconic, and careless of pleasing.
He will have the appearance of keeping himself always
at a distance from social equality ; and his friends will
feel as if their friendship were continually sliding into
Mibserviency ; while his intimate connexions will think
ON DECISION OK CHARACTER. 105
lie does not attach the due importance either to their
opinions or *<> their regard. His mariner, when they
differ from him, or complain, will be too much like the
expression of slight estimation, and sometimes of
disdain.
When he can accomplish a design by his own
personal means alone, he may be disposed to separate
himself to the work with the cold self-enclosed in-
dividuality on which no one has any hold, which seems
to recognise no kindred being in the world, which
takes little account of good wishes and kind concern,
any more than it cares for opposition ; which seeks
neither aid nor sympathy, and seems to say, I do not
want any of you, and I am glad that I do not ; leave
me alone to succeed or die. This has a very repellent
pffect on the friends who wished to feel themselves of
some importance, in some way or other, to a persor
whom they are constrained to respect. When assistance
is indispensable to his undertakings, his mode of signi-
fying it will seem to command, rather than invite, the
co-operation.
In consultation, his manner will indicate that when
he is equally with the rest in possession of the circum-
stances of the case, he does not at all expect to hear
any opinions that shall correct his own ; but is satisfied
that either his present conception of the subject is the
just one, or that his own mind must originate that
which shall be so. This difference will be apparent-
between him and his associates, that their manner of
receiving his opinions is that of agreement or dissent;
his manner of receiving theirs is judicial that of
sanction or rejection. He has the tone of authori-
tatively deciding on what they say, but never of sub-
mitting to decision what himself says. Their coincidence
with his views does not give him a firmer assurance of
106 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
his being right, nor their dissent any other impression
than that of their incapacity to judge. If his feeling
took the distinct form of a reflection, it would be,
Mine is the business of comprehending and devising,
and I am here to rule this company, and not to consult
them ; I want their docility, and not their arguments ;
I am come, not to seek their assistance in thinking,
but to determine their concurrence in executing what
is already thought for them. Of course, many sugges-
tions and reasons which appear important to those they
come from will be disposed of by him with a transient
attention, or a light facility, that will seem very dis-
respectful to persons who possibly hesitate to admit
that he is a demi-god, and that they are but idiots. Lord
Chatham, in going out of the House of Commons,
ust as one of the speakers against him concluded his
speech by emphatically urging what he perhaps rightly
thought the unanswerable question, " Where can we
find means to support such a war?" turned round a
moment, and gaily chanted, " Gentle shepherd tell me
where ?"
Even the assenting convictions, and practical com-
pliances, yielded by degrees to this decisive man, may
be somewhat undervalued ; as they will appear to him
no more than simply coming, and that very slowly, to
a right apprehension ; whereas he understood and
decided justly from the first, and has been right all
this while.
He will be in danger of rejecting the just claims of
charity for a little tolerance to the prejudices, hesitation,
and timidity, of those with whom he has to act. He
will say to himself, I wish there were any thing like
manhood among the beings called men ; and that they
could have the sense and spirit not to let themselves
be hampered b.v so many silly notions and childish
UN DECISION OF CHARACTER. 107
fears ! Why cannot they either determine with some
promptitude, or let me., that can, do it for them ?
Am I to wait till debility become strong, and folly
wise ? If full scope be allowed to these tendencies,
they may give too much of the character of a tyrant
to even a man of elevated virtue, since, in the conscious-
ness of the right intention, and the assurance of the
wise contrivance, of his designs, he will hold himself
justified in being regardless of every thing but the ac-
complishment of them. He will forget all respect for
the feelings and liberties of beings who are accounted
but a subordinate machinery, to be actuated, or to be
thrown aside when not actuated, by the spring of h:s
commanding spirit.
I have before asserted that this strong character
may be exhibited with a mildness, or at least temperance,
of manner; and that, generally, it will thus best
secure its efficacy. But this mildness must often be at
the cost of great effort ; and how much considerate
policy or benevolent forbearance it will require, for a
man to exert his utmost vigour in the very task, as it
will appear to him at the time, of cramping that
vigour ! Lycurgus appears to have been a high
example of conciliating patience in the resolute pro-
secution of designs to be effected among a perverse
multitude.
It is probable that the men most distinguished for
decision, have not in general possessed a large share of
tenderness ; and it is easy to imagine, that the laws of
our nature will, with great difficulty, allow the combi-
nation of the refined sensibilities with a hard, never-
shrinking, never-yielding firmness. Is it not almost of
the essence of this temperament to be free from even
the perception of such impressions as cause a mind,
weak through susceptibility, to relax or waver ; just as
108 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
the skin of the elephant, or the armour of the rhino-
ceros, would be but indistinctly sensible to the applica-
tion of a force by which a small animal, with a skin of
thin and delicate texture, would be pierced or lacerated
to death ? No doubt, this firmness consists partly in a
commanding and repressive power over feelings, but it
may consist fully as much in not having them. To be
exquisitely alive to gentle impressions, and yet to be
able to preserve, when the prosecution of a design
requires it, an immovable heart amidst the most im-
perious causes of subduing emotion, is perhaps not an
impossible constitution of mind, but it must be the
rarest endowment of humanity.
If you take a view of the first rank of decisive men,
you will observe that their faculties have been too
much bent to arduous effort, their souls have been
kept in too military an attitude, they have been begirt
with too much iron, for the melting movements of the
heart. Their whole being appears too much arrogated
and occupied by the spirit of severe design, urging
them toward some defined end, to be sufficiently at
ease for the indolent complacency, the soft lassitude of
gentle affections, which love to surrender themselves
to the present felicities, forgetful of all " enterprises
of great pith and moment." The man seems rigorously
intent still on his own affairs, as he walks, or regales,
or mingles with domestic society ; and appears to
despise all the feelings that will not take rank with
the grave labours and decisions of intellect, or coalesce
with the unremitting passion which is his spring of
action ; he values not feelings which he cannot employ
either as weapons or as engines. He loves to be
actuated by a passion so strong as to compel into
exercise the utmost force of his being, and fix him in
a tone, compared with which, the gentle affections, if
ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 109
:w had felt them, would be accounted lameness, and
their exciting causes insipidity.
Yet we cannot willingly admit that those gentle
affections are totally incompatible with the most im-
pregnable resolution and vigour; nor can we help
believing that such men as Timoleon, Alfred, and
Gustavus Adolphus, must have been very fascinating
associates in private and domestic life, whenever the
urgency of their affairs would allow them to withdraw
from the interests of statesmen and warriors, to indulge
the affections of men : most fascinating, for, with
relations or friends who had any right perceptions, an
effect of the strong character would be recognised ir
a peculiar charm imparted by it to the gentle moods
and seasons. The firmness and energy of the man
whom nothing could subdue, would exalt the quality
of the tenderness which softened him to recline.
But it were much easier to enumerate a long train
of ancient and modern examples of the vigour un-
mitigated by the sensibility. Perhaps indeed these
indomitable spirits have yielded sometimes to some
species of love, as a mode of amusing their passions
for an interval, till greater engagements have sum-
moned them into their proper element; when they
have shown how little the sentiment was an element
of the heart, by the ease with which they coivld re-
linquish the temporary favourite. In other cases,
where there have not been the selfish inducements,
which this passion supplies, to the exhibition of some-
ining like softness, and where they have been left to
the trial of what they might feel of the sympathies of
uumanity in their simplicity, no rock on earth could
be harder.
The celebrated King of Prussia occurs to me, as s
capital instance cf the decisive character ; and theie
110 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
occurs to me, at the same time, one of the anecdotes
related of him.* Intending to make, in the night, an
important movement in his camp, which was in sight
of the enemy, he gave orders that by eight o'clock all
the lights in the camp should be put out, on pain of
death. The moment that the time was passed, he
walked out himself to see whether all were dark. He
found a light in the tent of a Captain Zietern, which
he entered just as the officer was folding up a letter.
Zietern knew him, and instantly fell on his knees to
entreat his mercy. The king asked to whom he had
been writing; he said it was a letter to his wife, which
he had retained the candle these few minutes beyond
the time in order to finish. The king coolly ordered
him to rise, and write one line more, which he should
dictate. This line was to inform his wife, without any
explanation, that by such an hour the next day, he
should be a dead man. The letter was then sealed,
and despatched as it had been intended ; and, the next
day, the captain was executed. I say nothing of the
justice of the punishment itself; but this cool barbarity
to the affection both of the officer and his wife, proved
how little the decisive hero and reputed philosopher
was capable of the tender affections, or of sympathizing
with their pains.
At the same time, it is proper to observe, that the
case may easily occur, in which a man, sustaining a
* The authenticity of this anecdote, which I read in some trifling
fugitive publication many years since, lias been questioned. Possibly
enough it might be one of the many stories only half true which
could not fail to go abroad concerning a man who made, in his day,
so great a figure. But as it does not at all misrepresent the general
character of his mind, since there are many incontrovertible facts
proving against him as great a degree of cruelty as this anecdotu
would charge on him. the want of means to prove this one fact doe:
not seem to impose any necessity for omitting the illustration.
OK DECISION OF CHARACTER. Ill
nigh responsibility, must be resolute to act in a marmot
which may make him appear to want the finer feeling?.
He may be placed under the necessity of doing what
lie knows will cause pain to persons of a character tc
feel it severely. He may be obliged to resist affec-
tionate wishes, expostulations, entreaties, and tears.
Take this same instance. Suppose the wife of Zietern
had come to supplicate for him, not only the remission
of the punishment of death, but an exemption from any
other severe punishment, which was perhaps justly due
to the violation of such an order issued no doubt for
important reasons; it had then probably been the duty
and the virtue of the commander to deny the most
interesting suppliant, and to resist the most pathetic
appeals which could have been made to his feelings.
LETTER VI.
VARIOUS circumstances might be specified as addptni
to confirm such a character as I have attempted to
describe. I shall notice two or three.
And first, opposition. The passions which inspirit
men to resistance, and sustain them in it, such as
anger, indignation, and resentment, are evidently far
stronger than those which have reference to friendly
objects ; and if any of these strong passions are fre-
quently excited by opposition, they infuse a certain
quality into the general temperament of the mind,
which remains after the immediate excitement is past.
They continually strengthen the principle of re-action ;
they put the mind in the habitual array of defence and
self-assertion, and often give it the aspect and the
uosture of a gladiator, when there appears uo con-
112 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
fronting combatant. When these passions arc provoked
in such a person as I describe, it is probable that each
excitement is followed by a greater increase of this
principle of re-action than in other men, because this
result is so congenial with his naturally resolute dis-
position. Let him be opposed then, throughout the
prosecution of one of his designs, or in the general
tenour of his actions, and this constant opposition
would render him the service of an ally, by augmenting
the resisting and defying power of his mind. An irre-
solute spirit indeed might be quelled and subjugated
by a formidable and persisting opposition ; but the
strong wind which blows out a taper, exasperates a
powerful fire (if there be fuel enough) to an indefinite
intensity. It would be found, in fact, on a recollection
of instances, that many of the persons most conspicuous
for decision, have been exercised and forced to this
aigh tone of spirit in having to make their way through
opposition and contest ; a discipline under which they
were wrought to both a prompt acuteness of faculty,
and an inflexibility of temper, hardly attainable even
by minds of great natural strength, if brought forward
Into the affairs of life under indulgent auspices, and in
habits of easy and friendly coincidence with those
around them. Often, however, it is granted, the
firmness matured by such discipline is, in a man of
virtue, accompanied with a Catonic severity, and in a
mere man of the world is an unhumanized repulsive
hardness.
Desertion may be another cause conducive to the
consolidation of this character. A kind mutually
reclining dependence, is certainly for the happiness
of human beings ; but this necessarily prevents the
development of some great individual powers which
would be forced into action by a state of abandonment
ON DECISION OF CIIAKACTER. 113
( lately happened to notice, with some surprise, an
ivy, which, finding nothing to cling to beyond a
certain poinv had shot off into a bold elastic stem,
with an air of as much independence as any branch
of oak in the vicinity. So a human being thrown,
whether by cruelty, justice, or accident, from all social
support and kindness, if he have any vigour of spirit,
and be not in the bodily debility of either childhood
or age, will begin to act for himself with a resolution
which will appear like a new faculty. And the most
absolute inflexibility is likely to characterize the iv-<>-
lution of an individual who is obliged to deliberate
without consultation, and execute without assistance.
He will disdain to yield to beings who have rejected
him, or to forego a particle of his designs or advantages
in concession to the opinions or the will of all the
world. Himself, his pursuits, and his interests are
emphatically his own. " The world is not his friend,
nor the world's law;" and therefore he becomes re-
gardless of every thing but its power, of which his
policy carefully takes the measure, in order to ascer-
tain his own means of action and impunity, as set
against the world's means of annoyance, prevention,
and retaliation.
If this person have but little humanity or priojiple.
lie will become a misanthrope, or perhaps a villain,
who will resemble a solitary wild beast of the night,
which makes prey of every thing it can overpower,
and cares for nothing but fire. If he be capable of
grand conception and enterprise, he may, like Spar-
tacus, make a daring attempt against the whole social
order of the state where he has been oppressed. If he
be of great humanity and principle, he may become one
of the noblest of mankind, and display a generous
virtue to which society had no claim, and which it is not
I
lit ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
worthy to reward, if it should at last become inclined.
No, he will say, give your rewards to another ; as it
has been no part of my object to gain them, they are
not necessary to my satisfaction. I have done good,
without expecting your gratitude, and without caring
for your approbation. If conscience and my Creator
had not been more auspicious than you, none of these
virtues would ever have opened to the day. When
1 ought to have been an object of your compassion, I
might have perished ; now, when you find I can serve
your interests, you will affect to acknowledge me and
reward me ; but I will abide by my destiny to verify
the principle that virtue is its own reward. In either
case, virtuous or wicked, the man who has been com-
pelled to do without assistance, will spurn interference.
Common life would supply illustrations of the effect
of desertion, in examples of some of the most resolute
men having become such partly from being left friend-
less in early life. The case has also sometimes
happened, that a wife and mother, remarkable perhaps
for orentleness and acquiescence before, has been com-
pelled, after the death of her husband on whom she
depended, and when she has met with nothing but
neglect or unkindness from relations and those who
had been accounted friends, to adopt a plan of her
own, and has executed it with a resolution which has
astonished even herself.
One regrets that the signal examples, real or ficti-
tious, that most readily present themselves, are still of
the depraved order. I fancy mvself to see Marius
sitting on "the ruins of Carthage, where no arch or
column, that remained unshaken amidst the desolation,
could present a stronger image of a firmness beyond
the power of disaster to subdue. The rigid constancy
which had before distinguished his character, would be
ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. I 1 .">
aggravated by his finding himself thus an outcast
from all human society ; and he would proudly shake
off every sentiment that had ever for an instant
checked his designs in the way of reminding him of
social obligations. The lonely individual was places!
in the alternative of becoming the victim or tlte anta-
gonist of the power of the empire. While, with a
spirit capable of confronting that power, he resolved,
amidst those ruins, on a great experiment, he would
enjoy a kind of sullen luxury in surveying the dreary
situation into which he was driven, and recollecting
the circumstances of his expulsion ; since they would
seem to him to sanction an unlimited vengeance ; to
present what had been his country as the pure legiti-
mate prize for desperate achievement ; and to give
him a proud consequence in being reduced to maintain
singly a mortal quarrel against the bulk of mankind.
He would exult that the very desolation of his con-
dition tendered but the more complete the proof of his
possessing a mind which no misfortunes could repress
or intimidate, and that it kindled an animosity intense
enough to force that mind from firm endurance into
impetuous action. He would -feel that he became
stronger for enterprise, in proportion as his exile and
destitution rendered him more inexorable ; and the
sentiment with which he quitted his solitude would
be, Rome expelled her patriot, let her receive her evil
genius.
The decision of Satan, in Paradise Lost, is repre-
sented as consolidated by his reflections on his hopeless
banishment from heaven, which oppress him with >;!<!
ness for some moments, but he soon resume:* his
invincible spirit, and utters the impious but sublint*
sentiment,
* What matter where, if / be sUll the sarn. n
i 2
116 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
You remember how this effect of desertion is rep r o-
sented in Charles de Moor.* His father's supposed cruel
rejection consigned him irretrievably to the career of
atrocious enterprise, in which, notwithstanding the
most interesting emotions of humanity and tenderness,
he persisted with heroic determination till he considered
h:'s destiny as accomplished.
Success tends considerably to reinforce this com-
manding quality. It is true that a man possessing it
in a high degree will not lose it by occasional failure ;
for if the failure was caused by something entirely
beyond the reach of human knowledge and ability,
he will remember that fortitude is the virtue required
in meeting unfavourable events which in no sense
depended on him ; if by something which might have
been known and prevented, he will feel that even the
experience of failure completes his competence, by
admonishing his prudence, and enlarging his under-
standing. But as schemes and measures of action
rightly adjusted to their proposed ends will generally
attain them, continual failure would show something
essentially wrong in a man's system, and destroy his
confidence, or else expose it as mere absurdity or
obstinacy. On the contrary, when a man has ascer-
tained by experiment the justness of his calculations
and the extent of his powers, when he has measured
his force with various persons, when he has braved
and vanquished difficulty, and partly seized the prize,
he will carry forward the result of all this in an intrepid
self-sufficiency for whatever may yet await him.
In some men, whose lives have been spent, in con-
stant perils, continued success has produced a confidence
beyond its rational effect, by inspiring a presumption
* A wildly extravagant, certainly, hut most imposing and gigantic
character in Schiller's tragedy, The llobbers.
OX DECISION OF CHARACTER. 117
.hat the common laws of human affairs were, in their
case, superseded by the decrees of a peculiar destiny,
securing them from almost the possibility of disaster;
and this superstitious feeling, though u has displaced
the unconquerable resolution from its rational basis,
has often produced the most wonderful effects. This
dictated Caesar's expression to the mariner who was
terrified at the storm and billows, " What art thou
afraid of? thy vessel carries Caesar." The brave
men in the times of the English Commonwealth were,
some of them, indebted in a degree for their magna-
nimity to this idea of a special destination, entertained
s a religious sentiment.
The wilfulness of an obstinate person is sometimes
fortified by some single instance of remarkable success
in his undertakings, which is promptly recalled in
every case where his decisions are questioned or
opposed, as a proof, or ground of just presumption,
that he must in this instance too be right ; especially
if that one success happened contrary to your pre-
dictions. /
I shall only add, and without illustration, that the
habit of associating with inferiors, among whom a man
can always, and therefore does always, take the prece-
dence and give the law, is conducive to a subordinate
coarse kind of decision of character. You may see
this exemplified any day in an ignorant country 'squire
among his vassals ; especially if he wear the lordly
uperaddition of Justice of the Peace, s
In viewing the characters and actions of the men
who have possessed in imperial eminence the qualit\
which I have attempted to describe, one cannot but
wish it were possible to know how much of this mighty
superiority was created by the circumstances ii \\uic.i
they were placed but it is inevitable to believe that
118 ON DECISION OF CHARACTEK.
there was some vast intrinsic difference from ordinary
men in the original constitutional structure of the
mind. In observing lately a man who appeared too
vacant almost to think of a purpose, too indifferent
to resolve upon it, and too sluggish to execute -t
if he had resolved, I was distinctly struck with the
idea of the distance between him and Marius, of whom
I happened to hav? been reading ; and it was infinitely
beyond my power to believe that any circumstances
on earth, though ever so perfectly combined and
adapted, would have produced in this man, if placed
under their fullest influence from his childhood, any
resemblance (unless perhaps the courage to enact a
diminutive imitation in revenge and cruelty) of the
formidable Roman.
It is needless to discuss whether a person who is
practically evinced, at the age of maturity, to want
the stamina of this character, can, by any process,
acquire it. Indeed such a person cannot have suffi-
cient force of will to make the complete experiment.
If there were the unconquerable will that would per-
sist to seize all possible means, and apply them in order
to attain, if I may so express it, this stronger mode of
active existence, it would prove the possession already
of a high degree of the character sought ; and if there
is not this will, how then is the supposed attainment
possible ?
Yet though it is improbable that a very irresolute
man can ever become a habitually decisive one, it
should be observed, that since there are degrees of this
powerful quality, and since the essential principles cf
it, when partially existing in those degrees, cannot be
supposed subject to detinite and ultimate limitation,
like the dimension of the bodily stature, it might be
possible to apply a discipline which should advance a
ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 119
man from the lowest degree to the next, from that to
the third, and how much further it will be worth his
trying, if his first successful experiments have not co.st
mo e in the efforts for making the attainment, than
he judges likely to he repaid by any good he shall
gain from its exercise. I have but a very imperfect
conception of the discipline ; but will suggest a hint
or two.
11 the first place, the indispensable necessity of
a clear and comprehensive knowledge of the concerns
before us, seems too obvious for remark ; and yet no
man has been sufficiently sensible of it, till he has been
placed in circumstances which forced him to act before
he had time, or after he had made ineffectual efforts
to obtain the needful information and understanding
The pain of having brought things to an unfortunate
issue, is hardly greater than that of proceeding in the
conscious ignorance which continually threatens such
an issue. While thus proceeding at hazard, under
some compulsion which makes it impossible for him
to remain in inaction, a man looks round for informa-
tion as eagerly as a benighted wanderer would for the
light of a human dwelling. He perhaps labours to
recall what he thinks he once heard or read as relating
to a similar situation, without dreaming at that time
that such instruction could ever come to be of im-
portance to him ; and is distressed to find his besx
recollection so indistinct as to be useless. He would
give a considerable sum, if some particular book could
be brought to him at the instant ; or a certaiu docu-
ment which he believes to be in existence ; or the
fletail of a process, the terms of a prescription, or the
model of an implement. He thinks how many people
know, without its being of any present use to them,
exactly what could be of such important service to
120 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
him, if he could know it. In some cases, a line,
sentence, a monosyllable of affirming or denying, or a
momentary sight of an object, would be inexpressibly
valuable and welcome. And he resolves that if he
can once happily escape from the present difficulty,
he will apply himself day and night to obtain know-
ledge, not concerning one particular matter only, but
divers others, in provision against possible emergencies,
rather than be so involved and harassed again. It
might really be of service to have been occasionally
forced to act under the disadvantage of conscious
ignorance (if the affair was not so important as to allow
the consequence to be very injurious), as an effectual
lesson on the necessity of knowledge in order to deci-
sion either of plan or execution. It must indeed be an
extreme case that will compel a considerate man to act
in the absence of knowledge ; yet he may sometimes
be necessitated to proceed to action, when he is sensible
his information is far from extending to the whole of
the concern in which he is going to commit himself
And in this case, he will feel no little uneasiness, while
transacting that part of it. in which his knowledge is
competent, when he looks forward to the point where
that knowledge terminates ; unless he be conscious of
possessing an exceedingly prompt faculty of catching
information at the moment that he wants it for use ; as
Indians set out on a long journey with but a trifling stock
of provision, because they are sure that their bows or
guns will procure it by the way. It is one of the nicest
points of wisdom to decide how much Jess than com-
plete knowledge, in any question of practical interest,
M'ill warrant a man to venture on an undertaking, in
the presumption that the deficiency will be supplied in
time to prevent either perplexity or disaster.
A thousand familiar instances show the effect of
ON DECISION OF CHARACTta. 121
complete knowledge on determination. An artisan may
be said to be decisive as to the mode of working a piece
of iron or wood, because he is certain of the proper
process and the effect. A man perfectly acquainted
with the intricate paths of a woodland district, takes
the right one without a moment's hesitation ; while a
stranger, who has only some very vague information, is
lost in perplexity. It is easy to imagine what a number
of circumstances may occur in the course of a life,
or even of a year, in which a man cannot thus readily
determine, and thus confidently proceed without a
compass and an exactness of knowledge which few
persons have application enough to acquire. And it
would be frightful to know to what extent human
interests are committed to the direction of ignorance.
What a consolatory doctrine is that of a particular
Providence I
In connexion with the necessity of knowledge, I
would suggest the importance of cultivating, with the
utmost industry, a conclusive manner of thinking. In
the first place, let the general course of thinking
partake of the nature of reasoning ; and let it be
remembered that this name does not belong to a series
>f thoughts and fancies which follow one another
without deduction or dependence, and which can there-
fore no more bring a subject to a proper issue, than a
number of separate links will answer the mechanical
purpose of a chain. The conclusion which terminates
such a series, does not deserve the name of result or
conclusion, since it has little more than a casual con-
nexion with what went before ; the conclusion might as
fPoperly have taken place at an earlier point of the
traia, or have been deferred till that train had been
extended much further. Instead of having been busily
employed la this kind of thinking, for perhaps many
1Q2 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER
hours, a man might possibly as well have been sleeping
all the time ; since the single thought which is now to
determine his conduct, might have happened to be the
first thought that occurred to him on awaking. It only
happens to occur to him now ; it does not follow from
what he has been thinking these hours; at least, he
cannot prove that some other thought might not just
as appropriately have come in its place at the end, and
to make an end, of this long series. It is easy to see
how feeble that determination is likely to be, which is
formed on so narrow a ground as the last accidental
idea that comes into the mind, or on so loose a ground
as this crude uncombined assemblage of ideas. Indeed
it is difficult to form a determination at all on such
slight ground. A man delays, and waits for some more
satisfactory thought to occur to him ; and perhaps he
has not waited long, before an idea arises in his mind
of a quite contrary tendency to the last. As this addi-
tional idea is not, more than that whicl preceded it,
the result of any process of reasoning, nor brings with
it any arguments, it may be expected to give place soon
to another, and still another ; and they are all in suc-
cession of equal authority, that is properly of none.
If at last an idea occurs to him which seems of consi-
derable authority, he may here make a stand, and adopt
his resolution, with firmness, as he thinks, and com-
mence the execution. But still, if he cannot see
whence the principle which has determined him derives
its authority on what it holds for that authority his
resolution is likely to prove treacherous and evanescent
in any serious trial. A principle so little verified by
sound reasoning, is not terra firma for a man to trust
himself upon ; it is only as a slight incrustation on a
yielding element ; it is like the sand compacted into a
thin surface on the lake Serbonis, which broke away
ON DECISION OF CHARACTER 123
under the unfortunate army which had begun tu advance
on it, mistaking it for solid ground. These remarks
may seem to refer only to a single instance of delibe-
ration ; but they are equally applicable to all the deli-
berations and undertakings of a man's life ; the same
connected manner of thinking, which is so necessary to
give firmness of determination and of conduct in a
particular instance, will, if habitual, greatly contribute
to form a decisive character.
Not only should thinking be thus reduced, by a strong
and patient discipline, to a train or process, in which all
the parts at once depend upon and support one another,
but also this train should be followed on to a full con-
clusion. It should be held as a law generally in force,
that the question must be disposed of before it is let
alone. The mind may carry on this accurate process
to some length, and then stop through indolence, or
start away through levity ; but it can never possess that
rational confidence in its opinions which is requisite to
the character in question, till it is conscious of acquiring
them from an exercise of thought continued on to its
result. The habit of thinking thus completely is indis-
pensable to the general character of decision ; and in
an) 'articular instance, it is found that short pieces of
coui * of reasoning, though correct as far as they go,
are inadequate to make a man master of the immediate
concern. They are besides of little value for aid to
future thinking; because from being left thus incom-
plete they are but slightly retained by the mind, and
soon sink away ; in the same manner as the walls of a
structure left unfinished speedily moulder.
After these remarks, I should take occasion to observe,
that a vigorous exercise of thought may sometimes foi
a while seem to increase the difficulty of decision, b)
discovering a great number of unthought-of reason*
124 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER.
for a measure and against it, so that the most disci*
minating mind may, during a short space, find itself iu
the state of the magnetic needle under the equator.
But no case, in the world can really have a perfect
equality of opposite reasons ; nor will it long appear to
have it, in the estimate of a clear and well-disciplined
intellect, which after some time will ascertain, though
the difference is small, which side of the question has
ten, and which has but nine. At any rate this is the
mind to come nearest in the approximation.
Another thing that would powerfully assist toward
complete decision, both in the particular instance.
and in the general spirit of the character, is for a
man to place himself in a situation analogous to that
in which Caesar placed his soldiers, when he burnt,
the ships which brought them to land. If his judg-
ment is really decided, let him commit himself irre
trievably, by doing something which shall oblige him
to do more, which shall lay on him the necessity of
doing all. If a man resolves as a general intention to
be a philanthropist, I would say to him, Form some
actual plan of philanthropy, and begin the execution
of it to-morrow, (if I may not say to-day,) so explicitly
that you cannot relinquish it without becoming degraded
even in your own estimation. If a man would be a hero,
let him, if it be possible to find a good cause in arms,
go presently to the carnp. If a man is desirous of a
travelling adventure through distant countries, and de-
liberately approves both his purpose and his scheme, let
him actually prepare to set off. Let him not still dwell,
in imagination, on mountains, rivers, and temples ; but
give directions about his remittances, his personal equip-
ments, or the carriage, or the vessel, in which he is to go.
Ledyard surprised the official person who asked him how
soou he could be ready to set off for the interior
ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 125
of Africa, by replying promptly and firmly, " To-
morrow."
Again, it is highly conducive to a manly firmness,
that the interests in which it is exerted should be of a
dignified order, so as to give the passions an ample
scope, and a noble object. The degradation they suffer
in being devoted to mean and trivial pursuits, often
perceived to be such in spite of every fallacy of the
imagination, would in general, I should think, also de-
bilitate their energy, and therefore preclude strength
ui' character, to which nothing can be more adverse,
than to have the fire of the passions damped by the
mortification of feeling contempt for the object, as often
as its meanness is betrayed by failure of the delusion
which invests it.
And finally, I would repeat that one should think a
man's own conscientious approbation of his conduct
must be of vast importance to his decision in the outset,
and his persevering constancy ; and I would attribute
it to defect of memory that a greater proportion of the
examples, introduced for illustration in this essay, do
not exhibit goodness in union with the moral and intel-
lectual power so conspicuous in the quality described.
Certainly a bright constellation of such examples might
be displayed ; yet it is the mortifying truth that much
the greater number of men pre-eminent for decision,
have been such as could not have their own serious
approbation, except through an utter perversion of
judgment or abolition of conscience. And it is melan-
choly to contemplate beings represented in our imagi-
nation as of adequate power, (when they possessed great
external means to give effect to the force of their minds,)
for the grandest utility, for vindicating each good cause
which has languished in a world adverse to all goodness,
and for intimidating the collective vices of a nation cr
126 OW DECISION OF CHARACTER.
an age to contemplate such beings as becoming them-
selves the mighty exemplars, giants, and champions o<
those vices ; and it is fearful to follow them in thought,
from this region, of which not all the powers and diffi-
culties and inhabitants together could have subdued
their adamantine resolution, to the Supreme Tribunal
that resolution must tremble and melt away.
ESSAY III.
ON THE APPLICATION OF THK EPITHET ROMANT1CI
LETTER J.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
A THOUGHTFUL judge of sentiments, books, and men,
will often find reason to regret that the language of
censure is so easy and so undefined. It costs no
labour, and needs no intellect, to pronounce the words,
foolisn, stupid, dull, odious, absurd, ridiculous. The
weakest or most uncultivated mind may therefore
gratify its vanity, laziness, and malice, all at once, by
a prompt application of vague condemnatory words,
where a wise and liberal man would not feel himself
warranted to pronounce without the most deliberate
consideration, and where such consideration might
perhaps result in applause. Thus excellent perfor-
mances, in the department of thinking or of action,
might be consigned to contempt, if there were no
better judges, on the authority of those who could
not so much as understand them. A man who wishes
some decency and sense to prevail in the circulation
jf opinions, will do well, when he hears these decisions
of ignorant arrogance, to call for a precise explication of
J*e manner in which the terms of the verdict apply to
the subject.
128 ON Tilt APPLICATION OF
There is a competent number of words for this use
of cheap censure ; but though a man doubts not he is
giving a tolerable proof of sagacity in the confident
readiness to condemn, even with this impotence of
language, he may however have an irksome conscious-
ness that there is wanting to him a certain dexterity
of biting expression that would do more mischief than
the words dull, stupid, and ridiculous, which he is re-
peating many times to compensate for the incapacity
of hitting off the right thing at once. These vague
epithets describe nothing, discriminate nothing ; they
express no species, are as applicable to ten thousand
things as to this one, and he has before employed them
on a numberless diversity of subjects. He has a
fretted feeling of this their inefficiency ; and can
perceive that censure or contempt has the smartest
effect, when its expressions have a special cast which
tits them more peculiarly to the present subject than
to another ; and he is therefore secretly dissatisfied in
uttering the expressions which say "about it and about
it," b'ut do not say the thing itself; which showing hii
good will betray his deficient power. He wants words
and phrases which would make the edge of his clumsy
meaning fall just where it ought. Yes, he wants words;
for his meaning is sharp, he knows, if only the words
would come.
Discriminative censure must be conveyed, either by
a marked expression of thought in a sentence, or by an
epithet or other term so specifically appropriate, that
the single word is sufficient to fix the condemnation by
the mere precision with which it describes. But as the
censurer perhaps cannot succeed in either of these ways,
he is willing to seek some other resource. And he may
often find it in cant terms, which have a more spiteful
force, and seem to have more particularity of meaning,
THE EPITHET ROMAHTIr. 129
than plain common words, while yet needing no shrewd-
ness for their application. Each of these is supposed
to denominate some one class or character of scorned
or reprobated things, but so little defines it, that dull
malice may venture to assign to the class any thing
which it would desire to throw under the odium of the
denomination. Such words serve for a mode of collective
execution, somewhat like the vessels which, in a season
of outrage in a neighbouring country, received a pro-
miscuous crowd of reputed criminals, of unexamined
and dubious similarity, and were then sunk in the iiood.
You cannot wonder that such compendious words of
decision, which can give quick vent to crude impatient
censure, emit plenty of antipathy in a few syllables, and
save the condemner the difficulty of telling exactly
what he wants to mean, should have had an extensive
circulation.
Puritan was, doubtless, welcomed as a term mos*
luckily invented or revived, when it began to be applied
in contempt to a class of men of whom the world was
not worthy. Its odd peculiarity gave it almost such an
advantage as that of a proper name among the lumber
of common words by which they were described and
reviled ; while yet it meant any thing, every thing,
which the vain world disliked in the devout and con-
scientious character. To the more sluggish it saved,
and to the more loquacious it relieved, the labour of
endlessly repeating " demure rogues," " sanctimonious
pretenders," " formal hypocrites."
The abusive faculty of this word has long been
extinct, and left it to become a grave and almost vene-
rable term in history ; but some word of a similar cas"t
was indispensably necessary to the vulgar of both kinds.
The vain and malignant spirit which had decried the
elevated piety of the Puritans, sought about (as Miltou
J30 ON THE APPLICATION OF
describes tne wickeu one in Paradise) for some con-
venient form in which it might again come forth to his
at zealous Christianity ; and in another lucky moment
fell on the term Methodist. If there is no sense in the
word, as now applied, there seems however to be a
great deal of aptitude and execution. It has the advan-
tage of being comprehensive as a general denomination,
and yet opprobrious as a special badge, for every thing
that ignorance and folly may mistake for fanaticism,
or that malice may wilfully assign to it. Whenever a
formalist feels it his duty to sneer at those operations
of religion on the passions, by which he has never been
disturbed, he has only to call them metliodistical ; and
though the word be both so trite and so vague, he feels
as if he had uttered a good pungent thing. There is a
satiric smartness in the word, though there be none in
the man. In default of keen faculty in the mind, it is
delightful thus to find something that will do as well,
ready bottled up in odd terms. It is not less convenient
to a profligate, or a coxcomb, whose propriety of cha-
racter is to be supported by laughing indiscriminately
at religion in every form ; the one, to evince that his
courage is not sapped by conscience, the other, to make
the best advantage of his instinct of catching at impiety
as a compensative substitute for sense. The word
Methodism so readily sets aside all religion as super-
stitious folly, that they pronounce it with an air as if
no more needed to be said. Such terms have a pleasant
facility of throwing away the matter in question to
scorn, without any trouble of making a definite in-
telligible charge of extravagance or delusion, and
attempting to prove it.
In politics, Jacobinism has, of late years, been the
brand by which all sentiments referring to the principles
of liberty, in a way to censure the measures of the
THE EPITHET RO.NfANTIC. 131
atrerxlent party in the State, have been sentenced to
execration. What a quantity of noisy zeal would have
been quashed in dead silence, if it had been possible to
enforce the substitution of statements and definitions
for this vulgar, senseless, but most efficacious term of
reproach ! What a number of persons have vented the
superabundance of their loyalty, or their rancour, by
means of this and two or three similar words, who, if by
some sudden lapse of memory they hail lost these two or
three words, and a few names of persons, would have
looked round with an idiotic vacancy, totally at a loss
what was the subject of their anger or their approbation.
One may here catch a glimpse of the policy of men of
a superior class, in employing these terms as much as the
vulgar, in order to keep them in active currency. If
a rude populace, whose understandings they despise,
and do not wish to improve, could not be excited and
kept up to loyal animosity, but by means of a clear
comprehension of what they were to oppose, and of tho
reasons why, a political party would have but feeble
hold on popular zeal, and might vociferate, and intrigue,
and fret itself to nothing. But if a single word, devised
in hatred and defamation of political liberty, can be
made the symbol of all that is absurd and execrable,
so that the very sound of it shall irritate the passions
of this ignorant and scorned multitude, as dogs have
been taught to bark at the name of a neighbouring
tyrant, it is a commodious expedient for rendering these
passions available and subservient to the interests of
those who despise, while they cajole, their duped auxi-
liaries. The popular passions are the imps and demons
of the political conjuror, and he can raise them, as other
conjurors affect to do theirs, by terms of gibberish.*
* It is curious that, within no long time after this was first printed,
the terms jacobin and jacobinism became completely worn out anil
K 2
132 OU THE APPLICATION OF
The epithet romantic has obviously no similarity to
these words in its coinage, but it is considerably like
them in tho mode and effect of its application. For
having partly quitted the rank of plain epithets, it has
become a convenient exploding word, of more special
deriding significance than the other words of its order,
such as wild, extravagant, visionary. It is a standard
expression of contemptuous despatch, which you have
often heard pronounced with a very self-complacent
air, that said, " How much wiser I am than some
people," by the indolent and inanimate on what they
would not acknowledge practicable, by the apes of
prudence on what they accounted foolishly adventurous,
and by the slaves of custom on what startled them as
singular. The class of absurdities which it denominates is
left so undefined, that all the views and sentiments which
a narrow cold mind could not like or understand in an
ample and fervid one, might be referred thither; and
yet the word seems, or assumes, to discriminate their
character so conclusively as to put them out of argu-
ment. With this cast of sapience and vacancy of sense, it
is allowed to depreciate without being acountable ; it has
the license of a parrot, to call names without being taxed
with insolence. And when any sentiments are decisively
stigmatized with this denomination, it would require con-
siderable courage to attempt their rescue and defence ;
since the imputation which the epithet fixes on them will
pass upon the advocate ; and he may expect to be him-
self enrolled among the heroes of whom Don Quixote is
from time immemorial the commander-in-chief. At leasi
he may be assigned to that class which occupies a du-
bious frontier space between the rational and the insane.
obsolete. It is not worth a guess how long the term radical, to which
the duty of the defunct ones was transferred, may continue of anj
service against the doctrines and persons of reformists.
THE KP1THET ROMANTIC. 133
If, however, the suggestions and sketches which 1
had endeavoured to exhibit as interesting and practi-
cable, were attempted to be turned into vanity and
"thin air" by the enunciation of this epithet, I would
say, Pray now what do you mean by romantic ? Have
you, as you pronounce it, any precise conception in
your mind, which you can give in some other words,
and then distinctly fix the charge ? Or is this a word,
which because it is often used in some such way as
you now use it, may be left to tell its own meaning
better than the speaker knows how to explain it ? Or
perhaps you mean, that the notions which I am ex-
pressing recall to your mind, as kindred ideas, the fan-
tastic images of Romance ; and that you cannot help
thinking of enchanted castles, encounters with giants,
solemn exorcisms, fortunate surprises, knights and
wizards. You cannot exactly distinguish what the
absurdity in my notions is, but you fancy what it is
like. You therefore condemn it, not by defining its
nature and exposing its irrationality, but by applying
an epithet which arbitrarily assigns it to a class of
things of which the absurdity stands notorious and un-
questioned : for evidently the epithet should signify a re-
semblance to what is the prominent folly in the works of
romance. Well then, take advantage of this resemblance,
to bring your censure into something of a definite form.
Delineate precisely the chief features of the absurdity
of the works of romance, and then show how the same
characteristics are flagrant on my notions or schemes.
1 will then renounce at once all my visionary follies,
and be henceforward at least a very sober, if I cannot
be a very rational man.
The great general characteristic of those works has
been the ascendency of imagination over judgment
And the description is correct as applied to tin books
134- ON THE APPLICATION CF
however well endowed with intellect the authors 01
them might be. If they chose, for their own and
others' amusement, to dismiss a sound judgment awhile
from its office, to stimulate their imagination to the
wildest extravagances, and to depicture the fantastic
career in writing, the book might be partly the same
ihing as if produced by a mind in which sound judg-
ment had no place ; it would exhibit imagination
actually ascendent by the writer's voluntary indulgence,
though not necessarily so by the constitution of his
mind. It was a different case, if a writer kept his
judgment active amidst these very extravagances, with
the intention of shaping and directing them to some
particular end, of satire or sober truth. But however,
the romances of the ages of chivalry and the preceding
times were composed under neither of these intellectual
conditions. They were not the productions either of
men who, possessing a sound judgment, chose formally
to suspend its exercise, in order to riot awhile in scenes
of extravagant fancy, only keeping that judgment so far
awake as to retain i continual consciousness in what
degree they were extravagant ; or of men designing to
give effect to truth or malice under the diguise of a fan-
tastic exhibition. It is evident that the authors were
under the real ascendency of imagination; so that, though
they must at times have been conscious of committing
great excesses, yet they were on the whole wonderfully
little sensible of the enormous extravagance of their
fictions. They could drive on their career through
monstrous absurdities of description and narration,
without, apparently, any check from a sense of incon-
sistency, improbability, or impossibility ; and with an
air as if they really reckoned on being taken for the
veritable describers of something that could exist or
happen within the mundane system And the general
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 135
state of intellect of the age in which they lived seems
to have been well fitted to allow them the utmost
license. The irrationality of the romancers, and of the
age, provoked the observing and powerful mind of
Cervantes to expose it by means of a parallel and still
more extravagant representation of the prevalence of
imagination over reason, drawn in a ludicrous form, by
which he rendered the folly palpable even to the sense
of that age. From that time the delirium abated ; the
works which inspirited its ravings have been blown away
beyond the knowledge and curiosity of any but biblio-
maniacs ; and the fabrication of such is gone among the
lost branches of manufacturing art.
Yet romance was in some form to be retained, as in-
dispensable to the craving of the human mind for some-
thing more vivid, more elated, more wonderful, than the
plain realities of life ; as a kind of mental balloon, for
mounting into the air from the ground of ordinary ex-
perience. To afford this extra-rational kind of luxury,
it was requisite that the fictions should still partake, in
a limited degree, of the quality of the earlier romance.
The writers were not to be the dupes of wild fancy ;
they were not to feign marvels in such a manner as it
they knew no better ; they were not wholly to lose sight
of the actual system of things, but to keep within some
measures of relation and proportion to it; and yet they
were required to disregard the strict laws of verisimi-
litude in shaping their inventions, and to magnify and
diversify them with an indulgence of fancy very con-
siderably beyond the bounds of probability. Without
this their fictions would have lost what was regarded
as the essential quality of romance.
If, therefore, the epithet Romantic, as now employe!
for description and censure of character, sentiments,
and schemes, is to be understood as expressive of the
136 ON THE APPLICATION OF
quality which is characteristic of that class of fictions,
it imputes, in substance, a great excess of imagination
in proportion to judgment ; and it imputes, in parti-
culars, such errors as naturally result from that excess.
It may be worth while to look for some of the prac-
tical exemplifications of this unfortunate disproportion
between these two powers of the mind.
It should first be noted that a defective judgment is
not necessarily accompanied by any thing in the least
romantic in disposition, since the imagination may be as
inert as the judgment is weak ; and this double and
equal deficiency produces mere dulness. But it is
obvious that a weak judgment may be associated with
an active strength of that faculty which is of such
lively power even in childhood, in dreams, and in the
state of insanity.
Again, there may be an intellect not positively feeble
(supposing it estimated separately from the other power)
yet practically reduced to debility by a disproportionate
imagination, which continually invades its sphere, and
takes every thing out of its hands. And then the case
is made worse by the unfortunate circumstance, that
the exercise of the faculty which should be repressed,
is incomparably more easy and delightful, than of that
which should be promoted. Indeed the term exercise
is hardly applicable to the activity of a faculty which
can be active without effort, which is so far from needing
to be stimulated to its works of magic, that it often
scorns the most serious injunctions to forbear. It is
not exercise, but indulgence; and even minds possessing
much of the power of understanding, may be little
disposed to undergo the labour of it, when amidst the
ease of the deepest indolence they can revel in the
activity of a more animating employment. Imagination
may be indulged till it usurp an entire ascendency over
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 137
the mind, and then every subject presented to that
mind will be taken under the action of imagination,
instead of understanding; imagination will throw its
colours where the intellectual faculty ought to draw its
lines ; will accumulate metaphors where reason ought
to deduce arguments ; images will take the place of
thoughts, and scenes of disquisitions. The whole mind
may become at length something like a hemisphere
of cloud-scenery, filled with an ever-moving train of
changing melting forms, of every colour, mingled with
rainbows, meteors, and an occasional gleam of pure sun-
light, all vanishing away, the mental like this natural
imagery, when its hour is up, without leaving any thing
behind but the wish to recover the vision. And yet,
the while, this series of visions may be mistaken for
operations of thought, and each cloudy image be ad-
mitted in the place of a proposition or a reason ; or ! 4
may even be mistaken for something sublimer than
thinking. The influence of this habit of dwelling on
the beautiful fallacious forms of imagination, will ac-
company the mind into the most serious speculations,
or rather musings, on the real world, and what is to be
done in it, and expected ; as the image from looking at
any dazzling object still appears before the eye wherever
it turns. The vulgar materials that constitute the
actual economy of the world, will rise up to sight in
fictitious forms, which the mind cannot disenchant into
plain reality ; which indeed it may hardly suspect of
being illusory ; and would not be very desirous to
reduce to the proof if it did. For such a mind is not
disposed to examine, with any severity of inspection,
the real condition of things. It is content with ig-
norance, because environed with something far more
delicious than such knowledge, in the paradise which
imagination creates. In that paradise it walks delighted,
138 ON THE APPLICATION OF
till some imperious circumstance of real life cal] it
thence, and gladly escapes thither again as soon as the
cause of the avocation can be got rid of. There, every-
thing is beautiful and noble as could be desired to form
the residence of angels. If a tenth part of the felicities
that have been cloyed, the great actions that have
been performed, the beneficent institutions that have
been established, and the beautiful objects that have
been seen, in that happy region, could have been im-
Dortcd into this terrestrial place what a delightful
,hing, my dear friend, it would have been each morning
to awake and look on such a world once more.
It is not strange that a faculty, of which the exercise
is so easy and bewitching, and the scope infinite, should
obtain a predominance over judgment, especially in
young persons, and in such as may have been brought
up, like Rasselas and his companions, in great seclusion
from the sight and experience of the world. Indeed,
a considerable vigour of imagination, though it be at
the expense of a frequent predominance over juvenile
understanding, seems necessary, in early life, to cause
a generous expansion of the passions, by giving the
most lively aspect to the objects which must attract
them in order to draw forth into activity the faculties
of our nature. It may also contribute to prepare the
mind for the exercise of that faith which converses
with things unseen, but converses with them through
the medium of those ideal forms in which imagination
presents them, and in which only a strong imagination
i-an present them impressively.* And I should deem
it the indication of a character not destined to excel in
* The Divine Being is the only one of these objects which a
Christian would wish it possible to contemplate without the aid of
imagination ; and every reflective man has felt how difficult it is to
apprehend even this Object without the intervention of an image. In
THE EPITllKT ROMAKTIC. J39
the liberal, the energetic, or the devout qualities, if I
observed in the youthful age a close confinement of
thought to bare truth and minute accuracy, with an
entire aversion to the splendours, amplifications, and
excursions of fancy. The opinion is warranted by
instances of persons so distinguished in youth, who
have become subsequently very intelligent indeed, in
a certain way, but dry, cold, precise, devoted to detail,
and incapable of being carried away one moment by
any inspiration of the beautiful or the sublime. They
seem to have only the bare intellectual mechanism of
the human mind, without the addition of what is to
give it life and sentiment. They give one an impression
analogous to that of the leafless trees observed in
winter, admirable for the distinct exhibition of their
branches and minute ramifications so clearly defined
on the sky, but destitute of all the green soft luxury
of foliage which is requisite to make a perfect tree.
And the affections which may exist in such minds seem
to have a bleak abode, somewhat like those bare deserted
nests which you have often seen in such trees.
If, indeed, the signs of this exclusive understanding
indicated also such an extraordinary vigour of the
faculty, as to promise a very great mathematician or
metaphysician, one would perhaps be content to forego
some of the properties which form a complete mind,
for the sake of this pre-eminence of one of its endow-
ments ; even though the person were to be so defective
in sentiment and fancy, that, as the story goes of an
eminent mathematician, he could read through a most
animated and splendid epic poem, and on being asked
thinking of the transactions and personages of history, the final
events of time foretold by prophecy, the state of good men in another
world, the superior ranks of intelligent agents, &c. he has often had
occasion to wish his humiliation much more vivid.
140 THIS APPLICATION OF
what he thought of it, gravely reply, What does it
Drove ?" But the want of imagination is never an
evidence, and perhaps but rarely a concomitant, of
superior understanding.
Imagination may be allowed the ascendency in early
youth ; the case should be reversed in mature life ;
and if it is not, a man may consider his mind either as
not the most happily constructed, or as unwisely disci-
plined. The latter indeed is probably true in every
such instance
LETTER II.
THE ascendency of imagination operates in various
modes ; I will endeavour to distinguish those which
may justly be called romantic.
The extravagance of imagination in romance has
very much consisted in the display of a destiny and
course of life totally unlike the common condition of
mankind. And you may have observed in living indi-
viduals, that one of the effects sometimes produced by
the predominance of this faculty is, a persuasion in a
person's own mind that he is born to some peculiar and
extraordinary destiny, while yet there are no extra-
ordinary indications in the person or his circumstances.
There was something rational in the early presentiment
tvhich some distinguished men have entertained of
their future career. When a celebrated general of
the present times exclaimed, after performing the
common military exercise, as one of a company of
juvenile volunteers, " I shall be a commander-in-chief,"*
a sagacious observer of the signs of talents yet but
partially developed, might hav thought it 'ndced a
Related of Moreau.
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 141
rather sanguine but probably not a quite absurd antici-
pation. An elder and intelligent associate of Milton'*
youth might without much difficulty have believed
himself listening to an oracle, when a spirit which
was shaping in such gigantic proportions avowed to
him a confidence, of being destined to produce a
work which should distinguish the nation and the age.
The opening of uncommon faculties may be sometimes
inspirited by such anticipations ; which the young
genius may be allowed to express, perhaps as a stimulus
encouraged to indulge. But in most instances these
magnificent presumptions form, in the observer's eye,
a ludicrous contrast with the situation and apparent
abilities of the person who entertains them. And in
the event, how few such anticipations have been proved
the genuine promptings of an extraordinary mind.
The visionary presumption of a peculiar destiny is
entertained in more forms than that which implies a
confidence of possessing uncommon talent. It is often
the flattering self-assurance simply of a life of singular
felicity. The captive of fancy fondly imagines his
prospect of life as a delicious vale, where from each
side every stream of pleasure is to flow down to his
feet ; and while it cannot but be seen that innumerable
evils do harass other human beings, some mighty spell
is to protect him against them all. He takes no de-
liberate account of what is inevitable in the lot of
humanity, of the sober probabilities of his own situation,
or of any principles in the constitution of his mind
which are perhaps very exactly calculated to frustrate
the anticipation and the scheme of happiness.
If this excessive imagination is combined with ten-
dencies to affection, it makes a person sentimentally
romantic. With a great, and what might, in a mind
\tf finer element, be a just contempt of the o-ditiary
14-2 ON THE APPLICATION OF
rate of attachments, both in friendship and love, he
indulges a most assured confidence that his peculiar
lot is to realize all the wonders of generous, virtuous,
noble, unalienable friendship, or of enraptured, unin-
terrupted, and unextinguishable love, that the inebria-
tion of fiction and poetry ever sung ; while perhaps a
shrewd indifferent observer can descry nothing in the
horoscope, or the character, or the actual circumstances
of the man, or in the qualities of the human creatures
that he adores, or in the nature of his devotion, to
promise an elevation or permanence of felicity beyond
the destiny of common mortals.
If a passion for variety and novelty accompanies
this extravagant imagination, it will exclude from its
bold sketches of future life every thing like confined
regularity, and common plodding occupations. It will
suggest that / was born for an adventurer, whose story
will one day be a wonder of the world. Perhaps I an*
to be an universal traveller ; and there is not on the
globe a grand city, or ruin, or volcano, or cataract, but
I must see it. Debility of constitution, deficiency of
means, innumerable perils, unknown languages, op-
pressive toils, extinguished curiosity, worn out fortitude,
c ailing health, and the shortness of life, are very possibly
all left out of the account.
If there is in the disposition a love of what is called
glory, and an idolatry of those capacious and intrepid
spirits one of which has often, in a portentous crisis,
decided, by an admirable series of exertions, or by one
grand exploit of intelligence and valour, the destiny of
armies and of empires, a predominant imagination
may be led to revel amidst the splendours of military
achievement, and to flatter the man that he too is to be
a hero, a great commander.
When a mind under this influence recurs to prece-
THE ET-ITHET ROMANTIC. 143
dents as a foundation and a warrant of its expectations,
they are never the usual, but always the extraordinary
examples, that are contemplated. An observer of the
ordinary instances of friendship is perhaps heard to
assert that the sentiment is sufficiently languid in
general to admit of an almost unqualified self-interest,
of absence without pain, and of ultimate indifference.
Well, so let it be ; Damon and Pythias were friends of
a different order, and our friendship is to be like theirs.
Or if the subject of musing and hope is the union in
which love commonly results, it may be true and ob-
vious enough that the generality of instances would
not seem to tell of more than a mediocrity of happiness
in this relation ; but a visionary person does not -live
within the same world with these examples. The few
instances which have been recorded of tender and
never-dying enthusiasm, together with the numerous
ones which romance and poetry have created, form the
class to which he belongs, and from whose enchant-
ing history, excepting their misfortunes, he reasons
to his own future experience. So too the man, whose
fancy anticipates political or martial distinction, allows
his thoughts to revert continually to those names which
a rare conjunction of talents and circumstances has
elevated into fame ; forgetting that many thousands of
men of great ability have died in at least comparative
obscurity, for want of situations in which to display
themselves ; and never suspecting it possible that his own
abilities are not competent to any thing great, if some
extraordinary event were just now to place him in the
most opportune concurrence of circumstances. That
there has been one very signal man to a million, more
avails to the presumption that he shall be a signal man,
than there having been a million to one signal man, in-
ters a probability of his remaining one of the multitude.
144 ON THE APPLICATION OF
You will generally observe, that persons thos self-
appointed, of either sex, to be exceptions to the usual
lot of humanity, endeavour at a kind of consistency of
character, by a great aversion to the common modes of
action and language, and a habitual affectation of some-
thing extraordinary. They will perhaps disdain regular
hours, punctuality to engagements, usual dresses, a
homely diction, and common forms of transacting
business ; this you are to regard as the impulse of a
spirit whose high vocation authorizes it to renounce all
signs of relation to vulgar minds.
The epithet romantic then may be justly applied to
those presumptions (if entertained after the childish or
very youthful age) of a peculiarly happy or important
destiny in life, which are not clearly founded on certain
palpable distinctions of character or situation, or which
greatly exceed the sober prognostics afforded by those
distinctions. It should be observed here that wishes
merely do not constitute a character romantic. A person
may sometimes let his mind wander into vain wishes for
all the fine things on earth, and yet be too sober to
expect any of them. In this case however he will
often check and reproach himself for the folly of
indulging in such mental dissoluteness.
The absurdity of such anticipations consists simply
in the improbability of their being realized, and not in
their objects being uncongenial with the human mind ;
but another effect of the predominance of imagination
may be a disposition to form schemes or indulge ex-
pectations essentially incongruous with the nature of
man. Perhaps however you will say, What is that na-
ture ? Is it not a mere passive thing, variable almost
to infinity, according to climate, to institutions, and to
the different ages of t'me ? Even taking it in a civi-
lized state, n-hat relation is there between such a fom
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 14-5
of human nature as that displayed at Sparta, and, for
instance, the modern society denominated Quakers, or
the Moravian Fraternity ? And how can we ascertain
what is congenial with it or not, unless itself were first
ascertained ? Allow me to say, that I speak of human
nature in its most general principles only, as social, self-
interested, inclined to the wrong, slow to improve,
passing through several states of capacity and feeling
in the successive periods of life, and the few other such
permanent distinctions. Any of these distinctions may
vanish from the sight of a visionary mind, while forming,
for itself, or for others, such schemes as could h&v
sprung only from an imagination become wayward
through its uncontrolled power, and its victory over
eober reason. I remember, for example, a person, very
young I confess, who was so enchanted with the stories
of Gregory Lopez, and one or two more pious hermits,
as almost to form the resolution to betake himself to
some wilderness and live as Gregory did. At any time,
the very word hermit was enough to transport him, like
the witch's broomstick, to the solitary hut, which was
delightfully surrounded by shady solemn groves, mossy
rocks, crystal streams, and gardens of radishes. While
this fancy lasted, he forgot the most obvious of all
facts, that man is not made for habitual solitude, nor can
endure it without misery, except when transformed into
a genuine superstitious ascetic ; questionable whether
ven then.*
Contrary to human nature, is the proper description
* Lopez indeed was often visited by pious persons who sought his
instructions ; this was a great modification of the loneliness, and of
the trial involved in enduring it; but my hermit was fond of the
Idea of an uninhabited island, or of a wilderness so deep that these
good people would not have been able to come at him, without a
more formidable pilgrimage than was ever yet made for the sake of
ubtiining instruction.
146 ON THE APPLICATION OF
of these theories of education, and those flatteries of
parental hope, which presume that young people in
general may be matured to eminent wisdom, and adorned
with the universality of noble attainments, by the period
at which in fact the intellectual faculty is but beginning
to operate with any thing like clearness and sustained
force. Because some individuals, remarkable exceptions
to the natural character of youth, have in their very
childhood advanced beyond the youthful giddiness,
and debility of reason, and have displayed, at the age
perhaps of twenty, a wonderful assemblage of all the
strong and all the graceful endowments, it therefore
only needs a proper system of education to make other
young people, (at least those of my family, the parent
thinks,) be no longer what nature has always made
/outh to be. Let this be adopted, and we shall see
multitudes at that age possessing the judgment of sages,
or the diversified acquirements and graces of all-accom-
plished gentlemen and ladies. And what, pray, are
the beings which are to become, by the discipline of
ten or a dozen years, such finished examples of various
excellence ? Not, surely, these boys here, that love
nothing so much as tops, marbles and petty mischief
and those girls, that have yet attained but few ideas
beyond the dressing of dolls ? Yes, even these !
The same charge of being unadapted to man, falls
on the speculations of those philosopher? and philan-
thropists, who have eloquently displayed the happiness,
and asserted the practicability, of something near an
equality of property and modes of life throughout
society. Those who really anticipated or projected the
practical trial of the system, must have forgotten on
what planet those apartments were built, or those
arbours were growing, in which they were favoured
with such visions. For in these visions they beheld the-
!IR EftiHET ROMANTIC. 1+7
ambition of one part of the inhabitant. 4 , the craft ur
audacity of another, the avarice of another, the stupi-
dity or indolence of another, and the selfishness of
almost all, as mere adventitious faults, super-induced
on the character of the species, and instantly flying ott
at the approach of better institutions, which shall prove,
to the confusion of all the calumniators of humaii
nature, that nothing is so congenial to it as industry,
moderation, and disinterestedness. It is at the same
time but just to acknowledge, that many of them have
admitted the necessity of such a grand transformation
as to make man another being previously to the adoption
of the system. This is all very well : when the proper
race of men shall come from Utopia, the system and
polity may very properly come along with them ; or
these sketches of it, prepared for them by us, may be
carefully preserved here, in volumes more precious than
those of the Sibyls, against their arrival. Till then,
the sober observers of the human character will reaii
these beautiful theories as romances, offering the fairest
game for sarcasm in their splenetic hours, when they
are disgusted with human nature, and infusing melan-
choly in their benevolent ones, when they look on it
with a commiserating and almost desponding sentiment.
The character of the age of chivalry presents itself
conspicuously among this class of illustrations. One of
its most {imminent distinctions was, an immense in-
congruity with the simplest principles of human nature.
For instance, in the concern of love : a generous young
man became attached to an Interesting young woman
interesting as he believed, from having once seen her ;
for probably he never heard her speak. His heart
would naturally prompt him to seek act-ess to the object
whoso society, it told him, would make him happy ;
and if in a great measure debarred from that society,
L'2
148 ON THE APPLICATION OF
he would surrender himself to the melting mood of the
passion, in the musings of pensive retirement. But this
was not the way. He must exile himself for successive
years from her society and vicinity, and every soft
indulgence of feeling, and rush boldly into all sorts of
hardships and perils, deeming no misfortune so great as
not to find constant occasions of hazarding his life
among the roughest foes, or, if he could find or fancy
them, the strangest monsters ; and all this, not as the
alleviation of despair, but as the courtship of hope.
And when he was at length betrayed to flatter himself
that such a probation, through every kind of patience
and danger, might entitle him to throw his trophies and
himself at her imperial feet, it was very possible she
might be affronted at his having presumed to be still
alive. It is unnecessary to refer to the other parts of the
institution of chivalry, the whole system of which would
seem more adapted to any race of beings exhibited in
the Arabian Nights, or to any still wilder creation of
fancy, than to a community of creatures appointed to
live by cultivating the soil, anxicas to avoid pain and
trouble, seeking the reciprocation of affection on the
easiest terms, and nearest to happiness in regular
pursuits and quiet domestic life.
One cannot help reflecting here, how amazingly ac
commodating this human nature has been to all insti-
tutions but wise and good ones ; insomuch that an order
of life and manners conceived in the wildest deviation
from all plain sense and native instinct, could be prac-
ticpJly adopted, by some of those who had rank and
courage enough, and adored and envied by the rest of
mankind. Still, the genuine tendencies of nature have
survived the strange but transient sophistications of
time, and remain the same after the age of chivalry is
gone far toward that oblivion, to which you will not
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 149
fail to wish that many other institutions might speedily
follow it. Forgive the prolixity of these illustration*
intended to show, that schemes and speculations re-
specting the interests either of an individual or of
society, which are inconsistent with the natural con-
stitution of man, may, except where it should be
reasonable to expect some supernatural intervention,
be denominated romantic.
The tendency to this species of romance, may be
caused, or very greatly promoted, by an exclusive taste
for what is grand, a disease with which some few minds
are affected. They have no pleasure in contemplating
the system of things as the Creator has ordered it, a
combination of great and little, in which the great is
much more dependent on the little, than the little on the
great. They cut out the grand objects, to dispose them
into a world of their own. All the images in their intel-
lectual scene must be colossal and mountainous. They
are constantly seeking what is animated into heroics,
what is expanded into immensity, what is elevated above
the stars. But for great empires, great battles, great en-
terprises, great convulsions, great geniuses, great temples,
great rivers, there would be nothing worth naming in this
part of the creation.* All that belongs to connexion,
gradation, harmony, regularity, and utility, is thrown out
of sight behind these forms of vastness. The influence
of this exclusive taste will reach into the system of
projects and expectations. The man will wish to
summon the world to throw aside its tame accustomed
pursuits, and adopt at once more magnificent views and
objects, and will be indignant at mankind that they
Just as, to employ a humble comparison, a votary of fashion,
after visiting a crowded public place which happened at that time
hot to be graced by the presence of many people of consequence, tella
you, with an affected tone, " There waa not a creature there."
150 ON THE APPLICATION OF
cannot or will not be sublime. Impatient of little ineau
and slow processes, he will wish for violent transitions
and entirely new institutions. He will perhaps determine
to set men the example of performing something great,
in some ill-judged sanguine project in which he will
fail ; and, after being ridiculed by society, both for the
scheme and its catastrophe, may probably abandon aJ-
the activities of life, and become a misanthrope the rest
of his days. At any rate, he will disdain all labour
to perform well in little or moderate things, when
fate has frowned on his higher ambition.
LETTER III.
ONE of the most obvious distinctions of the works
of romance is, an utter violation of all the relations
between ends and means. Sometimes such ends are pro-
posed as seem quite dissevered from means, inasmuch
as there are scarcely any supposable means on earth to
accomplish them : but no matter ; if we cannot ride
we must swim, if we cannot swim we must fly; the
obje-ct is effected by a mere poetical omnipotence that
wills it. And very often practicable objects are at-
tained by means the most fantastic, improbable, or in-
adequate ; so that there is scarcely any resemblance
between the method in which they are accomplished by
the dexterity of fiction, and that which we are con-
demned to follow if we will attempt the same things in
the actual economy of the world. Now, when you see
this absurdity of imagination prevailing in the calcu-
lations of real life, you may justly apply the epithet
romantic.
Indeed a strong and habitually indulged imagination
may be absorbed in the end, if it be not a concern of
THE EPITHET ROMAN1IC. 151
absolute immediate urgency, as for a while quite to forget
the process of attainment That power has incantations
to dissolve the rigid laws of time and distance, and place
a man in something so like the presence of his object,
as to create the temporary hallucination of an ideal pos-
session ; and it is hard, when occupying the verge of
Paradise, to be flung far back in order to find or make
a path to it, with the slow and toilsome steps of reality.
In the luxury of promising himself that what he wishes
will by some means take place at ?ome time, he forgets
that he is advancing no nearer to it- except on the wise
and patient calculation that he must, by the simple fact
of growing older, be coming somewhat nearer to every
event that is yet to happen to him. He is like a tra-
veller, who, amidst his indolent musings in some soft
bower, where he has sat down to be shaded a little
while from the rays of noon, falls asleep, and dreams he
is in the midst of all the endearments of home, insensible
that there are many hills and dales for him yet to traverse.
But the traveller will awake ; so too will our other
dreamer; and if he has the smallest capacity of just
reflection he will regret to have wasted in reveries the
time which ought to have been devoted to practical
exertions.
But even though reminded of the necessity of inter-
vening means, the man of imagination will often be
tempted to violate their relation with ends, by permitting
himself to dwell on those happy casualties, which the
prolific sorcery of his mind will promptly figure to hinf
as the very things, if they would but occur, to ac-
complish his wishes at once, without Uiv* toil of a sober
process. If they would occur and things as strange
might and do happen : he reads in the newspapers that
an estate of ten thousand per annum was lately adjudged
to a man who was working on the road. He has evea
152
ON THE APPLICATION OF
hoard of people dreaming that in such a place something
valuable was concealed ; and that, on searching or
digging that place, they found an old earthen pot, full,
of gold and silver pieces of the times of good King
Charles the Martyr. Mr. B. was travelling by the mail-
coach, in which he met with a most interesting young
lady whom he had never seen before ; they were mu-
tually delighted, and were married in a few weeks.
Mr. C., a man of great merit in obscurity, was walking
across a field when Lord D., in chase of a fox, leaped
over the hedge and fell off his horse into a ditch. Mr C.
with the utmost alacrity and kind solicitude helped his
lordship out of the ditch, and recovered for him IPS
escaped horse. The consequence was inevitable ; his
lordship, superior to the pride of being mortified to have
been seen in a condition so unlucky for giving the im
pression of nobility, commenced a friendship with Mr.
C., and introduced him into honourable society and the
road to fortune. A very ancient maiden lady of a large
fortune happening to be embarrassed in a crowd, a
young clergyman offered her his arm and politely at-
tended her home ; this attention so captivated her, that
she bequeathed and soon after left him her whole estate
though she had many poor relations.
That class of fictitious works called navels, though
much more like real life than the romances which
preceded, is yet full of these lucky incidents and
adventures, which are introduced as the chief means
toward the ultimate success. A young man, without
fortune, for instance, is precluded from making his
addresses to a young female in a superior situation,
whom he believes not indifferent to him, until he can
approach her with such worldly advantages as it might
not be imprude-. t or degrading for her to cast a look
upon. Now how is this to be accomplished ? Why,
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 159
I suppose, by the exertion of his talents in some
practicable and respectable department ; and perhaps
the lady, besides, will generously and spontaneously
condescend to abdicate from partiality to him, some of
the trappings and luxuries of rank. You really sup-
pose this is the plan ? I am sorry you have so much
less genius than a novel-writer. This young man has
an uncle, who has been absent many years, nobody
knew where, except the young man's lucky stars.
During his absence, the old uncle has made a large
fortune, with which he returns to his native land, at a
time most opportune for every one but a highwayman,
who, attacking him in a road through a wood, is
frightened away by the young hero, who happens to
come there at the instant, to rescue and recognize his
uncle, and to be in return recognized and made the heir
to as many thousands as the lady or her family could
wish. Now what is the intended impression of all this
on the reader's mind ? What if he certainly have no
uncle in any foreign fortune-making country ? But
there are rich old gentlemen who are uncles to nobody,
Is our novel-reader to reckon on it as a likely and a
desirable chance, that one of these, just after returning
from the Indies with a ship-load of wealth, shall be set
upon by a highwayman ; and to take it for certain
that in that case he, the novel-reader, shall have the
luck to come to the very spot in the nick of time, tc
send the dastard robber galloping off, to make an
instant and entire seizure of the old gentleman's
affections, find himself constrained to go and take a
present share of the opulence, and the heirship of the
whole, and have his patron to join his pleading that
Amelia, or Alicia, or Cecilia, (as the case may be,)
may now be willing and be permitted to favour his
addresses? One's indignation is excited at the iiu-
154- ON THE APPLICATION OK
moral tendency of such lessons to young readers, who
are thus taught to undervalue and reject all sober
regular plans for compassing an object, and to muse
on improbabilities till they become foolish enough to
expect them ; thus betrayed, as an inevitable con-
sequence, into one folly more, that of being melan-
choly when they find they may expect them in vain.
It is unpardonable that these pretended instructors by
example should thus explode the calculations and
exertions of manly resolution, destroy the connexion
between ends and means, and make the rewards of
virtue so dependent on chance, thai if the reader does
not either regard the whole fable with contempt,
or promise himself he shall receive the favours of
fortune in some similar way, he must close the book
with the conviction that he may hang or drown
himself as soon as he pleases ; that is to say, unless
he has learnt from some other source a better morality
and religion than these books will ever teach him.
Another deception in respect to means, is the facility
with which fancy passes along the train of them, and
reckons to their ultimate effect at a glance, without
resting at the successive stages, and considering the
labours and hazards of the protracted .slow process from
each point to the next. If a given number of years are
allowed requisite for the accomplishment of an object,
the romantic mind vaults from one last day of December
to another, and seizes at once the whole product of all
the intermediate days, without condescending to recol-
lect that the sun never shone yet on three hundred and
sixty-five days at once, and that they must be slowly
told and laboured 010 by one. If a favourite plan is
to be accomplished by means of a certain large amount
of property, which is to be produced from what is at
present a very small one, the calculations of a sanguine
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. ISB
mind can change shillings into guineas, and guineas
into hundreds of pounds, a thousand times faster thar,
in the actual experiment, those lazy shillings and
guineas can be compelled to mount to these higher
denominations of value. You remember the noble
calculation of Alnaschar on his basket of earthenware,
which was so soon to obtain him the Sultan's daughter.
Where imagination is not delusive enough to em-
body future casualties as effective means, it may yet
represent very inadequate means as competent. In a
well-balanced mind, no conception will grow into a
favourite purpose, unaccompanied by a process of tho
judgment, deciding its practicability by an estimate of
the means ; in a mind under the ascendency of imagina-
tion this is a subordinate after-task. By the time that
this comes to be considered, the projector is too much
enamoured of an end that is deemed to be great,
to abandon it because the means are suspected to be
little. But then they must cease to appear little ; for
there must be an apparent proportion between the
means and the end. Well, trust the whole concern to
the plastic faculty, and presently every insignificant
particle of instrumentality, and every petty contrivance
for its management, will swell into magnitude ; pigmies
and Lilliputians with their tiny arrows will soon grow
up into giants wielding spears; and the diffident con-
sciousness which was at first somewhat afraid to
measure the plan, as to its means of execution, against
the object, will give place to a generous scorn of the
timidity of doubting. The mind will most ingeniously
place the apparatus between its eye and the object at a
distance, and be deluded by the false position which
makes the one look as large as the other.
The consideration of the deceptive calculations on the
effect of insufficient means, would lead to a wide variety
156 ON THE APPLICATION OF
of particulars ; I will only touch slightly on a few
Various projects of a benevolent order would come undet
this charge. Did you ever listen to the discussion 01
plans for the civilization of barbarous nations without
the intervention of conquest? I have, with the most
sceptical kind of interest.* That very many millions
of the species should form only a brutal adjunct to
civilized and enlightened man is a disasterous thing,
notwithstanding the whimsical attempts of some inge-
nious men to represent the state of roving savages as pre-
ferable to every other condition of life; a state for which,
no doubt, they would have been willing, if they could
have the requisite physical seasoning for it, to abandon
their fame and proud refinements. But where are the
means to reclaim these wretched beings into the civi-
lized family of man ? A few examples indeed are found
in history, of barbarous tribes being formed into well
ordered and considerably enlightened states by one man,
who began the attempt without any power but that of
persuasion, and perhaps delusion. There are other in-
stances, of the success obtained by a small combinatior
of men employing the same means ; as in the great
undertaking of the Jesuits in South America. But
have not these moral phenomena been far too few to be
made a standard for the speculations of sober men ? And
have they not also come to us with too little explanation
to illustrate any general principles ? To me it appears
extremely difficult to comprehend how the means, re-
corded by historians to have been employed by some of
the unarmed civili/ers, could have produced so great
an effect. In observing the half-civilized condition of
a large part of the population of these more improved
countries, and in reading what travellers describe of the
I here place out of view that religion by which Omnipotence will
at lejiuth transform the world.
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 1^7
itate and dispositions of the various orders of savages,
it would seem a presumption unwarranted by any thing
we ever saw of the powers of the human mind to suppose
that any man, or any ten men now on earth, if landed
and left on a savage coast, would be able to transform
ft number of stupid or ferocious tribes into a commu-
nity of mild intelligence and regular industry. We are
therefore led to believe that the few unaccountable in-
stances conspicuous in the history of the world, of the
success of one or a few men in this work, must have
been the result of such a combination of favourable
circumstances, cooperating with their genius and per-
severance, as no other man can hope to experience.
Such events seem like Joshua's arresting the sun and
moon, things that have been done, but can be done no
more. Pray, which of you, I should say, could expect
to imitate with success, if indeed he could think it right
to try, the deception of Manco Capac, and awe a wild
multitude into order by something analogous to a pre-
tended commission from the sun ? What would be
your first expedient in the attempt to substitute that
regularity and constraint which they hate, for that
lawless liberty which they love ? How could you
reduce them to be conscious, or incite them to be proud,
of those wants, for being subject to which they would
regard you as their inferiors ; wants of which, unless
they could comprehend the refinement, they must neces-
sarily despise the debility ? By what magic are you
to render visible and palpable any part of the world of
science or of abstraction, to beings who have hardly
words to denominate even their sensations ? And by
what concentrated force of all kinds of magic together,
that Egypt or Chaldea ever pretended, are you to in-
troduce humanity and refinement among such creatures
as the Northern Indians, described by Mr. Hearne ?
158 ON THE APPLICATION OP
If an animated young philanthropist still zealous!?
maintained that it might be done, I should bu amuseu
to think how that warm iamgination would be quelled,
if he were obliged to make the experiment. It is easy
for him to be romantic while enlivened by the inter-
course of cultivated society, while reading of the contri-
vances and the patience of ancient legislators, or while
infected with the enthusiasm of poetry. He feels as if
he could be the moral conqueror of a continent. He
becomes a Hercules amidst imaginary labours ; he
traverses untired, while in his room, wide tracts of the
wilderness ; he surrounds himself with savage men,
without either trembling or revolting at their aspects
or fierce exclamations, or the proudly exhibited and
vaunted trophies of theii sanguinary exploits ; he makes
eloquent speeches to them, not knowing a word of their
language, which language, if he did know it, he would find
a wretched vehicle for the humblest of his meanings ; they
jsten with the deepest attention, are convinced of the
necessity of adopting new habits of life, and speedily
soften into humanity and brighten into wisdom. Bu,
he would become sober enough, if compelled to travel
half a thousand miles through the desert, or over the
snow, with some of these subjects of his lectures and
legislation ; to accompany them in a hunting excursion ;
to choose in a stoimy night between exposure in the
open air and the smoke and grossness of their cabins ;
to observe the intellectual faculty narrowed almost to
a point, limited to a scanty number of the meanest class
of ideas ; to find by repeated experiments that his kind
of ideas could neither reach their understanding nor
escite their curiosity ; to see the ravenous appetite of
wolves succeeded for a season by a stupefaction insensible
even to the few interests which kindle the ardour of a
savage ; to witness loathsome habits occasionally diver-
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 159
sified by abominable ceremonies ; or to be for once the
spectator of some of the circumstances attendant on the
wars of savages.
But there are many more familiar illustrations of the
extravagant estimate of means. One is, the expec-
tation of far too much from mere direct instruction.
This is indeed so general, that it will hardly be denomi-
nated romantic, except in the most excessive instances
Observe it, however, a moment in the concern of edu-
cation. Nothing seems more evident than the influence
of external circumstances, distinct from the regular dis-
cipline of the parent or tutor, in forming the character
of youth. Nothing again seems more evident than
that direct instruction, though an useful cooperator
with the influence of these circumstances when they
are auspicious, is a feeble counteractor if they be
malignant. And yet this mere instruction is enough,
iu the account of thousands of parents, to lead the youth
to wisdom and happiness ; even that very youth whom
the united influence of almost all things else which he
is exposed to see, and hear, and participate, is drawing,
with the unrelaxing grasp of a fiend, to destruction.
A too sanguine opinion of the efficacy of instruction,
has sometimes possessed those who teach from the
pulpit. Till the dispensations of a better age shall
be opened on the world, the measure of effect which
may reasonably bo expected from preaching, is to be
determined by a view of the visible effects which are
actually produced on congregations from week to week ;
and this view is far from flattering. One might appeal
to preachers in general What striking improvements
are apparent in your societies ? When you inculcate
charity on the Sunday, do the misers in your con
gregations liberally open their chests and purses to
the distressed on Monday ? Might I not ask as well,
160 ON THE APPLICATION OF
whethei the stones and trees really did move at the
voice of Orpheus ? After you have unveiled even the
scenes of eternity to the gay and frivolous, do you find
in more than some rare instances a dignified serious-
ness take place of their follies ? What is the effect, on
the splendid, sumptuous, and fashionable professors of
Christianity, of your inculcation (if indeed you venture
it) of that solemn interdiction of their habits, " Be not
conformed to this world ?" Yet, notwithstanding this
melancholy state of facts, some preachers, from the
persuasion of a mysterious apostolic sacredness in the
office, or from a vain estimate of their talents, or from
mistaking the applause with which the preacher has
been flattered, for the proof of a salatary effect on the
minds of the hearers, or, in some instances, from a
much worthier cause, the affecting influence of sacred
truth on their own minds, have been inclined to anti-
cipate striking effects from their public ministrations.
Melancthon was a romantic youth when he began to
preach. He expected that all must be inevitably and
immediately persuaded, when they should hear what
he had to tell them. But he soon discovered, as he
said, that old Adam was too hard for young Melancthon.
In addition to the grand fact of the depravity of tha
human heart, there are so many causes operating in*
juriously through the week on the characters of those
who form a congregation, that a thoughtful man often
feels an invading melancholy amidst his religious
addresses, from the reflection that he is making a
feeble effort against a powerful evil, a single effort
against a combination of evils, a temporary and trans-
ient effort against evils of almost continual operation,
and a purely intellectual effort against evils, many of
which act on the senses. When the preacher con-
siders the effect naturally resulting from the sight of
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 161
so many bad examples, the communications of so many
injurious acquaintance, the hearing and talking of
what would be, if written, so many volumes of vanity
and nonsense, the predominance of fashionable dissi-
pation in a higher class, and of a coarser corruption
in a lower ; he must indeed imagine himself endowed
with a super-human power of eloquence, if the instruc-
tions expressed in an hour or two on the sabbath,
and soon, as he might know, forgotten by most of his
hearers, are to leave in the mind something which
shall be, through the week, the efficacious repellant
to the contact and contamination of all these forces of
mischief. But how soon he would cease to imagine
such an efficacy in his exhortations, if the greater
number of his hearers could sincerely and accurately
tell him, toward the end of the week, in what degree
these admonitions had affected and governed them,
in opposition to their corrupt tendencies, their habits,
and their temptations I What would be, in the five
or six days, the number of the moments and the in-
stances in which these instructions would be proved to
have been effectual, compared with the whole number
of moments and circumstances to which they were ap-
plicable by appropriateness of instruction and warning ?
How often, while hearing such a week's detail of the
lives of a considerable proportion of a congregation, -a
man would have occasion to say, By whose instructions
were these persons influenced then, in that neglect of
devout exercises, that excess of levity, that waste of
time, that avowed noritempt of rnieion, that language
of profaneness ana imorecation, those contrivances of
selfishness, those paroxysms of passion, that study of
sensuality, or that habitual general obduracy in evil ?
But the preacher to whose sanguine temperament
I am reluctantly applying these cooling suggestions,
M
162 ON THE APPLICATION OF
may tell me, that it is not by means of any force which
he can throw into his religious instructions, that he
expects them to be efficacious ; but that he believes a
divine energy will accompany what is undoubtedly a
message from heaven. I am pleased with the piety,
and the sound judgment, (as I esteem it,) with which
he expects the conversion of careless or hardened men
from nothing less than an operation strictly considered
as of divine power. But I would remind him, that
the probability, at any given season, that such a
power will intervene, must be in proportion to the
frequency or infrequency with which its intervention
is actually manifested in the general course of experi-
ence ; that is, in proportion to the number of happy
transformations of character which we see taking place
under the efficacy of religious truth. He must admit
this to br substantially the rule: if he require that it
be modified by the consideration of promises and signs
from the Supreme Power of the near approach of an
augmented divine interference for the efficacy of re-
ligion I shall willingly admit what I can of such a
reason for conceding such a modification.
Reformers in general are very apt to overrate the
power of the means by which their theories are to be
realized. They are for ever introducing the story of
Archimedes, who was to have moved the world if he
could have found any second place on which to plant
his engines ; and imagination discloses to moral and
political projectors a cloud-built and truly extra-
mundane position, which they deem to be exactly such
a convenience in their department, as the mathema-
tician, whose converse with demonstrations had saved
part of his reason from being run away with by his
fancy, confessed to be a desideratum in his This
terra firma is named the Omnipotence of Truth.
THE EPITHE1 ROMANTIC.. 163
It is presumed, that truth must at length, through the
indefatigable exertions of intellect, become generally
victorious ; and that all vice, being the result of a
mistaken judgment of the nature or the means of hap-
piness, must therefore accompany the exit of error.
By the same rule it is presumed of the present times
also, or at least of those immediately approaching,
that in every society and every mind where truth is
clearly admitted, the reforms which it dictates must
substantially follow. I have the most confident faith
that the prevalence of truth, making its progress by a
far mightier agency than mere philosophic inquiry, is
appointed to irradiate the latter ages of a dark and
troubled world ; and, on the strength of prophetic
intimations, I anticipate its coming sooner, by at least
a. thousand ages, than a disciple of that philosophy
which rejects revelation, as the first proud step toward
the improvement of the world, is warranted, by a view
of the past and present state of mankind, to predict.
The assurance from the same oracle is the authority
for believing that when truth shall have acquired
the universal dominion over the understanding, it
will evince a still nobler power in the general effect
of conforming the heart and the life to its laws. But
in the present state of the moral system, our expec-
tations of the effect of truth oh the far greater numoer
of the persons who shall assent to its dictates, have
no right to exceed such measures of probability as
have been given by experience. It would be gratify-
ing no doubt to believe, that the several powers in the
human constitution are in such faithful combination,
that to gain the judgment would be to secure the whole
man. And if all history, and the memory of our own
observation and experience, could be merged in Lethe,
t might be believed perhaps for two or three hours.
M 2
J64 ON THE APPLICATION OK
How could an attentive observer or reflector believe
t longer ? How long would it be that a keenly self-
inspecting mind could detect no schism, none at all,
between its convictions and inclinations ? And as to
others, is it not flagrantly evident that very many
persons, with a most absolute conviction, by their own
ingenuous avowal, that one certain course of action is
virtue and happiness, and another, vice and misery, do
yet habitually choose the latter? It is not improbable
that several millions of human beings are at this very
hour thus acting in violation of the laws of rectitude,
while those laws are acknowledged by them, not only
as impositions of moral authority, but as vital prin-
ciples of their own true self-interest.* And do not
even the best men confess a fierce discord between the
tendencies of their imperfectly renovated nature, and
the dictates of that truth which they revere ? They say
with St. Paul, " That which I do, I allow not ; for what
I would, that I do not ; but what I hate, that I do ; to
will is present with me, but how to perform that which
is good, I find not ; the good that I would, that I do
* The criminal h:n-.?elf has the clearest consciousness that he
violates the dictates of his judgment. How trifling is the subtilty
which affects to show that he does not violate them, by alleging,
that every act of choice must be preceded by a determination of the
judgment, and that therefore in choosing an evil, a man does at the
time judge it to be on some account preferable, though he may
know it to be wrong. It is not to be denied that the choice does
imply such a conclusion of the judgment. But this conclusion ia
made according to a narrow and subordinate scale of estimating
good and evil, while the mind is conscious that, judging according to
a larger scale, that is, the rightfully authoritative one, the opposite
conclusion is true. It judges a thing better for immediate pleasure,
which it know^ to be wore for ultimate advantage. The criminal
therefore may be correctly said to act according to his judgment, in
choosing it for present pleasure. But since it is the great office 01
the judgment to decide what is wisest and best on the whole, the
man maj i.ruly be said to act against his judgment, who acts io
opposition to the conclusion which it forms on this greater sin.
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. ] 6/>
not, and the evil which I would not, that I do." The
serious self-observer recollects instances, ('what a sin-
gularity of happiness if he cannot !) in which a tempta-
tion, exactly addressed to his passions or his habits,
has prevailed in spite of the sternest interdict of his
judgment, pronounced at the very crisis. Perhaps the
most awful sanctions by which the judgment can ever
enforce its authority, were distinctly brought to his
view at the same moment with its dictates. In the sub-
sequent hour he had to reflect, that the ideas of God, a
future account, a world of retribution, could not pre-
vent him from violating his conscience. That he did
not at the critical moment dwell deliberately on these
remonstrant ideas, in order to give them effect on his
will, is nothing against my argument. It is of the
very essence of the fatal disorder, that the passions
will not let the mind strongly fix on the preventive
considerations. And what greater power than this
could they need to defeat the power of truth ? If the
passions can thus prevent the mind from strongly
fixing on the most awful considerations when distinctly
presented by truth in counteraction to temptation,
they can destroy the efficacy of the truth which presents
them. Truth can do no more than discriminate the
good from the evil before us, enforce the inducements
to choose right, and declare the consequences of our
choice. When this is inefficacious, its power has
failed. And no fact can be more evident than that
perceptive truth, apprehended and acknowledged, often
thus fails. Let even its teacher and advocate confess
honestly whether he have not had to deplore number-
less times the deficient efficacy of his own clearest
convictions. And if we survey mankind as under an
experiment relative to this point, it will be found,
in instances innumerable, that to have informed awl
166 ON THE APPLICATION OF
convinced a man may be but little toward emancipating
him from the habits which he sincerely acknowledges to
be wrong. There is then no such inviolable connexion
as some men have supposed between the admission of
truth, and consequent action. And therefore, most im-
portant though it is that truth be exhibited and admitted,
the expectations that presume its omnipotence, without
extraordinary intervention, are romantic delusion.
You will observe that in this case of trying the
efficacy of the truth on others, I have supposed the
great previous difficulty, of presenting it to the under-
standing so luminously as to impress irresistible convic-
tion, to be already overcome ; though the experimental
reformer will find this introductory work such an
arduous undertaking, that he will be often tempted to
abandon it as hopeless.
LETTER IV.
WHEN the gloomy estimate of means and of plans
for the amendment of mankind does not make an
exception of the actual human administration of the
religion of Christ, I am anxious not to seem to fail in
justice to that religion, by which I believe that every
improvement of a sublime order yet awaiting our race
must be effected. I trust I do not tail ; since I keep
in my mind a clear distinction between Christianity
itself as a thing of divine origin and nature, and
the administration of it by a system of merely human
powers and means. These means are indeed of divine
appointment, and to a certain extent are accompanied
by a special divine agency. But how far this agency
accompanies them is seen in the measure and limit of
their success. Where that stands arrested, the fact itself
THE El'ITHET ROMANTIC. 167
is the proof that further than so the superior operation
does not attend the human agents and means. There
It stops, and leaves them to accomplish, if they can,
what remains. What is it that remains? If the
general transformation of mankind into such persons
as could be justly deemed true disciples of Christ, were
regarded as the object of his religion, how mysteriously
small a part of that object has the divine agency ever
yet been exerted to accomplish ! And then, the awful
and immense remainder evinces the inexpressible imbe-
cility of the means, when left to be applied as a mere
human administration. The manifestation of its incom-
petency is fearfully conspicuous in the vast majority,
the numerous millions of Christendom, and the millions
of even our own country, on whom this religion has no
direct influence. I need not observe what numbers of
these latter have heard or read the evangelic declaration
thousands of times, nor how very many of them are
fortified in an insensibility, on which its most momentous
announcements strike as harmless as the slenderest
arrows on the shield of Ajax. Probably each religious
teacher can recollect, besides his general experience,
very particular instances, in which he has set himself
to exert the utmost force of his mind, in reasoning,
illustration, and serious appeal, to impress some one
important idea, on some one class of persons to whom
it was most specifically applicable and needful ; and has
perceived the plainest indications, both at the instant
and immediately afte , that it was an attempt of thfe.
same kind as that of demolishing a tower by assaulting
it with pebbles. Nor do I need to observe how gene-
rally, if a momentary impression be made, it is forgotten
the following hour.
A ma i convinced of the truth and excellence of
Christianity, yet entertaining a more flattering notion
168 ON THE APPLICATION Of
of the reason and moral dispositions of man than any
doctrine of that religion agrees to, may be very reluc-
tant to admit that there is such a fatal disproportion
between the apparatus, if I may call it so, of the
Christian means as left to be actuated by mere human
energy, and the object which is to be attempted. But
how is he to help himself? Will he reject the method
of conclusion from facts, in an affair where they so
peculiarly constitute the evidence? He cannot look
at the world of facts and contradict the representation
in the preceding paragraph, unless his imagination is
so illusive as to interpose an absolute phantasm between
his eyes and the obvious reality. He cannot affirm
that there is not an immense number of persons, even
educated persons, receiving the Christian declarations
with indifference, or rejecting them with a carelessness
partaking of contempt. The right means are applied,
and with all the force that human effort can give them
out with a uspension, in these instances, of the divine
agency, and this is the effect ! While the fact stands
out so palpably to view, I listen with something of
wonder, and something of curiosity, when some pro-
fessed believers and advocates of the gospel are avowing
high anticipations of its progressive efficacy, chiefly or
solely by means of the intrinsic force which it carries
as a rational address to rational creatures. I cannot
belp inquiring what length of time is to be allowed for
/he experiment, which is to prove the adequacy of the
means independently of special divine intervention.
Nor can it be impertinent to ask what is, thus far, the
state of the experiment and the success, among those
who scout the idea of such a divine agency, as a dream
of fanaticism. Might it not be prudent, to moderate
the expressions of contempt for the persuasion which
excites an importunity for extraordinary influence from
THE EPITHET ROMAN7IC. 169
the Almighty, till the success without it shall be greater?
The utmost arrogance of this contempt will venture no
comparison between the respective success, in the
conversion of vain and wicked men, of the Christian
means as administered by those who implore and rely
upon this special agency of heaven, and by those who
deny any such operation on the mind ; deny it in sense
and substance, whatever accommodating phrases they
may sometimes employ. Has there indeed been any
success at all, in that great business of conversion, to
vindicate the calculations of this latter class from the
imputation of all the vainest folly that should be meant
by the word Romantic?
But, when I introduced the mention of reformers
and their projects, I was not intending any reference
to delusive presumptions of the operations of Christi-
anity, but to those speculations and schemes for >he
amendment of mankind which anticipate their effect
independently of its assistance; some of them perhaps
silently coinciding with several of its principles, while
others expressly disclaim them. Unless these schemes
bring with them, like spirits from heaven, an intrinsic
competence to the great operation, without requiring
to be met or aided by forwardness in the nature of the
Subject, it may be predicted they will turn to the
mortification of their fond oroiectors. There is no
avoiding the ungracious perception, in surveying the
general character of the race, that, after some allowance
for what is called natural affection, and for compas-
sionate sympathy, (an excellent principle, but extremely
limited and often capricious in its operation,) the main
strength of human feelings consists in the love of
sensual gratification, of trifling amusement, of dis-
tinction, of power, and of money. And by what
suicidal inconsistency are these principles to lend their
17(> ON THE APPLICATION OP
force to accomplish the schemes of pure reason and
virtue, which, they will not fail to perceive, are plotting
against them ? * And if they have far too perfect
an instinct to be trepanned into such an employment
of their force, and yet are the preponderating agents
in the human heart, what otfter active principles of it
can the renovator of human character call to his effec-
tual aid, against the evils which are accumulated and
defended by what is at once the baser and the stronger
part ? Whatever principles of a better kind there may
be in the nature, they can hold but a feeble and inert
existence under this predominance of the worse, and
could make but a faint insurrection in favour of the
invading virtue. The very worst of them may indeed
seem to become its allies when it happens, as it occa-
sionally will, that the course of action which reforming
virtue enforces, falls in the same line in which some of
these meaner principles can attain their own ends.
Then, and so far, an unsound coincidence may take
place, and the external effect of those principles may
be clad in specious appearances of virtue ; but the
moment that the reforming projector summons their
co-operation to a service in which they must desert
their own object and their corrupt character, they will
desert him. As long as he is condemned to depend,
for the efficacy of his schemes, on the aid of so much
pure propensity as he shall find in the corrupted subject,
he will be nearly in the case of a man attempting to
climb a tree by laying hold, first on this side, and then
on that, of some rotten twig, which still breaks off in
his hand, and lets him fall among the nettles.
* I am here reminded of the Spanish story, of a village where
the devil, having made the people excessively wicked, was punished
by being compelled to assume the appearance and habit of a friar,
and to preach so eloquently, in spite of his internal repugnance and
rage, that the inhabitants were completely reformed.
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 171
Look again to the state of facts. Collective man if
human nature ; and the conduct of this assemblage,
under the diversified experiments continually made on
it, expresses its true character, and indicates what may
be expected from it. Now then, to what principle in
human nature, as thus illustrated by trial, could you
with confidence appeal in favour of any of the great
objects which a benevolent man desires to see accom-
plished ? If there were in it any one grand principle
of goodness which an earnest call, and a great occasion,
would raise into action, to assert or redeem the character
of the species, one should think it would be what we
call, incorrectly enough, Humanity. Consider then, in
this nation for instance, which extols its own generous
virtues to the sky, what lively and rational appeals have
been made to the whole community, respecting the
slave trade,* the condition of the poor, the immensity
of cruelty perpetrated on brute animals, and the general,
national, desperate complacency manifested for what
is named honourable war, during a whole half century
of lofty Christian pretension, appeals substantially in
vain. And why in vain ? If humanity were a powerful
principle in the nature of the community, they would
not, in contempt of knowledge, expostulation, and
spectacles of misery, persist in the most enormous
violations of it. Why in vain? but plainly because
* Happily this topic of accusation is in a measure now set aside ;
but it would have remained as immovable as the continent of Africa,
if the legislature had not been forced into a conviction that, on the
whole, the slave trade was not advantageous in point of pecuniary
interest. At least the guilt would so have remained upon the nation
acting in its capacity of a state. This note is added subsequently to
the first edition It maybe subjoined, in qualification of the reproach
relative to the next article, the condition of the poor, that during
a later period there has been an increase of the attention and exer-
tion directed to that condition; which has, nevertheless, become
worse and worse.
172 ON THE APPLICATION OF
there is not enough of that virtue of humanity, even
in what is deemed a highly cultivated state of the
human nature, to answer to the importunate call. O r
if this be not the cause, let the idolaters of human
divinity call, like the worshippers of Baal, in a loudof
voice. Their success is likely to be the same ; the
will obtain no extraordinary exertion of power, though
they cry from morning till the setting sun. And
meanwhile the observer, who foresees their disap-
pointment, would think himself warranted, but for
the melancholy feeling that the nature in question is
his own, to deride their expectations. You know that
a multitude of exemplifications might be added. And
the thought of so many great and interesting objects,
concerning the welfare of the human economy, as a
sober appreciation of means, seems to place beyond
the reach of the moral revolutionist,* will often, if he
has a genuine benevolence, make him sad. He will
repeat to himself, " How easy it is to conceive these
inestimable improvements, and how nobly they would
exalt my species ; but how to work them into the
actual condition of man ! Are there somewhere in
possibility," he will ask, "intellectual and moral engines
mighty enough to perform the great process ? Where
in darkness is the sacred repository in which they lie ?
What Marraton-f- shall explore the unknown way to
it ? The man who would not as part of the price of
\ It is obvious that I am not supposing this moral revolutionist to
Be armed with any power but that of persuasion. If he were a
monarch, and possessed virtue and talents equal to his power, the
case would be materially dillerent. Even then, he would accomplish
but little compared with what he could imagine, and would desire;
yet, to all human appearance, he might be the instrument of wonder-
fully changing the condition of society within his empire. If tha
qpui of Alfred could return to the earth !
* Spectator, No. 56.
THE KPITHET ROMANTIC. ] 73
the discovery, be glad to close up all the transatlantic
mines, would deserve to be immured as the last victim
of those deadly caverns."
But each projecting visionary thinks the discovery
is made ; and while surveying his own great magazine
of expedients, consisting of Fortunatus's cap, the phi-
losopher's stone, Aladdin's lamp, and other equally
efficient articles, he is confident that the work may
speedily be done. These powerful instruments of
melioration perhaps lose their individual names under
the general denomination of Philosophy, a term that
would be venerable, if it could be rescued from the
misfortune of being hackneyed into cant, and from
serving the impiety which substitutes human ability to
divine power. But it is of little consequence what
denomination the projectors assume to themselves or
their schemes : it is by their fruits that we shall know
them. Their .work is before them ; the scene of moral
disorder presents to them the plagues which they are
to stop, the mountain which they are to remove, the
torrent which they are to divert, the desert which they
are to clothe in verdure and bloom. Let them make
their experiment, and add each his page to the humi-
liating records in which experience contemns the folly
of elated imagination.*
In reading lately same part of a tolerably well-written book
published a few years since, I came to the following passage, which
though in connexion indeed with the subject of elections, expresses
the author's general opinion of the state of society, and of the means
of exalting it to wisdom and virtue. " The bulk of the community
begin to examine, to feel, to understand, their rights and duties.
They only require (he fostering care of the Philosopher to ripen
them into complete rationality, and furnish them with the requisites
of political and moral action." Here I paused in wondering mood.
The fostering care of the Philosopher ! Why then is not the Philo-
sopher about his business? Why does he not go and indoctrinate a
company of peasants in the intervals of a ploughing or a harvest
174- ON THE APPLICATION OP
All the speculations and schemes of the sanguine
projectors of all ages, have left the world still a prey
to infinite legions of vices and miseries, an immortal
band, which has trampled in scorn on the monuments
and the dust of the self-idolizing men, who dreamed,
each in his day, that they were born to chase these
evils out of the earth. If these vain demigods of an
hour, who trusted to change the world, and who. perhaps
wished to change it only to make it a temple to their
fame, could be awaked from the unmarked graves into
which they sunk, to look a little while round on the
scene for some traces of the success of their projects,
would they not be eager to retire again into the
chambers of death, to bide the shame of their re-
day, when he will find them far more eager for his instructions than
for drink ? Why does he not introduce himself among a circle 01
farmers, who cannot fail, as he enters, to he very judiciously dis-
cussing, with the aid of their punch and their pipes, the most
refined questions respecting their rights and duties, and wanting
tmt exactly his aid, instead of more punch and tobacco, to possess
themselves completely of the requisites of political and moral action?
The populace of a manufactory, is another most promising seminary,
where all the moral and intellectual endowments are so nearly
" ripe," that he will seem less to have the task of cultivating than
the pleasure of reaping. Even among the company in the ale-house,
though the Philosopher might at first be sorry, and might wonder,
to perceive a slight merge of the moral part of the man in the
sensual, and to find in so vociferous a mood that inquiring reason
which, he had supposed, would be waiting for him with the silent
anxious docility of a pupil of Pythagoras, yet he would find a most
powerful predisposition to truth and virtue, and there would be every
thing to hope from the accuracy of his logic, the comprehensiveness
of his views, and the beauty of his moral sentiments. But perhaps
it will be explained, that the Philosopher does not mean to visit all
these people in person ; hut that having first secured the source of
influence, having taken entire possession of princes, nobility, gentry,
and clergy, which he expects to do in a very short time, he will
manage them like an electrical machine, to operate on the bulk of
the community. Either way the achievement will be great and
Hilmirable; the latter event seems to have been predicted in that
sibylline sentence, " When the sky fails we shall catch larks "
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 176
merabered presumption ? The wars and tyranny, the
rancour, cruelty and revenge, together with all the
other unnumbered vices and crimes with which the
earth is still infested, are enough, if the whole mass
could be brought within one section of the inhabited
world, of the extent of a considerable kingdom, to
constitute its whole population literally infernal, all
but their being incarnate ; which last they would soon,
through mutual destruction, cease to be. Hitherto
the power of the radical cause of these many forms
of evil, the corruption of the human heart, has sported
with the weakness, or seduced the strength, of all
human contrivances to subdue them. Nor are there
as yet more than glimmering signs that we are com-
mencing a better era, in which the means that have
failed before, or the expedients of a new and more for-
tunate invention, are appointed to victory and triumph.
The nature of man still " casts ominous conjecture
on the whole success.'' While that is corrupt, it will
pervert even the very schemes and operations by which
the world should be improved, though their first prin-
ciples were pure as heaven. The innate principle of
evil, instead of indifferently letting them alone, to work
what good they can, will put forth a stupendous force
to compel them into subserviency; so that revolutions,
great discoveries, augmented science, and new forms
of polity, shall become in effect what may be denomi-
nated the sublime mechanics of depravity.
LETTER V
THIS view of moral and philosophical projects,
added to that of the limited exertion of energy which
the Almighty has made to attend, as yet, the dispea-
176 ON THE APPLICATION OP
sation of true religion, and accompanied with the con-
sideration of the impotence of human efforts to make
that dispensation efficacious where his will does not,
forms a melancholy and awful contemplation. In the
hours when it casts its gloom over the mind of the
thoughtful observer, unless he can fully resign the
condition of man to the infinite wisdom and goodness
of his Creator, he will feel an emotion of horror, as if
standing on the verge of a hideous gulf, into which
almost all the possibilities, and speculations, and efforts,
and hopes, relating to the best improvements of man-
kind, are brought down by the torrent of ages, in a
long abortive series, to be lost in final despair.
To an atheist of enlarged sensibility, if there could
be such a man, how dark and hideous, beyond all
power of description, must be the long review and the
^indefinable prospect of this triumph of evil, unaccom-
panied, as it must be presented to his thoughts, by any
sublime process of intelligent power, converting, in
some manner unknown to mortals, this evil into good,
either during the course or in the result. A devout
theist, when he becomes sad amidst his contemplations,
recovers a submissive tranquillity, by reverting to his
assurance of such a wise and omnipotent sovereignty
and agency. As a believer in revelation, he is con-
soled by the confidence both that this dark train of
evils will ultimately issue in transcendent brightness,
and that the evil itself in this world will at a future
period almost cease. He is persuaded that the Great
Spirit, who presides over this mysterious scene, has
ati energy of influence yet in reserve to beam forth on
the earth, such as its inhabitants have never, except in
a few momentary glimpses, beheld ; and that when the
predestined period is completed for his kingdom to
come, he will command this chaos of turbulent and
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 177
malignant elements to become transformed into a fair
and happy moral world.
And is it not strange, my dear friend, to observe
how carefully some philosophers, who deplore the con-
dition of the world, and profess to expect its melio-
ration, keep their speculations clear of every idea of
divine interposition ? No builders of houses or cities
were ever more attentive to guard against the access
of flood or fire. If He should but touch their pro-
spective theories of improvement, they would renounce
them, as defiled and fit only for vulgar fanaticism.
Their system of Providence would be profaned by the
intrusion of the Almighty. Man is to effect an apo-
theosis for himself, by the hopeful process of exhausting
his corruptions. And should it take a long series of
ages, vices, and woes, to reach this glorious attainment,
patience may sustain itself the while by the thought
lhat when it is realized, it will be burdened with no
duty of religious gratitude. No time is too long to
wait, no cost too deep to incur, for the triumph of
proving that we have no need of a Divinity, regarded
as possessing that one attribute which makes it delight-
ful to acknowledge such a Being, the benevolence that
would make us happy. But even if this noble self-
sufficiency cannot be realized, the independence of
spirit which has laboured for it must not sink at last
into piety. This afflicted world, "this poor terrestrial
citadel of man," is to lock its gates, and keep its
miseries, rather than admit the degradation of receiv-
ing help from God.
I wish it were not true that even men who firmly
believe in the general doctrine of the divine govern-
ment of the world, are often betrayed into the
impiety of attaching an excessive importance to human
agency in its events. How easily a creature of thei
OX THF APPLICATION OF
own species is transformed by a sympathetic pride into
a God before them ! If what they deem the cause of
truth and justice, advances with a splendid front of
distinguished names of legislators, or patriots, or martial
heroes, it must then and must therefore triumph ;
nothing can withstand such talents, accompanied by
the zeal of so many faithful adherents. If these shining
insects of fame are crushed, or sink into the despicable
reptiles of corruption, alas, then, for the cause of truth
and justice ! All this while, there is no due reference
to the " Blessed and only Potentate." If, however, the
foundations of their religious faith have not been
shaken, and they possess any docility to the lessons
of time, they will after awhile be taught to withdraw
their dependence and confidence from all subordinate
agents, and habitually regard the Supreme Being as
the sole possessor of real and absolute power.
Perhaps it is not improbable, that the grand moral
improvements of a future age may be accomplished in
a manner that shall leave nothing to man but humi-
lity and grateful adoration. His pride so obstinately
asOribes to himself whatever good is effected on the
globe, that perhaps the Deity will evince his own
interposition, by events as evidently independent of
the might of man as the rising of the sun. It may be
that some of them may take place in a manner but
little connected even with human operation. Or it'
the activity of men shall be employed as the means
.f producing all of them, there will probably be as
palpable a disproportion between the instruments and
the events, as there was between the rod of Moses and
the amazing phaenomena which followed when it was
stretched forth. No Israelite was foolish enough to
ascribe ro the rod the power that divided the sea ; nor
will the witnesses of the moral wonders to come attribute
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 179
them to man. " Not by might, nor by power, but by
my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts."
I hope these extended observations will not appear
like an attempt to exhibit the whole stock of means, as
destitute of all value, and the industrious application
of them as a labour without reward. It is not to
depreciate a thing, if, in the attempt to ascertain its
real magnitude, it is proved to be little. It is no
injustice to mechanical powers, to say that slender
machines will not move rocks and massive timbers ;
nor to chemical ones, to assert that though an earth-
quake may fling a promontory from its basis, the explo-
sion of a canister of gunpowder will not. Between
moral forces also, and the objects to which they are to
be applied, there are constituted measures of propor-
tion ; and it would seem an obvious principle of good
sense, that an estimate moderately correct of the value
of each of our means according to those measures, as
far as they can be ascertained, should precede every
application of them. Such an estimate has no place
in a mind under the ascendency of imagination, which,
therefore, by extravagantly magnifying the virtue o?
its means, inflates its projects with hopes which may
;ustly be called romantic. The best corrective of such
irrational expectation is an appeal to experience.
There is an immense record of experiments, which will
assign the force of almost all the engines, as worked
by human hands, in the whole moral magazine. And
if a man expects any one of them to produce a greater
effect than ever before, it must be because the talents
>f him that repeats the trial are believed to transcend
those of all former experimenters, or else because the
season appears more auspicious.
The estimate of the power of means, which comos
<n answer to the appeal to experience, is indeed most
N 2
180 ON THE APPLICATION OF
humiliating; but what then ? It is a humble thing to
be a man. The feebleness of means is, in fact, the
feebleness of him that employs them ; for instruments
to all human apprehension the most inconsiderable,
can produce the most prodigious effects when wielded
by celestial powers. Till, then, the time shall arrive
for us to attain a nobler rank of existence, we must be
content to work on the present level of our nature,
arid effect that little which we can effect; unless it be
greater magnanimity and piety to resolve that because
our powers are limited to do only little things, they shall
therefore, as if in revenge for such an economy, do
nothing. Our means will do something ; that some-
thing is what they were meant to be adequate to in
our hands, and not some indefinitely greater effect,
which we may all be tempted to wish, and which a
sanguine visionary confidently expects.
This disproportion between the powers and means
with which mortals are confined to work, and the great
objects which good men would desire to accomplish,
is a part of the appointments of Him who determined
all the relations in the universe ; and he will see to the
consequences. For the present, he seems to say to his
servants, " Forbear to inquire why so small a part of
those objects to which I have summoned your activity,
is placed within the reach of your powers. Your feeble
ability for action is not accompanied by such a capacity
of understanding, as would be requisite to comprehend
why that ability was made no greater. Though it had
been made incomparably greater, would there not still
have been objects before it too vast for its operation ?
Must not the highest of created bring;.- still have some-
thing in view, which they feel they can but partially
accomplish till the sphere of their active force be en-
larged ? Must there not be an end of improvement in
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 181
my creation, if the powers of my creatures had become
perfectly equal to the magnitude of their designs ?
How mean must be the spirit of that being that would
not make an effort now, toward the accomplishment of
something higher than he will be able to accompl sh
till hereafter. Because mightier labourers would havo
been requisite to effect all that you wish, will you
murmur that I have honoured you, the inferior ones,
with the appointment of making a noble exertion with
however limited success ? If there is but little power
in your hands, is it not because I retain the power in
mine ? Are you afraid lest that power should fail to
do all things right, only because you are so little made
its instruments ? Be grateful that all the work is not
to be done without you, and that God employs you in
that in which he also is employed. But remember, that
while the employment is yours, the success is altogether
his ; and that your diligence therefore, and not the
measure of effect which it produces, will be the test of
your characters. Good men have been employed in all
ages under the same economy of inadequate means, and
what appeared to them inconsiderable success. Go to
your labours : every sincere effort will infallibly be one
step more in your own progress to a perfect state ; and
as to the Cause, when / see it necessary for a God to
interpose in his own manner, I will come."
I might deem a train of observations of the melancholy
hue which shades some of the latter pages of this essay
of too depressive a tendency, were I not convinced that
a serious exhibition of the feebleness of human agency
in relation to all great objects, may aggravate the im-
pression, often so insufficient, of the absolute supremacy
of God, of the total dependence of all mortal strength
aiid effort on him, and of the necessity of maintaining
habitually a devout respect to his intervention. Il
182 ON THE APPLICATION OF
might promote that last attainment of a zealously good
man, the resignation to be as diminutive and as im-
perfectly successful an agent as God pleases. I am
assured also that, in a pious mind, the humiliating
estimate of means and human sufficiency, and the con-
sequent sinking down of all lofty expectations founded
on them, will leave one single mean, and, that far the
best of all, to be held not only of undirninished but of
more eminent value than ever was ascribed to it before.
The most excellent of all human means must be that
of which the effect is to obtain the exertion of divine
power. The means which are to be employed in a direct
immediate instrumentality toward the end, seem to bear
such a measured proportion to their objects, as to assign
and limit the probable effect. This regulated propor-
tion exists no longer, and therefore the possible effects
become too great for calculation, when that expedient is
solemnly employed which is appointed as the mean of
engaging the divine energy to act on the object. If the
only means by which Jehoshaphat sought to overcome
his superior enemy, had been his troops, horses, and
arms, there would have been nearly an assignable pro-
portion between these means and the end, and the pro-
bable result of the conflict would have been a matter
of ordinary calculation. But when he said, " Neither
know we what to do, but our eyes are up unto thee,"
he moved (if I may reverently express it so) another
and an infinite force to invade the host of Moab and
Ammon ; and the consequence displayed in their camp,
the difference between an irreligious leader, who could
fight only with arms and on the level of the plain, and
a pious one who could thus assault from Heaven. It
IT ay not, I own, be perfectly correct to cite, in illus-
tration of the efficacy of prayer, the most memorable
ancient examples. Nor is it needful, since the expe-
THE EPITHET ROMAN i 1C. 183
rience of devout and eminently rational men, in latter
times, has supplied numerous striking instances of im-
portant advantages so connected in time and circum-
stance with prayer, that with good reason they regarded
them as the evident result of it.* This experience,
taken in confirmation of the assurances of the Bible,
warrants ample expectations of the efficacy of an earnest
and habitual devotion ; provided still, as I need not
remind you, that this mean be employed as the grand
auxiliary of the other means, and not alone, till all the
rest are exhausted or impracticable. And no doubt
any man who should, amidst his serious projects, become
sensible, with any thing approaching to an adequate
apprehension, of his dependence on God, would far
more earnestly and constantly press on this great re-
source than is common even among good men. He
would as little, without it, promise himself any distin-
guished success, as a mariner would expect to reach a
distant coast by means of his sails spread in a stagnation
of the air. I have intimated my fear that it is visionary
to expect an unusual success in the human administra-
tion of religion, unless there were unusual omens ; now
an emphatical spirit of prayer would be such an omen ;
and the individual who should solemnly resolve to make
proof of its last possible efficacy, might probably find
himself becoming a much more prevailing agent of
good in his little sphere. And if the whole, or the
greater number, of the disciples of Christianity, were,
with an earnest unfailing resolution of each, to combine
that Heaven should not withhold one single influence
which the very utmost effort of conspiring and perse-
vering supplication would obtain, it would be the sign
of a revolution of the world being at hand.
Here I shall not be misunderstood to believe the multitude of
tories which have been told by deluded fancy,or detestable imposture^
184 ON THE APPLICATION OF
My dear friend, it is quite time to dismiss this whole
subject; though it will probably appear to you that I
have entirely lost and forgotten the very purpose for
which I took it up, which certainly was to examine the
correctness of some not unusual applications of the
epithet Romantic. It seemed necessary, first, to de-
scribe, with some exemplifications, the characteristics
of that extravagance which ought to be given up to
the charge. The attempt to do this, has led me into
a length of detail far beyond all expectation. The
intention was, next, to display and to vindicate, in an
extended illustration, several schemes of life, and models
of character ; but 1 will not prolong the subject. I
shall only just specify, in concluding, two or three of
those modes of feeling and action on which the censure
of being romantic has improperly fallen.
One is, a disposition to take high examples for imi-
tation. I have condemned the extravagance which
presumes on rivalling the career of action and success
that has been the appointment of some individuals, so
extraordinary as to be the most conspicuous phenomena
of history. But this delirium of ambitious presumption
is distinguishable enough from the more temperate,
yet warm aspiration to attain some resemblance to ex-
amples, which it will require the most strenuous and
sustained exertion to resemble. Away with any such
sobriety and rationality as would repress the disposition
to contemplate with a generous emulation the class of
men who have been illustrious for their excellence and
their wisdom ; to observe with interested self-reference
the principles that animated them and the process of
their attainments ; and to fix the standard of character
high by keeping these exemplars in view. A man may,
without a presumptuous estimate of his talents, or
the expectation of passing through any course of un-
HE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 185
exampled events, indulge the ambition to resemble and
follow, in the essential determination of their charac-
ters, those sublime spirits who are now removed to the
kingdom where they are to " shine as the stars for ever
and ever," and those yet on earth who are evidently on
their way to the same illustrious end.
A striking departure from the order of custom in
the rank to which a man belongs, exhibited in his
devoting the privileges of that rank to a mode of ex-
cellence which the generality of the people who compose
it never dreamed to be a duty, will by them be de-
nominated and scouted as romantic. They will wonder
why a man who ought to be like themselves, should
affect quite a different style of life, a deserter and alien
from the reign of fashion, should attempt unusual plans
of doing good, and should put himself under some ex
traordinary discipline of virtue while yet every point
in his system may be a dictate of reason and conscience,
speaking in a voice heard by him alone.
The irreligious will apply this epithet to the determi-
nation to make, and the zeal to inculcate, great exer-
tions and sacrifices for a purely moral ideal reward.
Some gross and palpable prize is requisite to excite
their energies ; and therefore self-denial repaid by con-
science, beneficence without fame, and the delight of
resembling the Divinity, appear visionary felicities.
The epithet will be in readiness for application to a
man who feels it an imperious duty to realize, as far as
possible, and as soon as possible, every thing which he
approves and applauds in theory. You will often hear
a circle of perhaps respectable persons agreeing en-
tirely that this one thing spoken of is a worthy principle
of action, and that other an estimable quality, and a
third a sublime excellence, who would be amazed at
your fanaticism, if you were to adjure them thus : " My
186 ON THE APPLICATION OF
friends, from this moment you are bound, from this
moment we are all bound, on peril of the displeasure
of God, to realize in ourselves, to the last possible
extent, all that we have thus in good faith deliberately
applauded." Through some fatal defect of conscience,
there is a very general feeling, regarding the high
order of moral and religious attainments, that though it
is a happv exaltation to possess them, yet it is perfectly
safe to stop contented where we are, on a far lower
ground. One is confounded to hear irritable persons
praising a character of self-command ; persons who
trifle away their days professing to admire the instances
of a strenuous improvement of time ; rich persons
lavishing fine words on examples of beneficence which
they know to be far surpassing themselves, though
perhaps with no larger means ; and all expressing deep
respect for the men who have been most eminent ii:
piety ; and yet all this apparently with the ease of a
perfect freedom from any admonition of conscience,
that they are themselves standing in the very serious
predicament of having to choose, whether they will
henceforward earnestly and practically aim at these
higher attainments, or resign themselves to be found
wanting in the day of final account.
Finally, in the application of this epithet, but little
allowance is generally made for the great difference
between a man's entertaining high designs and hopes
for himself alone, and his entertaining them relative to
other persons. It might be very romantic for a man
to reckon on effecting such designs with respect to
others, as it may be reasonable to meditate for himself.
If he feels the powerful habitual impulse of conviction,
urging and animating him to the highest attainments
of wisdom and excellence, he may perhaps justly hope
to approach them himself, though it would be most
THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 187
extravagant to extend the same hope to all the persons
to whom he may wish and try to impart the impulse.
I specify the strictly personal attainments, wisdom and
excellence, for the reason that, besides the difference,
in probability ot realization, between large schemes
and hopes as indulged by a man for himself or enter-
tained for others, there is a distinction to be made in
respect to such as he might entertain only for himself.
His extraordinary plans and expectations for himself
might be of such a nature as to depend on other persons
for their accomplishment, and might therefore be as
extravagant as if other persons alone, persons in no
degree at his command, had been their object. Or,
on the contrary, they may be of a kind which shall
not need the co-operation of other persons, and may
be realized independently of their will. The design Oi
acquiring immense riches, or becoming the commander
of an army, or a person of high official importance in
national affairs, must in its progress be dependent on
other men in incalculably too many points and ways
for a considerate man to presume that he shall be fortu-
nate in them all. But the schemes of eminent personal
improvement, depending comparatively little on the
will, capacity, or conduct of other persons, are romantic
only when there is some fatal intellectual or moral
defect in the individual himself who has adopted them.
ESSAY IV.
ON SOME OF THE CAUSES BY WHICH EVANGELICAL
RELIGION HAS BEEN RENDERED UNACCEPTABLE
TO PERSONS OF CULTIVATED TASTE.
LETTER I.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
IT is striking to observe, under what various forms of
character men are passing through this introductory
season of their being, to enter on its future greater
stage. Some one of these, it may be presumed, is
more eligible than all the rest for proceeding to that
greater stage ; and to ascertain which it is, must be
felt by a wise man the most important of his inquiries.
We, my friend, are persuaded that the inquiry, if made
in good faith, will soon terminate, and that the Chris-
tian character will be selected as the only one, in which
it is wise to advance to the entrance on the endless
futurity. Indeed the assurance of our permanent
existence itself rests but on that authority which dic-
tates also the right introduction to it.
The Christian character is simply a conformity to
the whole religion of Christ. This implies a cordial
admission of that whole religion ; but it meets, on the
contrary, in many minds not denying it to be a com-
munication from God, a disposition to shrink from
AVERSION TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 189
some of its peculiar properties and distinctions, or an
effort to displace or neutralize them. I am not now to
learn that the substantial cause of this is that repug-
nance in human nature to what is purely divine, which
revelation affirms, and all history proves, and which
perhaps some of the humiliating points of the Christian
system are more adapted to provoke, than any other
thing that bears the divine impress. Nor do I need
to be told how much this chief cause has aided and
aggravated the power of those subordinate ones, which
may have conspired to prevent the success of evangelical
religion among a class of persons that I have in view,
I mean those of refined taste, whose feelings, concern-
ing what is great and excellent, have been disciplined
to accord to a literary or philosophical standard. But
even had there been less of this natural aversion in
such minds, or had there been none, some of the causes
which have acted on them would have tended, neces-
sarily, to produce an effect injurious to the claims of
pure Christianity. I wish to illustrate several of these
causes, after briefly describing the antichristian feelings
in which I have observed that effect.
It is true that many persons of taste have, without
any formal disbelief of the Christian truth, so little con-
cern about religion in any shape, that the unthinking
dislike to the evangelical principles, occasionally rising
and passing among their transient moods of feeling
with no distinctness of apprehension, hardly deserves
to be described. These are to be assigned, whatever
may be their faculties or improvements, to the multi-
tude of triflers relatively to the gravest concerns, on
whom we can pronounce only the general condemna-
tion of irreligion, their feelings not being sufficiently
marked for a more discriminative censure. But the
Aversion is of a more defined character, as it exists in
190 ON THE AVERSION OV MEN OF TASTE
a mind too serious for the follies of the world and the
neglect of all religion, and in which the very sentiment
itself becomes, at times, the subject of painful and
apprehensive reflection, from an internal monition that
it is an unhappy symptom, if the truth should be that
the religious system which excites the displacency, has
really the sanction of divine revelation. If a person
in this condition of mind disclosed himself to you, he
would describe how the elevated sentiment, inspired by
the contemplation of other sublime subjects, is con-
founded, and sinks mortified into the heart, when this
new subject is presented to his view. It seems to
require almost a total change of his mental habits to
admit this as the most interesting subject of all, while
yet he dares not reject the authority which supports
its claim. The dignity of religion, as a general and
refined speculation, he may have long acknowledged ;
but it appears to him as if it lost that aspect of dignity,
in taking the specific form of the evangelical system ;
just as if an ethereal being were reduced to combine
his radiance and subtility with an earthly conformation.
He is aware that religion in the abstract, or in other
words, the principles which constitute the obligatory
relation of all intelligent creatures to the Supreme
Being, must receive a special modification, by means
of the addition of some other principles, in order to
become a peculiar religious economy for a particular
race of those creatures, especially for a race low iy
rank and corrupted in nature. And the Christian reve
lation assigns the principles by which this religion in
the abstract, the religion of the universe, is thus modi-
fied into the peculiar form required for the nature and
condition of man. But when he contemplates some of
these principles, framed on an assumption, and con-
veying a plain declaration of an ignominious and
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 191
deplorable condition of our nature, he can hardly help
regretting that, even if our condition be so degraded,
the system of our relations with the Divinity, though
constituted according and in adaptation to that degraded
state, is not an economy of a brighter character. The
gospel indeed appears to him like the image in Nebu-
chadnezzar's dream ; it is refulgent with a head of gold ;
the sublime truths or facts of religious theory, which
stand antecedent and superior to every peculiarity of the
special dispensations of religion, are luminously exhi-
bited ; but the doctrines which are added as distinctive
of the peculiar circumstances of the Christian economy,
appear less splendid, and as if descending towards the
qualities of iron and clay. If he must admit this por-
tion of the system as a part of the truth, his feelings
amount to the wish that a different theory /tad been true.
r t is therefore with a degree of shrinking reluctance that
he sometimes adverts to the ideas peculiar to the gospel.
He would willingly lose this specific scheme of doc-
trines in a more general theory of religion, instead of
resigning every wider speculation for thi-s scheme, in
which God has comprised, and distinguished by a very
oeculiar character, all the religion which he wills to
be known, or to be useful, to our world. It is not a
welcome conviction, that the gospel, instead of being
a modification of religion exhibited in competition with
others, and subject to choice or rejection according to
his taste, is peremptorily and exclusively the religion
for our lapsed race ; insomuch that he who has not a
religion conformed to the model in the New Testament
does not stand in the only right and safe relation to
the Supreme Being. He suffers himself to pass the
year in a dissatisfied uncertainty, and a criminal neglect
of deciding, whether his cold reception of the specific
views of Christianity will render unavailing his regard
192 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
for those more general truths, respecting the Deity,
moral rectitude, and a future state, which are neces-
sarily at the basis of the system. He is afraid to
examine and determine the question, whether he may
with impunity rest in a scheme composed of the general
principles of wisdom and virtue, selected from the
Christian oracles and the speculations of philosophy,
harmonized by reason, and embellished by taste. Ii
it were safe, he would much rather be the dignified
professor of such a philosophic refinement on Chris-
tianity, than yield himself a submissive and wholly
conformed disciple of Jesus Christ. This refined
system would be clear of the undesirable peculiarities
of Christian doctrine, and it would also allow some
different ideas of the nature of moral excellence. He
would not be so explicitly condemned for indulging
a disposition to admire and imitate some of those
models of character which, however opposite to pure
Christian excellence, the world has always idolized.
1 wish I could display, in the most forcible manner,
the considerations which show how far such a state of
mind is wrong. But my object is, to remark on a few
of the causes which may have contributed to it.
I do not, for a moment, place among these causes
that continual dishonour which the religion of Christ
has suffered through the corrupted institutions, and the
depraved character of individuals or communities, of
what is called the Christian world. Such a man as I
have supposed, understands what the dictates and ten-
dency of that religion really are, so far at least, that in
contemplating the bigotry, persecution, hypocrisy, and
worldly ambition, which have been forced as an oppro-
brious adjunct on Christianity during all ages of its
occupancy on earth, his mind dissevers, by a decisive
glance of thought, all these evils, and the pretended
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 193
Christians who are accountable for them, from the
religion which is as distinct from them as the Spirit
that pervades all things is pure from matter and from
sin. In his view, these odious things and these wicked
men, that have arrogated and defiled the Christian name,
sink out of sight through a chasm like Korah, Dathan,
and Abiram, and leave the camp and the cause holy,
though they leave the numbers small. It needs so
very moderate a share of discernment, in a protestant
country at least, where a well-known volume exhibits
the religion itself, genuine and entire as it came from
heaven, to perceive the essential disunion and antipathy
between it and all these abominations, that to take them
as congenial and inseparable, betrays, in every instance,
a detestable want of principle, or a most wretched
want of sense. The defect of cordiality toward the
religion of Christ, in the persons that I am accusing,
does not arise from this debility or this injustice. They
would not be less equitable to Christianity than they
would to some estimable man, whom they would not
esteem the less because villains that hated him, knew,
however, so well the excellence of his name and cha-
racter, as gladly to avail themselves of them in any
way they could to aid their schemes, or to shelter their
crimes. But indeed these remarks are not strictly to
the purpose ; since the prejudice which a weak or
corrupt mind receives from such a view of the Christian
history, operates, as we see by facts, not discriminately
against particular characteristics of Christianity, but
against the whole system, and leads toward a denial of
its divine origin. On the contrary, the class of persons
now in question fully admit its divine authority, but.
feel a repugnance to some of its most peculiar dis-
tinctions. These peculiarities they may wish, as I
have said, to refine away; but in moments lf impartial
o
191 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
Biliousness, are constrained to admit something very
near at least to the conviction, of their being inseparable
from the sacred economy. This however fails to subdue
or conciliate the heart ; and the dislike to some of the
parts has often an influence on the affections in regard
to the whole. That portion of the system which they
think they could admire, is admitted with the coldness
of a mere speculative assent, from the effect of the
intruding recollection of its being combined with some-
thing else which they cannot admire. Those distinctions
from which they recoil, are chiefly comprised in that
view of Christianity which, among a large proportion
of the professors of it, is denominated in a somewhat
specific sense, Evangelical ; and therefore I have adopted
this denomination in the title of this letter. Christianity
taken in this view contains a humiliating estimate oi
the moral condition of man, as a being radically corrupt
the doctrine of redemption from that condition by
the merit and sufferings of Christ the doctrine of a
divine influence being necessary to transform the cha-
racter of the human mind, in order to prepare it for a
higher station in the universe and a grand moral
peculiarity by which it insists on humility, penitence,
and a separation from the spirit and habits of the
world. I do not see any necessity for a more formal
and amplified description of that mode of understanding
Christianity which has acquired the distinctive epithet
Evangelical ; and which is not. to say the least, more
discriminatively designated among the scoffing part of
the wits, critics, and theologians of the day, by the
terms Fanatical, Calvinistical, Methodistical.
I may here notice that, though the greater share of
the injurious influences on which I may remark operates
more pointedly against the peculiar doctrines of Chris-
tianity, yet some of them are perniciously effectual
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 19.)
against its moral sentiment and laws, which are of a
tenour corresponding to the principles it prescribes to
our faith. I would observe also, that though I have
specified the more refined and intellectual class of minds,
as indisposed to the religion of Christ by the causes
on which I may comment, and though I keep them
chiefly in view, yet the influence of some of these
causes extends in a degree to many persons of sub-
ordinate mental rank.
LETTER II.
IN the view of an intelligent and honest mind the
religion of Christ stands as clear of all connexion with
the corruption of men, and churches, and ages, as when
it was first revealed. It retains its purity like Moses
in Egypt, or Daniel in Babylon, or the Saviour of the
world himself while he mingled with scribes and phari-
sees, or publicans and sinners. But though it thus
instantly and totally separates itself from all appearance
jf relation to the vices of bad men, a degree of effort
may be required in order to display it, or to view it in
an equally perfect separation from the weakness of good
ones. It is in reality no more identified with the one
than with the other ; its essential sublimity is as in-
capable of being reduced to littleness, as its purity is
of uniting with vice. But it may have a vital con-
nexion with a weak mind, while it necessarily disowns
a wicked one; and the qualities of that mind with
which it confessedly unites itself, will much more seem
to adhere to it, than of that with which all its principles
are plainly in antipathy. It will be more natural to
take those persons who are acknowledged the real
subjects of its influence, as illustrations of its nature,
o2
196 OX THE AVEUS1ON OF MEX OF TASTE
than those on whom n is the heaviest reproach that
tliey pretend to be its friends. The perception of its
nature and dignity must be clear and absolute, in the
man who can observe it under the appearance it acquires
in intimate combination with the thoughts, feelings,
and language of its disciples, without ever losing sight
of its own essential qualities and lustre. No possible
associations indeed can diminish the grandeur of some
parts of the Christian system. The doctrine of im-
mortality, for instance, cannot be reduced to take even
a transient appearance of littleness, by the meanest or
most uncouth words and images that shall ever be
employed to represent it. But some other things in
the system have not the same obvious philosophic
dignity ; and these are capable of acquiring, from the
mental defects of their believers, such associations as
will give a character much at variance with our ideas
of magnificence, to so much as they constitute of the
evangelical economy. One of the causes therefore
which I meant to notice, as having excited in persons
of taste a sentiment unfavourable to the reception of
evangelical religion, is, that this is the religion of many
weak and uncultivated minds.
The schools of philosophy have been composed of
men of superior faculties and extensive accomplish-
ments, who could sustain, by eloquence and capacious
thought, the dignity of the favourite themes ; so that
the proud distinctions of the disciples and advocates
appeared as the attributes of the doctrines. The adepts
could attract refined and aspiring spirits by proclaiming,
that the temple of their goddess was not profaned by
being a rendezvous for vulgar men. On the contrary,
it is the beneficent distinction of the gospel, that though
it is of a magnitude to interest and to surpass angelic
Investigation, (and therefore assuredly to pour contempt
TO EV ANGELICA], RELIGION. 197
on the pride of human intelligence rejecting it for its
meanness,) it is yet most expressly sent to the cla.ss
which philosophers have always despised. And a good
man feels it a Jause of grateful joy, that a communi-
cation has come from heaven, adapted to effect tho
happiness of multitudes in spite of natural debility or
neglected education. While he observes that confined
capacities do not preclude the entrance, and the perma-
nent residence, of that sacred combination of truth and
power, which finds no place in the minds of many phi-
losophers, and wits, and statesmen, he is grateful to
him who has "hidden these things from the wise and
prudent, and revealed them to babes."
But it is not to be denied that the natural conse-
quence follows. Contracted and obscured in its abode,
the inhabitant will appear, as the sun through a misty
sky, with but little of its magnificence, to a man who
can be content to receive his impression of the intel-
lectual character of the religion from the form of its
manifestation made from the minds of its disciples ;
and, in doing so, can indolently and perversely allow
himself to regard its weakest display as its truest image.
In taking such a dwelling, the religion seems to imitate
what was prophesied of its Author, that, when he
should be seen, there would be no beauty that he
should be desired. This humiliation is inevitable ; for
unless miracles were wrought, to impart to the less in-
tellectual disciples an enlarged power of thinking, the
evangelic truth must accommodate itself to the di-
mensions and habiturles of their minds. And perhaps
the exhibitions of it will come forth with more of the
character of those minds, than of its ovn celestial dis-
tinctions : insomuch that if there were no declaration
of the sacred system, but in the forms of conception
and language in which they give it forth, even a candid
198 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
man might hesitate to admit it as the most glorious gift
of heaven. Happily, he finds its quality declared by
other oracles ; but while from them he receives it in
its own character, he is tempted to wish he could
detach it from all the associations which he feels it has
acquired from the humbler exhibition. And he does
not greatly wonder that other men of the same intel-
lectual habits, and with a less candid solicitude to
receive with simplicity every thing that really comes
from God, should have admitted a prejudice from these
associations.
They would not make this impression on a man
already devoted to the religion of Jesus Christ. No
passion that has become predominant is ever cooled by
any thing which can be associated with its object, while
that object itself continues unaltered. The passion is
even willing to verify its power, and the merit of that
which interests it, by sometimes letting the unpleasing
associations surround and touch the object for an
instant, and then chasing them away ; and it welcomes
with augmented attachment that object coming forth
from them unstained ; as happy spirits at the last day
will receive with joy their bodies recovered from the
dust in a state of purity that will leave every thing
belonging to the dust behind. A zealous Christian
exults to feel in contempt of how many counteracting
circumstances he can still love his religion ; and that
this counteraction, by exciting his understanding to
make a more defined estimate of its excellence, has
resulted in his loving it the more. It has now in some
degree even pre-occupied those avenues of taste and
imagination, by which alone the ungracious effect of
associations could have been admitted. The thing
itself is close to his mind, and therefore the causes
which would have misrepresented it by coming between,
TO EVANGELICAI. REXIGIOW. 199
have lost their power. As he hears the sentiments of
sincere Christianity from the weak and illiterate, he
says to himself All this is indeed little, but I am
happy to feel that the subject itself is great, and that
this humble display of it cannot make it appear to me
different from what I absolutely know it to be ; any
more than a clouded atmosphere can diminish my idea
of the grandeur of the heavens, after I have so often
beheld the pure azure, and the host of stars. I am
glad that it has in this man all the consolatory and all
the purifying efficacy, which I wish that my more
elevated views of it may not fail to have in me. This
is the chief end for which a divine communication can
have been granted to the world. If this religion, instead
of being designed to make its disciples pure and happy
amidst their littleness, had required to receive lustre
from their mental dignity, it would have been sent to
none of us. At least, not to me ; for though I would
be grateful for my intellectual advantage over my un-
cultivated fellow-christian, I am conscious that the
noblest forms of thought in which I apprehend, or
could represent, the subject, do but contract its am-
plitude, do but depress its sublimity. Those superior
spirits who are said to rejoice over the first proof of
the efficacy of divine truth, have rejoiced over its in-
troduction, even in so humble a form, into the mind
of this man, and probably see in fact but little dif-
ference, in point of speculative greatness, between his
manner of viewing and illustrating it and mine. If
Jesus Christ could be on earth as before, he would
receive this disciple, and benignantly approve, for its
operation on the heart, that faith in his doctrines, which
men of taste might be tempted to despise for its want
of intellectual refinement. And since all his true dis-
ciples are destined to attain greatness at length, the
SJOO ON THE AVtRSION OF MEN OF TASTE
tune is coming, when each pious, though now contracted
mind, will do justice to this high subject. Meanwhile,
such as this subject will appear to the intelligence of
immortals, and such as it will be expressed in their
eloquence, such it really is now ; and I should deplore
the perversity of my mind, if I felt more disposed to
take the character of the religion from that style of its
exhibition in which it appears humiliated, than from
that in which I am assured it will be sublime. If, while
we are all advancing to meet the revelations of eternity,
I have a more vivid and comprehensive idea than these
less privileged Christians, of the glory of our religion, as
displayed in the New Testament, and if I can much more
delightfully participate the sentiments which devout
genius has uttered in the contemplation of it, I am
therefore called upon to excel them as much in devo-
tedness to this religion, as I have a more luminous
view of its excellence.
Let the spirit of the evangelical system once have
the ascendency, and it may thus defy the threatening
mischief of disagreeable associations with its principles ;
as the angels in the house of Lot repelled the base assail-
ants. But it requires a most extraordinary cogency of
conviction, and indeed more than simple intellectual con-
viction, to obtain a cordial reception for these principles,
if such associations are in prepossession of the mind.
And that they should be so in the man of taste is not
wonderful, if you consider how early, how often, and
by what diversities of the same general cause, they
may have been made on him. As the gospel comprises
an ample assemblage of intellectual views, and as the
greater number of Christians are inevitably ircapable
of presenting them in a dignified character of COM
ception and language from the same causes whicn
disqualify them to do such justice to other intellectual
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 201
subjects, it is not improbable that far the greater
number of expressions which he has heard in his whole
life, have been utterly below the subject. Obviousl;
this is a very serious circumstance ; for if he had heard a
much spoken on any other subject of high intellectual
rank, as moral philosophy, or poetry, or rhetoric, in which
perhaps he now takes great interest, and if a similar pro-
portion of what he had heard had been as much below
the subject, it is probable that he and the subject would
have remained strangers. And it. is a melancholy depo-
sition against the human heart, that fewer unfavourable
associations will cause it to recoil from the gospel, than
from any other subject which comes with high claims.
The prejudicial influence of mental deficiency or
meanness associated with evangelical doctrine, may
have beset him in many ways. For instance, he has
met with some zealous Christians, who not only were
very slightly acquainted with the evidences of the truth,
and the illustrations of the reasonableness, of their
religion, but who actually felt no interest in the inquiry.
Perhaps more than one individual attempted to deter
him from pursuing it, by suggesting that inquiry either
implies doubt, which was pronounced a criminal state
f mind, or will probably lead to it, as a judgment on
the profane inquisitiveness which, on such a subject, is
not satisfied with implicitly believing. An attempt to
examine the foundation would be likely to end in a
wish to demolish the structure.
He may sometimes have heard the discourse o ,
sincere Christians, whose religion involved no intel-
lectual exercise, and, strictly speaking, no subject of
intellect. Separately from their feelings, it had no
definition, no topics, no distinct succession of views.
And if he or some other person attempted to talk on
tome part of the religion itself, as a thing definable and
202 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
important, independently of the feelings of any indi-
vidual, and as consisting in a vast congeries of ideas,
concerning the divine government of the world, the
relations of rational creatures with the Creator, the
general nature of the economy disclosed by the Messiah,
the system of moral principles and rules, and the
greatness of the future prospects of man, they seemed
to have no concern in that religion, and impatiently
interrupted such discourse with the observation That
is not experience.
Others he has heard continually recurring to two or
three points of opinion, adopted perhaps in servile ad-
diction to a system, or perhaps by some chance seizure
of the individual's preference, and asserted to be the
life and essence of Christianity. These opinions he has
heard zealously though not argumentatively defended,
even when they were not attacked or questioned. If
they ueere called in question, it was an evidence not
less of depraved principle than of perverted judgment.
All other religious truths were represented as deriving
their authority and importance purely from these, and
as being so wholly included and subordinate, that it is
needless and almost impertinent to give them a distinct
attention. The neglect of constantly repeating and
enforcing these opinions was said to be the chief cause
of the comparative failure of the efforts to promote
Christianity in the world, and of the decay of particular
religious societies. Though he perhaps could not per-
ceive how these points were essential to Christianity,
even admitting them to be true, they were made the
sole and decisive standard for distinguishing between a
genuine and a false profession of it. And perhaps they
were applied in eager haste to any sentiment which lie
happened to express concerning religion, as a test of
its quality, and a proof of its corruptness.
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 203
Instances may have occurred in which he has ob-
served some one idea or doctrine, that was not the
distinctive peculiarity of any system, to have so mono-
polized the mind, that every conversation, from what-
ever point of the compass it started, was certain to find
its way to the favourite topic, while he was sometimes
fretted, sometimes amused, never much improved, by
observing its instinctive progress to the appointed place.
If his situation and connexions rendered it unavoidable
for him often to hear this unfortunate manner of dis-
coursing on religion, his mind probably fell into a fault
very similar to that of his well-meaning acquaintance.
As this worthy man could never speak on the subject
without soon bringing the whole of it down to one
particular point, so the indocile and recusant auditor
became unable to think on the subject without adverting
immediately to the narrow illustration of it exhibited
by this one man ; insomuch that this image of com-
Mned penury and conceit became established in his
mind as representative of the subject. In consequence
of this connexion of ideas, he perhaps became dis-
inclined to think on the subject at all ; or, if he was
disposed or constrained to think of it, he was so averse
to let his views of Christianity thus converge to th
littleness of a point, that he laboured to expand theu.
till they lost all specifically evangelical distinctions in
the wideness of generality and abstraction.
Again, the majority of Christians are precluded, by
their condition in life, from any considerable acquire-
ment of general knowledge. It would be unpardonable
in the more cultivated man not to make the large
allowance for the natural effect of this on the extent of
their religious ideas. But it shall have happened, that
he has met with numbers who had no inconsiderable
means, both in the way of money, judging by their
204- ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
unnecessary expenses, and of leisure, judging by the
quantity of time consumed in trivial talk, or in needless
sleep, to furnish their minds with various information,
bui who were quite on a level, in this respect, with
^hose of the humblest rank. They never even sus-
pected that knowledge could have any connexion with
/eligion ; or that they could not be as clearly and com-
prehensively in possession of the great subject as a man
whose faculties had been exercised, and whose extended
acquaintance with things would supply an ample diver-
sity of ideas illustrative of religion. He has perhaps
even heard them make a kind of merit of their indif-
ference to knowledge, as if it were the proof or the
result of a higher value for religion. If there was
ventured a hint of reprehensive wonder at their reading
so little, and within so very confined a scope, it would
be replied, that they thought it enough to read the
Bible ; as if it were possible for a person whose mind
fixes with inquisitive attention on what is before him,
to read through the Bible without thousands of such
questions being started in his thoughts, as can be
answered only from sources of information extraneous
to the Bible. But he perceived that this reading the
Bible was no work of inquiring thought ; and indeed
he has commonly found, that those who have no wish
for any thing like a general improvement in knowledge,
liave no disposition for the real business of thinking
even in religion, and that their discourse on that subject
is the exposure of intellectual poverty. He has seen
them live on for a number of years content with the
same confined views, the same meagre list of topics,
and the same uncouth religious language. In so con-
siderable a space of time, the habitual inquisitiveness
after various truth would have given much more clear-
ness to their faculties, and much more precision to the
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 205
articles of their belief. They might have ramified the
few leading articles, into a rich variety of subordinate
principles and important inferences. They might have
learned to place the Christian truth in all those combi-
nations with the other parts of our knowledge, by whid
it is enabled to present new and striking aspects, and
to multiply its arguments to the understanding, and
its appeals to the heart. They might have enriched
themselves by rendering nature, history, and the present
views of the moral world, tributary to the illustration
and the effect of their religion. But they neglected,
and even despised, all these means of enlarging their
ideas of a subject which they professed to hold of in-
finite importance. Yet perhaps, if this man of more
intellectual habits showed but little interest in con-
versing with them on that subject, or seemed inten-
tionally to avoid it, this was considered as pure aversion
to religion ; and what had been uninteresting to him as
doctrine, then became revolting as reproof.*
He may not unfrequently have heard worthy but
illiterate persons expressing their utmost admiration of
sayings, passages in books, or public discourses, which
he could not help perceiving to be hardly sense, or to
be the dictates of conceit, or to be common-place in-
flated to fustian. While on the other hand, if he has
introduced a favourite passage, or an admired book,
they have perhaps acknowledged no perception of its
beauty, or expressed a doubt ot its tendency, from its
not being in canonical diction. Or perhaps they have
Jirectly avowed that they could not understand it, in a
manner plainly implying that therefore it could be of
no value. Possibly when he has expressed his high
I own that what I said of Jesus Christ's gladly receiving one of
the humbler intellectual order for his disciple, would be but little
applicable to some of the characters that I describe.
'206 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
admiration of some of the views of the gospel, not
ordinarily recognised or exhibited, and bearing what 1
may perhaps call a philosophical aspect, (such, for
instance, as struck the mind of Rousseau,) he has been
mortified to find, that some peculiar and even sublime
distinctions of the religion of Christ are lost to many
of his disciples, from being of too abstract a kind for
the apprehension of any but improved and intellectual
men.
If he had generally found in those professed Christians
whose mental powers and attainments were small, a
candid humility, instructing them, while expressing
their animated gratitude for what acquaintance with
religion they had been able to attain, and for the im-
mortal hopes springing from it, to feel that they had
but a confined view of a subject which is of immense
variety and magnitude, he might have been too much
pleased by this amiable temper to be much repelled by
the defective character of their conceptions and ex-
pressions. But often, on the contrary, they may have
shown such a complacent assurance of sufficiency in
the little sphere, as if it self-evidently comprised every
thing which it is possible, or which it is of consequence,
for any mind to see in the Christian religion. They
were like persons who should doubt the information
that myriads more of stars can be seen through a tele-
scope than they ever beheld, and who should have no
curiosity to try.
Many Christians may have appeared to him to attach
an extremely disproportionate importance to the precise
modes of religious observances, not only in the hour of
controversy respecting them, when they are always ex-
travagantly magnified, but in the habitual course of
their religious references. These modes may be either
such as are adhered to by communities and sects of
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 207
Christians, perhaps as their respective marks of dis-
tinction from one another ; or any smaller ceremonial
peculiarities, devised and pleaded tor by particular in-
dividuals or families.
Certain things in the religious habits of some Christians
may have disgusted him excessively. Every thing which
could even distantly remind him of grimace, would in-
evitably do this ; as, for instance, a solemn lifting up
of the eyes, artificial impulses of the breath, grotesque
and regulated gestures and postures in religious ex-
ercises, an affected faltering of the voice, and, I might
add, abrupt religious exclamations in common discourse,
though they were even benedictions to the Almighty,
which he has often heard so ill-timed as to have an
irreverent and almost a ludicrous effect. In a man of
correct and refined taste, the happiest improvement in
point of veneration for genuine religion will produce
no tolerance for such habits. Nor will the dislike to
them be lessened by ever so perfect a conviction of
the sincere piety of any of the persons who have fallen
into them. I shall be justified in laying great stress on
this particular ; for I have known instances of extreme
mischief done to the feelings relative to religion, in
young persons especially, through the continued irri-
tation of disgust caused by such displeasing habits
deforming personal piety.
In the conversation of illiterate Christians the sup-
posed man of taste has perhaps frequently heard the
most unfortunate metaphors and similes, employed to
explain or enforce evangelical sentiments ; and probably,
if he twenty times recollected one of those sentiments,
the repulsive figure was sure to recur to his imagina-
tion. If he has heard so many of these, that each
Christian topic has acquired its appropriate offensive
images, you can easily conceive what a lively perception
208 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
of the importance of the subject itself must be requisite
to overcome the disgust of the associations. The feeling
accompanying these topics, as connected with these
distasteful ideas, will be somewhat like that which
spoils the pleasure of reading a noble poet, Virgil for
instance, when each admired passage recalls the phrases
and images into which it has been degraded in that
kind of imitation denominated travesty. It may be
added, that the reluctance to think of the subject
because it is connected with these ideas, strengthens
that connexion. For often the striving not to dwell on
the disagreeable images, produces a mischievous re-
action by which they press in more forcibly. The
tenacity with which ideas adhere to the mind, is in
proportion to the degree of interest, whether pleasing
or unpleasing, with which they affect it ; and an idea
cannot well excite a stronger kind of interest than the
earnest wish to escape from it. If we could cease to
dislike it, it would soon cease to haunt us. It may
also be observed, that the infrequency of thinking on
the evangelical subjects, will confirm the injurious asso-
ciations. The same mental law prevails in regard tc
subjects as to persons. If any unfortunate incident, or
any circumstance of expression or conduct, displeased
us in our first meeting with a person, it will be strongly
recalled each time that we see him again, if we meet
him but seldom ; on the contrary, if our intercourse
become frequent or habitual, such a first unpleasing
circumstance, and others subsequent to it, may be
forgotten. This observation might be of some use to
a man who really wishes to neutralize in his mind the
offensive associations with evangelical subjects ; as he
may be assured that one of the most effectual means
would be, to make those subjects familiar by often
thinking on them.
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 209
While remarking on the effect of unpleasing images
employed to illustrate Christian principles, I cannot
help wishing that religious teachers had the good taste
to avoid amplifying the metaphors of an undignified
order, which may have a kind of coarse fitness for
illustration, and are perhaps employed, in a short and
transient way, in the Bible. I shall notice only that
common one, in which the benefits and pleasures of
religion are represented under the image of food. I
do not recollect that in the Scriptures this metaphor is
ever drawn to a great length. But from the facility of
the process, it is not strange that it has been amplified,
both in books and discourses, into the most extended
parallel descriptions ; exhausting the dining-room of
images, and ransacking the language for substantives
and adjectives, to stimulate the spiritual palate. The
figure is combined with so many terms in our language,
that it will unavoidably occur ; and the analogy briefly
and simply suggested may sometimes assist the thought
without lessening the subject. But it is degrading to
spiritual ideas to be extensively and systematically
transmuted, I might say cooked, into sensual ones. The
analogy between meaner and more dignified things
should never be pursued further than one or two points
of obviously useful illustration ; for, if it be traced to
every particular in which a resemblance can be found
or fancied, the meaner thing abdicates its humble office
of merely indicating some qualities of the great one,
and becomes formally its representative and equal By
their being made to touch at all points, the meaner is
constituted a scale to measure and to limit the magni-
tude of the superior, and thus the importance of the
one shrinks to the insignificance of the other. It will
take some time for a man to recover any great degree
of solemnity in thinking on the delights or the supports
210 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
of religion, after he has seen them reduced into all the
forms of eating and drinking. In such detailed analo-
gies it often happens, that the most fanciful, or that the
coarsest points of the resemblance, remain longest in
the thoughts. When the mind has been taught to
descend to a low manner of considering divine trutn,
it will be apt to descend to the lowest. There is no
such violent tendency to abstraction and sublimity, in
the minds of the generality of readers and hearers, as
to render it necessary to take any great pains for the
purpose of retaining their ideas in some degree of
alliance with matter.
We are to acknowledge, then, the serious disadvan-
tage under which evangelical religion presents itself to
persons of mental refinement, with the associations
which it has contracted from its uncultivated and in-
judicious professors. At the same time, it would be
unjust not to observe that some Christians, of a sub-
ordinate intellectual order, are distinguished by such
an unassuming simplicity, by so much rectitude of
conscience, and by a piety so warm and even exalted,
as to leave a cultivated man convicted of a great per-
version of feeling, if the faith, of which these are living
representatives, did not appear to him in stronger at-
tractive association with their excellence, than in re-
pulsive association with their intellectual inferiority.
But I am supposing his mind to be in a perverted state,
and am far from seeking to defend him. This suppo-
sition however being made, I feel no surprise, on
surveying the prevailing mental condition of eva.
gelical communities, that this man has acquired ai
accumulation of prejudices against some of the distin-
guishing features of the gospel. Permitting himself
to feel as if the circumstances which thus diminish or
distort an order of Christian sentiments, were inseparable
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 211
from it, he is inclined to regret that there should be
any divine sanctions against his framing for himself,
on the foundation of some selected principles in Christi-
anity which he cannot but admire, but with a qualifying
intermixture of foreign elements, a more liberalized
scheme of religion.
It was especially unfortunate if, in the advanced
stage of this man's perhaps highly cultivated youth,
while he was exulting in the conscious enlargement of
intellect, and the quickening and vivid perceptiveness
of taste, but was still to be regarded as in a degree the
subject of education, it was his lot to have the principles
of religion exhibited and inculcated in a repulsive
language and cast of thought by the seniors of his
family or acquaintance. In that case, the unavoidable
Vequency of intercourse must have rendered the coun-
teractive operation of the unpleasing circumstances,
associated with Christian truth, almost incessant. And
it would naturally become continually stronger. For
each repetition of that which offended his refined mental
habits, would incite him to value and cherish them the
more, and to cultivate them according to a standard still
more foreign from all congeniality with his instructors.
These habits he began and continued to acquire from
books of elegant sentiment or philosophical specu-
lation, which he read in disregard of the advice, perhaps
to occupy himself much more with works specifically
religious. To such literary employment and amuse-
ment he has again and again returned, with a delightful
rebound from systematic common-places, whether de-
livered in private or in public instruction ; and has felt
the full contrast between the force, lustre, and mental
richness, brightening and animating the moral specu-
lations or poetical visions of genius, and the manner in
which the truths of the gospel had been conveyed. Ho
912 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
was not serious and honest enough to make, when in
retirement, any deliberate trial of abstracting these
truths from the vehicle and combination in which they
were thus unhappily set forth, and in a measure dis-
guised, in order to see what they would appear in a
better form. This change of form he was competent
to effect, or, if he was not, he had but a very small
portion of that mental superiority, of which he was
congratulating himself that his disgusts were an evi-
dence. But his sense of the duty of doing this was
perhaps less cogent, from his perceiving that the evan-
gelical doctrines were inculcated by his relations with
no less deficiency of the means of proving them true,
than of rendering them interesting ; and he could easily
discern that his instructors had received the articles of
their faith implicitly from a class of teachers, or the
standard creed of a religious community, without even
perhaps a subsequent exercise of reasoning to confirm
what they had thus adopted. They believed these
articles through the habit of hearing them, and main-
tained them by the habit of believing them. The recoil
of his feelings, therefore, did not alarm his conscience
with the apprehension that it might be absolutely the
truth of God, that, under this uninviting form, he was
loath to embrace. Unaided by such an impression
already existing, and unarmed with a force of argument
to work conviction, the seriousness, perhaps sometimes
harsh seriousness, of his friends, reiterating the asser-
tion of his mind being in a fatal condition, till he
should think and feel exactly as they did, was little
likely to conciliate his repugnance. When sometimes
their admonitions took the mild or pathetic tone, his
respect for their piety, and his gratitude for their
affectionate solicitude, had perhaps a momentary effect
to make him earnestly wish he could renounce his
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 2l^J
intellectual fastidiousness, and adopt in pious simplicity
all their feelings and ideas. But as the contracted
views, the rude figures, and the mixture of systematic
and illiterate language, recurred, his mind would again
revolt, and compel him to say, This cannot, will not,
be my mode of religion.
Now, one wishes there had been some enlightened
friend to say to such a man, Why will you not under-
stand that there is no necessity for this to be the mode
of your religion ? By what want of acuteness do you fail
to distinguish between the mode, (a mere extrinsic and
accidental mode,) and the substance ? In the world
of nature you see the same elements wrought into the
plainest and the most beautiful, into the most diminutive
and the most majestic forms. So the same simple
principles of Christian truth may constitute the basis
f a very inferior, or a very noble, order of ideas. The
principles themselves have an essential quality which is
not convertible ; but they were not imparted to man to
be fixed in the mind as so many bare scientific propo-
sitions, each confined to one single mode of conception,
without any collateral ideas, and to be always expressed
in one unalterable form of words. They are placed
there in order to spread out, if I might so express it,
into a great multitude and diversity of ideas and feelings
These ideas and feelings, forming round the pure simple
principles, will correspond, and will make those prin-
ciples themselves seem to correspond, to the meaner or
the more dignified intellectual rank of the mind. Why
will you not perceive, that if the subject takes so
humble a style in its less intellectual believers, it is not
that it cannot unfold greater proportions through a
gradation of larger and still larger faculties, and with
facility occupy the whole capacity of the amplest, in
the same manner as the ocean fills a gulf as easily as a
Zl* OX THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTK
creek ! Through this climax it retains an identity of
its essential principles, and appears progressively a
nobler thing only by gaining a position for more con-
spicuously displaying itself. Why will you not go with
it through this gradation, till you see it presented in a
greatness of character adequate to the utmost that you
can, without folly, attribute to yourself of large and
improved faculty ? Never fear lest the gospel should
prove not sublime enough for the elevation of your
thoughts. If you could attain an intellectual eminence
from which you would look with pity on the rank you
at present hold, you would still find the dignity of this
subject on your level, and rising above it. Do you
doubt this ? What then do you think of such spirit*
for instance, as those of Milton and Pascal ? And by
how many degrees of the intellectual scale shall yours
surpass them, to authorize your feeling that to be little
which they felt to be great ? They were at times
sensible of the magnificence of Christian truth, filling
distending, and exceeding, their faculties, and could
have wished for even greater powers to do it justice.
In their loftiest contemplations, they did not feel their
minds elevating the subject, but the subject elevating
their minds. Now consider that their views of the
gospel were, in essence, the same with those of its
meanest sincere disciples ; and that therefore many
sentiments which, by their unhappy form, have dis
gusted you so much, bore a faithful though humble
analogy to the ideas of these illustrious Christians.
Why then, while hearing such sentiments, have you not
learnt the habit of recognising this analogy, and in
pursuance of it casting your thought upward t") the
highest style of the subject, instead of abandoning the
subject itself in the recoil from the unfortunate mode
of presenting it ? Have you not cause to fear that
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 215
your disl'ke goes deeper than this exterior of its exhi-
bition ? For, else, would you not anxiously seek, and
rejoice to meet, the divine subject in that transfigu-
ration of aspect by which its grandeur would thus be
redeemed ?
I would make a solemn appeal to the understanding
and the conscience of such a man. I would say to
him, Is it to the honour of a mind of taste, that it loses,
when the religion of Christ is concerned, all the value
of its discrimination ? Do you not absolutely know that
the littleness which you see investing that religion is
adventitious ? Are you not certain that in hearing the
discourse of such men, if they were now to be found, as
those I have named, the evangelical truths would appear
to you sublime, and that they cannot be less so in fact
than they would appear as displayed fron. those minds ?
But even suppose that they also failed, and that all
modern Christians, without exception, had conspired
to give an unattractive and unimpressive aspect to the
subject of their profession, there is still the Christian
Revelation may I not presume that you sometimes
read it? But this is to be done in that state of sus-
ceptible seriousness, without which you will have no
just apprehension of its character ; without which you
are but like an ignorant clown who, happening to look
at the heavens, perceives nothing more awful in that
immeasurable wilderness of suns than in the row of
lamps along the streets. If you do read that book, in
the better state of feeling, I have no comprehension of
the constitution of your mind, if the first perception
would not be that of a simple venerable dignity, and
if the second would not be that of a certain abstract
undefinable magnificence ; a perception of something
which, behind this simplicity, expands into a greatness
beyond the compass of your mind ; an impression like
216 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
that with which a thoughtful and imaginative man
might be supposed to have looked on the countenance
of Newtou. feeling a kind of mystical absorption in the
attempt to comprehend the magnitude of the boul
residing within that form. When in this state of
serious susceptibility, have you not also perceived in
the character and the manner of the first apostles of
this truth, while they were declaring it, an expression
of dignity, altogether different from that of other dis-
tinguished men, and much more elevated and un-
earthly? If you examined the cause, you perceived
that the dignity arose partly from their being employed
as living oracles of this truth, and still more from their
whole characters being pervaded by its spirit. And
have you not been sometimes conscious, for a moment,
that if it possessed your soul in the same manner as it
did theirs, it would raise you to be one of the most
excellent order of mortals ? You would then stand
forth in a combination of sanctity, devotion, disinter-
estedness, superiority to external things, energy, and
aspiring hope, in comparison of which the ambition of
a conqueror, or the pride of a self-admiring philosopher,
would be a very vulgar kind of dignity. You acknow-
ledge these representations to be just ; you allow that
the kind of sublimity which you have sometimes per-
ceived in the New Testament, that the qualities of the
apostolic spirit, and that the intellectual and moral great-
ness of some modern Christians, express the genuine
character of the evangelical religion, showing that
character to be of great lustre. But then, is it not
most disingenuous in you to suffer the meanness which
vou know to be but associated and separable, to be ad-
mitted by your own mind as an excuse for its alienation
from what is acknowledged to be in itself the very
contrary of meanness? Ought you not to turn oo
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 1 2\ 1
yourself with indignation at that want of rectitude
which resigns you to the effect of these associations,
or with contempt of the debility which tries in vain to
break them ? Is it for you to be offended at the mental
weakness of Christians, you, whose intellectual vigour,
and whose sense of justice, but leave you to sink helpless
in the fastidiousness of sickly taste, and to lament that
so many inferior spirits have been consoled and saved
by this divine faith as to leave on it a soil which forbids
your embracing it, even though your own salvation
depend ? At the very same time perhaps this weakness
takes the form of pride. Let that pride speak out ; it
would be curious to hear it say, that your mental re
finement perhaps might have permitted you to take
your ground on that eminence of the Christian faith
where Milton and Pascal stood, if so many humbler
beings did not disgrace it, by occupying the declivity
and the vale.
But after all, what need of referring to illustrious
names ? as if the claims of that which you acknowledge
to be from heaven should be made to depend on the
number of those who have received it gracefully ; or
as if a rational being could calmly wait for his taste to
be conciliated, before he would embrace a system by
which his immortal interest is to be secured. The
Sovereign Authority has signified what the difference
shall be in the end, between the consequences of re-
ceiving or not receiving the evangelic declaration. Is
the difference so announced of such small account that
you would not, on serious consideration, be overwhelmed
with wonder and shame, that so minor an interference
as that of mere taste should so long have made you
unjust to yourself in relation to what you are in progress
to realize ? And if, persisting to decline an exercise
of such faithful consideration, you go on a venture to
218 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
meet a consequence unspeakaoiy disastrous, will an
unhallowed and proud refinement appear to have been
a worthy cause for which to incur it ? You deserve to
be disgusted with a divine communication, and to lose
all its benefits, if you can thus let every thing have a
greater influence on your feelings concerning it than its
truth and importance, and if its accidental and separable
associations with littleness, can counteract its essential
inseparable ones with the Governor and Redeemer of
the world, with happiness, and with eternity. With
what compassion might you be justly regarded by an
illiterate but zealous Christian, whose interest in the
truths of the New Testament, at once constitutes the
best felicity here, and securely carries him toward the
kingdom of his Father ; while you are standing aloof,
and perhaps thinking, that if he and all such as he were
dead, you might, after a while, acquire the spirit which
should impel you also toward heaven. But why do
you not feel your individual concern in this great sub-
ject as absolutely as if all men were dead, and you
heard alone in the earth the voice of God ; or as if you
saw, like the solitary exile of Patmos, an awful appear-
ance of Jesus Christ and the visions of hereafter ? What
is it to you that many Christians have given an aspect
of littleness to the gospel, or that a few have sustained
and exemplified its sublimity ?
LETTER III.
ANOTHER cause which I think has tended to render
evangelical religion less acceptable to persons of taste, is
the peculiarity of language adopted in the discourses
and books of its teachers, as well as in the religious
conversation and correspondence of the majority of its
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. "219
adherents. I do not refer to any past age, when an
excessive quaintness deformed the composition of so
many writers on religion and all other subjects ; my
assertion is respecting the diction at present in use.
The works collectively of the best writers in the
language, of those especially who may be called the
moderns of the language, have created and substantially
fixed a standard of general phraseology. If any depart-
ment is exempted from the authority of this standard, it
is the low one of humour and buffoonery, in which the
writer may coin and fashion phrases at his whim. But
in the language of the higher, and of what may be called
middle order of writing, that authority is the law. It
does indeed allow indefinite varieties of what is called
style, since twenty able and approved writers might be
cited, who have each a different style ; but yet there is
a certain general character of expression which they
have mainly concurred to establish. This compound
result of all their modes of writing is become sanctioned
as the classical manner of employing the language, as
the form in which it constitutes the most rectified
general vehicle of thought. And though it is difficult
to define this standard, yet a well-read person of taste
feels when it is transgressed or deserted, and pronounces
that no classical writer has employed that phrase, or
would have combined those words in such a manner.
The deviations from this standard must be, first, by
mean or vulgar diction, which is below it; or secondly,
by a barbarous diction, which is out of it, or foreign
to it; or thirdly, by a diction which, though foreign to it,
is yet not to be termed barbarous, because it is elevated
entirely above the authority of the standard, by some
transcendent force or majesty of thought, or a super-
human communication of truth.
I might make some charge against the language of
220 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
divines under the first of these distinctions ; but my
present attention is to what seems to me to come under
the second character of difference from the standard,
that of being barbarous. The phrases peculiar to anv
trade, profession, or fraternity, are barbarous, if they
were not low ; they are commonly both. The lan-
guage of law is felt by every one to be barbarous in the
extreme, not only by the huge lumber of its technical
terms, but by its very structure, in the parts not con-
sisting of technical terms. The language of science is
barbarous, as far as it differs arbitrarily, and in more
than the use of those terms which are indispensable to
the science, from the pure general model. And I am
afraid that, on the same principle, the accustomed diction
of evangelical religion also must be pronounced bar-
barous. For I suppose it will bo instantly allowed, that
the mode of expression of the greater number of evan-
gelical divines,* and of those taught by them, is widely
different from the standard of general language, not
only by the necessary adoption of some peculiar terms,
but by a continued and systematic cast of phraseology ;
When I say evangelical divines, I concur with the opinion of
those, who deem a considerable, and, in an intellectual and literary
view, a highly respectable class of the writers who have professedly
taught Christianity, to be not strictly evangelical. They might rather
be denominated moral and philosophical divines, illustrating and
enforcing very ably the generalities of religion, and the Christian
morals, but not placing the economy of redemption exactly in that
light in which the New Testament appears to place it. Some of
these have avoided the kind of dialect on which I am animadverting,
not only by means of a diction more classical and dignified in the
general principles of its structure, but also by avoiding the ideas
with which the phrases of this dialect are commonly associated. I
may however here observe, that it is by no means altogether confined
to the specifically evangelical department of writing and discourse.
though it there prevails the most, and with the greatest number of
phrases. It extends, in some degree, into the majority of writing
on religion in general, and may therefore be called the theological,
almost as properly as the evangelical, dialect-
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. C 2 1 2\
insomuch that in reading or hearing five or six sentences
of an evangelical discourse, you ascertain the school
by the mere turn of expression, independently of any
attention to the quality of the ideas. If, in order to
try what those ideas would appear in an altered form
of words, you attempted to reduce a paragraph to the
language employed by intellectual men in speaking or
writing well on general subjects, you would find it
must be absolutely a version. You know how easily a
vast mass of exemplification might be quoted ; and the
specimens would give the idea of an attempt to create,
out of the general mass of the language, a dialect which
should be intrinsically spiritual ; and so exclusively
appropriated to Christian doctrine as to be totally unser-
viceable for any other subject, and to become ludicrous
when applied to it.* And this being extracted, like
the sabbath from the common course of time, the gene-
ral range of diction is abandoned, with all its powers,
diversities, and elegance, to secular subjects and the use
of the profane. It is a kind of popery of language,
vilifying every thing not marked with the signs of the
holy church, and forbidding any one to minister to
religion except in consecrated speech.
Suppose that a heathen foreigner had acquired a full
acquaintance with our language in its most classical
construction, yet without learning any thing about the
gospel, (which it is true enough he might do,) and
that he then happened to read or hear an evangelical
discourse he would be exceedingly surprised at the
This is so true, that u is no uncommon expedient with the
would-be wits, to introduce some of the spiritual phrases, in speaking
of any thing which they wish to render ludicrous ; and they are
generally so far successful as to be rewarded by the laugh or the
smile of the circle, who probably may never have had the good
fortune of hearing wit, and have not the sense or conscience to care
about religion.
22 OX THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
Cast of phraseology. He would probably be arrested
and perplexed in such a manner as hardly to know
whether he was trying his faculties on the new doctrine,
or on the singularity of the diction ; whereas the general
course of the diction should appear but the same as
that to which he had been accustomed. It should be
such that he would not even think of it, but only of
the new subject and peculiar ideas which were coming
through it to his apprehension ; unless there could be
some advantage in the necessity of looking at these
ideas through the mist and confusion of the double
medium, created by the super-induction of an uncouth
special dialect on the general language. Or if he were
not a stranger to the subject, but had acquired its
leading principles from some author or speaker who
employed (with the addition of a very small number
of peculiar terms) the same kind of language in which
any other serious subject would have been discoursed
on, he would still be not less surprised. "Is it possible,"
he would say, as soon as he could apprehend what he
was attending to, " that these are the very same views
which lately presented themselves with such lucid sim-
plicity to my understanding ? Or is there something
more, of which 1 am not aware, conveyed and concealed
under these strange shapings of phrase ? Is this another
stage of the religion, the school of the adepts, in which
I am not yet initiated ? And does religion then every
where, as well as in my country, affect to show and
guard its importance by relinquishing the simple lan-
guage of intelligence, and assuming a sinister dialect
of its own ? Or is this the diction of an individual
only, and of one who really intends but to convey the
Fame ideas that I have elsewhere received in so much
more clear and direct a vehicle of words ? But then,
in what remote corner, placed beyond the authority -jf
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 223
criticism and the circulation of literature, where a noble
language stagnates into barbarism, did this man study
his religion and acquire his phrases ? Or by what
inconceivable perversion of taste and of labour has he
framed, for the sentiments of his religion, a mode of
expression so uncongenial with the eloquence of his
country, and so calculated to exclude it from all benefit
of that eloquence ?"
My dear friend, if I were not conscious of a most
sincere veneration for evangelical religion itself, I should
be more afraid to trust myself in making these obser-
vations on the usual manner of expressing its ideas. If
my description be exaggerated, I am willing to be
corrected. But that there is a great and systematical
alienation from the true classical diction, is most pal-
pably obvious: and I cannot help regarding it as an
unfortunate circumstance. It gives the gospel too much
the air of a professional thing, which must have its
peculiar cast of phrases, for the mutual recognition of
its proficients, in the same manner as other professions,
arts, crafts, and mysteries, have theirs. This is offi-
ciously placing the singularity of littleness to draw
attention to the singularity of greatness, which in the
very act it misrepresents and obscures. It is giving an
uncouthness of mien to a beauty which should attract
all hearts. It is teaching a provincial dialect to the
rising instructor of a world. It is imposing the guise
of a cramped formal ecclesiastic on what is destined for
an universal monarch.
Would it not be an improvement in the administration
&f religion, by discourse and writing, if Christian truth
were conveyed in that neutral vehicle of expression
which is adapted indifferently to common serious sub-
jects ? Rut it may be made a question whether it can
be perfectly conveyed in such language. This poin
221 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
therefore requires a little consideration. The diction
on which I have animadverted, may be described under
three distinctions.
The first is a peculiar way of using various common
words. And this peculiarity consists partly in ex-
pressing ideas by such single words as do not simply
and directly belong to them, instead of other single
words which do simply and directly belong to them, and
in general language are used to express them ;* and
partly in using such combinations of words as make
uncouth phrases. Now what necessity ? The answer
is immediately obvious as to the former part of the
description ; there can be no need to use one common
word in an affected and forced manner to convey an
idea, which there is another common word at hand to
express in the simplest and most usual manner. And
then as to phrases, consisting of an uncouth combination
of words which are common, and have no degree of tech-
nicality, are they necessary ? They are not absolutely
necessary, unless each of these combinations conveys a
thought of so exquisitely singular a turn, that no other
conjunction of terms could have expressed it ; which was
never suggested by one mind to another till these three
or four words, falling out of the general order of the
language, gathered into a peculiar phrase; which cannot
be expressed in the language of another country that
has not a correspondent idiom ; and which will vanish
from the world if ever this phrase shall be forgotten.
But these combinations of words have no such pre-
tensions. When you obtain their meaning, you may
well wonder why a peculiar apparatus of phrase should
have been constructed, to bring and retain such an
As for instance, walk, and conversation, instead of conduct,
actions, or deportment ; flesh, instead of, sometimes, body sometime
natural inclination.
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 225
element of thought within the sphere of your under-
standing. But indeed the very circumstance of there
being nothing extraordinary in the sense, may have
been one inducement to the contrivance. There may
have been a certain discontent that the import should
not appear mo^ significant, more weighty, more sacred,
more authoritative, than it could be made to appear as
conveyed in common secular language. It could not
be trusted to have its proper effect, without some speci-al
token borne on its exterior to warn us to pay it reve-
rence. In v hatever manner, however, the language
came to be perverted into these artificial modes, it
would be easy to try whether the ideas, of which they
are the vehicles, are such as they exclusively are com-
petent and privileged to convey, insomuch that their
rejection would be the forfeiture of a certain portion
of religious Lruth and sentiment, which would there-
upon retire beyond the confines of our intelligence,
disdaining to stay and make an abode in common forms
of language. And it would be found that these phrases,
as it is within our familiar experience that all phrases
consisting of only common words, and having no
relation to art or science, can be exchanged for several
different combinations of words, without materially
altering the thought or lengthening the expression.
Make the experiment on any paragraph written in the
manner in question, on any religious topic whatever,
and see whether you cannot melt all the uncouth con-
structions of diction, to be cast in a new and un-
canonical shape, without letting any sense there was
in them evaporate. I conclude then, that what I have
described as the first part of the theological dialect, the
peculiar mode of using common words, is not absolutely
necessary as a vehicle of Christian truths.
The second part of the dialect consists, not in a
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225 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
peculiar mode of using common words, but in a class
of words peculiar in themselves, as being seldom used
except by divines, but of which the meaning can be
expressed, without definition or circumlocution, by
other single terms which are in general use. For
example, edification, tribulation, blessedness, godliness,
righteousness, carnality, lusts, (a term peculiar and
theological only in the plural,) could be exchanged for
parallel terms too obvious to need mentioning. It is
true indeed that there are very few terms, if any,
perfectly synonymous. But when there are several
words of very similar though not exactly the same
signification, and none of them belong to an art or
science, the one which is selected is far more frequently
used in that general meaning by which it is merely
equivalent to the others, than in that precise shade of
meaning by which it is distinguished from them. The
words instruction, improvement, for instance, may not
express exactly the sense of edification ; but the word
edification is probably not often used by a writer or
speaker with any recollection of that peculiarity of its
meaning by which it differs from improvement or in-
struction. This is still more true of some other words,
as, for example, tribulation and affliction. Whatever
small difference of import these words may have in
virtue of derivation, it is probable that no man ever
wrote tribulation rather than affliction on account of
such difference. If, in addition to these two, the word
distress has offered itself, the selection of any one from
the three has perhaps always been determined by habit,
or accident, rather than by any perception of a distinct
signification. The same remark is applicable to the
words blessed, happy, righteous, virtuous, carnal, sensual,
and a multitude of others. So that though there are
ft'w woro^i strictl v synonymous, yet there are very many
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 227
which are so in effect, even by the allowance and sanction
of the most rigid laws to which any of the best writers
have conformed their composition. Perhaps this is a
defect in human thinking; of which the ideal perfection
may be, that every conception should be so discrimi-
native and precise, that no two words, which have a
definable shade of difference in their meaning, should
be equally and indifferently eligible to express that
conception. But what writer or speaker will ever even
aspire to such perfection of thinking ? not to say that
if he did, he would soon find the vocabulary of the
most copious language deficient of single direct terms,
and indeed of possible combinations of terms, to mark
all the sensible modifications of his ideas. If a divine
felt that he had such extreme discrimination of thought,
that he meant something clearly different by the words
carnal, godly, edifying, and so of many others, from
what he could express by the words, sensual, pious,
religious, instructive, he would certainly do right to
adhere to the more peculiar words ; but if he does not,
he may perhaps improve the vehicle, without hurting the
material, of his religious communications, by adopting
the general and what may be called classical mode of
expression.
The third distinction of the theological dialect
consists in words almost peculiar to the language of
divines, and for which equivalent terms cannot be
found, except in the form of definition or circumlo-
cution. Sanctification, regeneration, grace, covenant,
salvation, and a few more, may be assigned to this
class. These may be called, in a qualified sense, the,
technical terms of evangelical religion. Now, separately
from any religious considerations, it is plainly necessary,
in a literary view, that all those terms that express .1
modification of thought which there are no other words
Q'J
228 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTB
competent to express, without great circumlocutiou,
should be retained. They are requisite to the sufficiency
of the language. And then, in considering those terms
as connected with the Christian truth, I am ready to
admit, that it will be of advantage to that truth, for
some of those peculiar doctrines, of which it partly
consists, to be permanently denominated by certain
peculiar words, which shall stand as its technical terms
But here several thoughts suggest themselves.
First, the definitions of some of these Christian terms
are not absolutely unquestionable. The words have as-
sumed the specific formality of technical terms, without
having completely the quality and value of such terms.
A certain laxity in their sense renders them of far less
use in their department, than the terms of science,
especially of mathematical science, are in theirs. Tech-
nical terms have been the lights of science, but, in
many instances, the shades of religion. It is most un-
fortunate, when, in disquisitions or instructions, the
grand leading words, on which the force of all the
rest depends, have not a precise and indisputable sig-
nification. The effect is similar to that which takes
place in the ranks of an army, when an officer has a
doubtful opinion, or gives indistinct orders. What I
would infer from these observations is, that a Christian
writer or speaker will occasionally do well, instead of
using the peculiar term, to express at length in other
words, at the expense of much circumlocution, that
idea which he would have wished to convey if he had
used that peculiar term. I do not mean that he should
do this so often as to render the term obsolete. It
might be useful sometimes, especially in verbal in-
struction, both to introduce the term, and to give such
a sentence as I have described. Such an expletive
repetition of the idea will more than compensate for
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION.
the tediousness, by the distinctness and fulness of
enunciation.*
Secondly, if the definitions of the Christian peculiar
terms were even as precise and fixed as those of scientific
denominations, yet the nature of the subject is such as
to permit an indolent mind to pronounce or to hear
these terms without recollecting those definitions. la
delivering or writing, and in hearing or reading, a
mathematical lecture, both the teacher and the pupil
are compelled to form in their minds the exact idea
which each technical term has been defined to signify;
else the whole train of words is mere sound and inanity.
But in religion, a man has a feeling of having some
general ideas connected with all the words as he hears
them, though he perhaps never studied, or does not
retain, the definition of one I shall have occasion to
repeat this remark, and therefore do not enlarge here.
The inference is the same as under the former obser-
vation ; it is, that the technical terms of Christianity
will contribute little to precision of thought, unless the
ideas which they signify be often expressed at length
in other words, either in explanation of those terms
when introduced, or in substitution for them when
omitted.
Thirdly, it is not in the power of single theological
terms, however precise their definitions may at any
time have been, to secure to their respective ideas an
unalterable stability. Unless the ideas themselves, by
being often expressed in common words, preserve the
signification of the terms, the terms will not preserve
the accuracy of the ideas. This is true no doubt of
the technical terms of science ; but it is true in a much
* It is need! ess to observe that this would be a superfluous labour
with respect to the most simple of the peculiar words, such for
instance as salvation.
230 ON THE AVERSION* OF MEN OP TAST*
more striking manner of the peculiar words in the>-
logy. If the technical terms of science, at least of the
strictest kind of science, were to cease to mean what
they had been defined to mean, they would cease to
mean any thing, and the change would be only from
knowledge to blank ignorance. But in the Christian
theology, the change might be from truth to error ;
since the peculiar words might cease to mean what
they were once defined to mean, by being employed
in a different sense. It may not be difficult to con-
jecture in what sense the terms conversion and rege-
neration, for example, were used by the reformers, and
the men who may be called the fathers of the established
church of this country ; but what sense have they sub-
sequently borne in the writings of many of its divines?
The peculiar words may remain, when the ideas which
they were intended to perpetuate are gone. Thus
instead of being the signs of those ideas, they become
their monuments ; and monuments profaned into abodes
for the living enemies of the departed. It must indeed
be acknowledged, that in some instances innovations
of doctrine have been introduced partly by declining
the use of the words that designated the doctrines ^Yhich
it was wished to render obsolete ; but they have been
still more frequently and successfully introduced, under
the advantage of retaining the terms while the prin-
ciples were gradually subverted. And therefore I shall
be pardoned for repeating this once more, that since
the peculiar words can be kept in one invariable sig-
nification cnly by keeping that signification clearly in
sight in another way than the ba;ie use of these words
themselves, it would be wise in Christian authors and
speakers sometimes to express the ideas in common
words, either in expletive and explanatory connexion
with the peculiar terms, or, occasionally, instead ol
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 231
them. I would still be understood to approve entirely
of the use of a few of this class of terms ; while the
above observations may deduct very much from the
usual estimate of their value and importance.
These pages have attempted to show, in what parti-
culars the language adopted by a great proportion of
Christian divines might be modified, and yet remain
faithful to the principles of Christian doctrine. Such
common words as have acquired an affected cast in
theological use, might give place to the other common
words which express the ideas in a plain and unaffected
manner, and the phrases formed of common words un-
couthly combined, may be swept away. Many peculiar
and antique words might be exchanged for other single
words, of equivalent signification, and in general use.
And the small number of peculiar terms acknow-
ledged and established as of permanent use and ne-
cessity, might, even separately from the consideration
of modifying the diction, be often, with advantage
to the explicit declaration and clear comprehension
of Christian truth, made to give place to a fuller ex-
pression, in a number of common words, of those ideas
of which these peculiar terms are the single signs.
Now such an alteration would bring the language of
divines nearly to the classical standard. If evangelical
sentiments could be faithfully presented, in an order of
words of which so small a part should be of specific
cast, they could be presented in what should be sub-
stantially the diction of Addison or Pope. And if
even Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, and Hume, could have
become Christians by some mighty and sudden efficacy
of conviction, and had determined to write thenceforth
in the spirit of the Apostles, they would have found,
it' these observations be correct, no radical change
232 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
necessary in the consistence of their language. An
enlightened believer in Christianity might have been
sorry, if, in such a case, he had seen any of them su-
perstitiously labouring to acquire all the phrases of a
school, instead of applying at once to its new vocation
a diction fitted for the vehicle of universal thought.
Are not they yet sufficient masters of language, it might
have been asked with surprise, to express all their
thoughts \vith the utmost precision ? As their language
had been found sufficiently specific to injure the gospel,
it would have been strange if it had been too general
to serve it. The required alteration would probably
have been little more than to introduce familiarly the
obvious denominations of the Christian topics and
objects, such as, redemption, heaven, mediator, Christ,
Redeemer, with the others of a similar kind, and ?
very few of those almost technical words which 1 have
admitted to be indispensable. The habitual use of
guch denominations would have left the general order
of their composition the same. And it would have
been striking to observe by how comparatively small a
difference of terms a diction which had appeared most
perfectly pagan, could be christianized, when the writer
had turned to Christian subjects, and felt the Christian
spirit. On the whole then, I conclude that, with the
exception which I have distinctly made, the evangelical
principles may be clearly exhibited in what may be
called a neutral diction. And if they may, I can imagine
some reasons to justify the wish that it were generally
employed.
As one of these reasons, I may revert to the con-
sideration of the impression made by the dialect which
I have described, on those persons of cultivated taste
whom this essay has chiefly in view. I am aware that
they are greatly inclined to make an idol of their taste
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 233
and I am aware also that no species of irreligion can
be much worse than to sacrifice to this idol any thing
which essentially belongs to Christianity. If any part
of evangelical religion, all injurious associations being
detached, were still of a nature to displease a refined
taste, the duty would evidently be to repress its claims
and murmurs. We should dread the presumption which
would require of the Deity that his spiritual economy
should be, both in reality and evidently to our view,
correspondent in all parts to the type of order, grandeur,
or beauty presented to us in the constitution of the
material world, or to those notions of them which
have become conventionally established among culti-
vated minds. But, at the same time, it is a most
unwise policy for religion, that the sacrifice of taste
which ought, if required, to be submissively made tc
any part of either its essence or its form as really dis-
played from heaven, should be exacted to any thing un-
necessarily and ungracefully superinduced by man.
As another reason, I would observe, that the dis-
ciples of the religion of Christ would wish it to mingle
more extensively and familiarly with social converse,
and all the serious subjects of human attention. But
then it should have every facility, that would not com-
promise its genuine character, for doing so. And a
peculiar phraseology is the direct contrary of such
facility, as it gives to what is already by its own
nature eminently distinguished from common subjects,
an artificial strangeness, which makes it difficult for
discourse to slide into it, and revert to it and from it,
without a formal and uncouth transition. The subjec*
is placed in a condition like that of an entire foreigner
in company, who is debarred from taking any share in
the conversation, till some one interrupts it by turning
directly to him, and beginning to talk with him in the
?34- ON THE AVERSIOA OF MEN OF TASTB.
foreign language. You have sometimes observed, wnen
a person has introduced religious topics, in the course
of perhaps a tolerably rational conversation on other
interesting subjects, that, owing to the cast of ex-
pression, fully as much as to the difference of the
subject, it was done by an entire change of the whole
tenour and bearing of the discourse, and with as
formal an announcement as the bell ringing to church.
Had his religious diction been more of a piece with
the common cast of language of intelligent discourse,
he might probably have introduced the subject sooner,
and certainly with a much better effect.
A third consideration, is, that evangelical sentiments
would be less subject to the imputation of fanaticism,
if their language were less contrasted with that of other
classes of sentiments. Here it is unnecessary to say,
that no pusillanimity were more contemptible than
that which, to escape this imputation, would surrender
the smallest vital particle of the religion of Christ.
We are to keep in solemn recollection his declaration,
'Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words,
of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed." Any
model of terras, which could not be superseded without
precluding some idea peculiar to the gospel from the
possibility of being faithfully expressed, it would be
for his disciples to retain in spite of all the ridicule of
the most antichristian age. But I am, at every step,
assuming that every part of the evangelical system can
be most perfectly exhibited in a diction but little pecu-
.iar ; and, that being admitted, would it not be better
to avert the imputation, as far as this difference of
language could avert it? Better, I do not mean, in
the way of protective convenience to any cowardly
feeling, of the man who is liable to be called a fanatic
for maintaining the evangelical principles ; he ought,
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 235
on the ground both of Christian fidelity and of manly
independence, to be superior to caring about the charge;
but better, as to the light in which these principles
might appear to the persons who meet them with this
prejudice. You may have observed that in attributing
fanaticism, they often fix on the phrases, at least as
much as on the absolute substance, of evangelical
doctrines. Now would it not be better to show them
what these doctrines are, as divested of these phrases,
and exhibited clearly in that vehicle in which other
important truths are presented ; and thus, at least, to
defeat their propensity to seize on a mode of exhibition
so convertible to the ludicrous, in defence against any
claim made on them for seriousness respecting the sub-
stantial matter ? If sometimes their grave attention,
their corrected apprehension, their partial approbation
might be gained, it were a still more desirable effect.
And we can recollect instances in which a certain
degree of this good eifect has resulted. Persons who
had received unfavourable impressions of some of the
peculiar ideas of the gospel, from having heard them
advanced almost exclusively in the modes of phrase on
which I have remarked, have acknowledged their pre-
judices to be somewhat diminished, after these ideas
had been presented in the simple general language of
intellect. We cannot indeed so far forget the lessons
of experience, and the inspired declarations concerning
the dispositions of the human mind, as to expect that it
would be more than very partially conciliated by any
possible improvement in the mode of exhibiting Chris-
tian truth. But it were to be wished that every thing
should be done to bring reluctant minds into doubt, at
least, whether, if they cannot be evangelical, it be
because they are of an order too rectified and refined.
As a further consideration in favour of adopting a
236 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
more general language, it may be observed, that hyp9-
crisy would then find a much greater difficulty, as far
as speech is concerned, in supporting its imposture.
The usual language of hypocrisy, at least of vulgar hy-
pocrisy, is cant ; and religious cant is often an affected
use of the phrases which have been heard employed as
appropriate to evangelical truth ; with which phrases
the hypocrite has connected no distinct ideas, so that
he would be confounded if an intelligent examiner
were to require an accurate explanation of them ; while
yet nothing is more easy to be sung or said. Now
were this diction, for the greater part, to vanish from
Christian society, leaving the truth in its mere essence
behind, and were, consequently, the pretender reduced
to assume the guise of religion on the more laborious
condition of acquiring an understanding of its leading
principles, so as to be able to give them forth dis
criminatively in language of his own, the part of a
hypocrite would be much less easily acted, and less
frequently attempted. Religion would therefore be sel-
domer dishonoured by the mockery of a false semblance.
Again, if this alteration of language were introduced,
some of the sincere disciples of evangelical religion
would much more distinctly feel the necessity of a
positive intellectual hole 1 on the principles of their pro-
fession. A systematic recurring formality of words
tends to prevent a perfect understanding of the subject,
by furnishing for complex ideas a set of ready-framed
signs, (like stereotype in printing,) which a man learns
to employ without really having the ideas of which the
combination should consist. Some of the simple ideas
which belong to the combination may be totally absent
from his mind, the others may be most faintly appre-
hended ; there is HO precise construction therefore of
the thought ; and thus the sign which he uses, stands
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 237
in fact for nothing. If, on hearing one of these phrases,
you were to turn to the speaker, and say, Now what is
that idea ? What do you plainly mean by that ex-
pression ? you would often find with how indistinct a
conception, with how little attention to the very idea
itself, the mind had been contented. And this con-
tentment you would often observe to be, not a humble
acquiescence in a consciously defective apprehension of
some principle, of which a man feels and confesses the
difficulty of attaining more than a partial conception,
but the satisfied assurance that he fully understands
what he is expressing. On another subject, where
there were no settled forms of words to beguile him
into the feeling as if he thought and understood, when
in fact he did not, and where words must have been
selected to define his own formation of the thought, his
embarrassment how to express himself would have
made him aware that his notion had no shape, and have
compelled an intellectual effort to give it one. But it
is against all reason that Christian truth should be
believed and professed with a less concern for precision,
and at the expense of less mental exercise, than any
other subject would require. And of how little con-
sequence it would seem to be, in this mode of believing,
whether a man entertains one system of principles or
the opposite.
But if such arguments could not be alleged, it would
still seem far from desirable, without evident necessity,
to clothe evangelical sentiment in a diction varying in
more than a few indispensable terms from the general
standard, for the simple reason, that it must be bar-
barous ; unless, as I have observed, it be raised quite
above the authority of this standard, and of the criticism
Jttd the taste which appeal to it, by the venerable
U38 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
dignity of inspiration, which we have no more to ex
pect, or by the intellectual power of a genius almost
surpassing human nature. I do not know whether it
be absolutely impossible that there should arise a man
whose manner of thinking shall be so transcendent
in originality and demonstrative vigour, as to authorize
him to throw the language into a new order, all his
own : but it is questionable whether there ever ap-
peared such a writer, in any language which had been
cultivated to its maturity. Even Milton, who might,
if ever mortal might, be warranted to sport with all
established authority and usage, and to run the language
into whatever unsanctioned forms would enlarge his
freedom in grand mental enterprise, has been, for pre-
suming in a certain degree to create for himself a pe-
culiar diction, charged by Johnson with writing in a
" Babylonish dialect" And Johnson's own mighty
force of mind has not defended his Roman dialect from
Ving condemned by all men of taste. The magic of
Burke's eloquence is not enough to beguile the per-
ception, that it is of less dignified and commanding
tone, has less of the claim to be " for all time," than if
the same marvellous affluence of thought and fancy
had been conveyed in a language of less arbitrary,
capricious, and mannerish character. To revert to the
theological peculiarity of dialect ; we may look in vain
for any theologian of genius so supereminently powerful
as might impress on it either a dignity to overawe, or
a grace to conciliate, literary taste. But indeed if we
had such a one he would not attempt it. If he dis-
regarded the classical standard, and chose to speak in
an alien dialect, it would be a dialect of his own,
formed in still more complete independence and dis-
regard of the model which so many theological teachers
have concurred to establish for the language of religion.
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 239
It may be said, perhaps, that any such splendid in-
tervention, in authorization of that model, can be
spared ; for that the class contains so many of great
ability, and so many more of great piety and usefulness,
that the peculiar diction will maintain its ground.
Probably it will do so, in a considerable degree, for a
long time. But no numbers, ability, or piety, will ever
redeem it. from the character of barbarism.
LETTER IV.
IN defence of the diction which I have been describ-
ing, it will be said, that it has grown out of the language
of the Bible. To a great extent, this is evidently true.
Many phrases indeed which casually occurred in the
writings of divines, and many which were laboriously
.nvented by those who wished to give to divinity a
complete systematic arrangement, and therefore wanted
denominations or titles for the multitude of articles in
the artificial distribution, have been incorporated in
the theological dialect. But a large proportion of its
phrases consists partly in such combinations of words
as were taken originally from the Bible, and still more
in such as have, from familiarity with that book, partly
grown in insensible assimilation, and partly been formed
intentionally, but rudely, in resemblance, to its charac-
teristic language.
Before proceeding Airther, I do not know whether it
may be necessary, in order to prevent misapprehension,
to advert to the high advantage and propriety of often
introducing sentences from the Bible, not only in theo-
logical, but in any grave moral composition. Passages
of the inspired writings must necessarily be cited, in
some instances, in proof of the truth of opinions, and
24>0 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
may be most happily cited, in many others, to give a
venerable and impressive air to serious sentiments
which would be admitted as just though unsupported
by such a reference to the authority. Both complete
sentences, and striking short expressions, consisting
perhaps sometimes of only two or three words, may be
thus introduced with an effect at once useful and orna-
mental, while they appear pure and unmodified amidst
the composition, as simple particles of scripture, quite
distinct from the diction in which they are inserted.
When thus appearing in their own genuine quality, as
lines or parts of lines taken from a venerable book
which is written in a manner very different from our
common mode of language, they are read as expressions
foreign to the surrounding composition, and, without
an effort, referred to the work from which they arc
brought and of which they retain the unaltered consis-
tence in the same manner as passages, or striking
short expressions, adopted from some respected and
well-known classic in our language. Whatever dignity
therefore characterizes the great work itself, is possessed
also by these detached pieces in the various places
where they are inserted, but not, if I may so express
it, infused. And if they be judiciously inserted, they
impart their dignity to the sentiments which they are
employed to enforce. This employment of the sacred
expressions may be very frequent, as the Bible contains
such an immense variety of ideas, applicable to all
manner of interesting subjects. And from its being
so familiarly known, its sentences or shortej expressions
may be introduced without the formality of noticing,
either in terms or by any other mark, from what
voliHne they are drawn. These observations are more
than enough, to obviate any imputation of wanting
* due sense of the dignity and force which may be
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 24>1
imparted by a judicious introduction of the language
of the Bible.
It is a different mode of using biblical language,
that constitutes so considerable a part of the dialect
which I have ventured to disapprove. When insertions
are made from the Bible in the manner here described
as effective and ornamental, the composition exhibits
two kinds of diction, each bearing its own separate
character ; the one being the diction which belongs to
the author, the other that of the sacred book whence
the citations are drawn. We pass along the course of
his language with the ordinary feeling of being ad-
dressed in a common general phraseology ; and when
the pure scripture expressions occur, they are recog-
nised in their own peculiar character, and with the
sense that we are reading, in small detached portions,
just so much of the Bible itself. This distinct recog-
nition of the two separate characters of language
prevents any impression of an uncouth heterogeneous
consistence. But in the theological dialect, that part
of the phraseology which has a biblical cast, is neither
the one of these two kinds of language nor the other,
but an inseparable though crude amalgam of both.
For the expressions resembling those of scripture are
blended and moulded into the substance of the diction.
I say resembling ; for though some of them are pre-
cisely phrases from the Bible, yet most of them are
phrases a little modified from the form in which they
occur in the sacred book, by changing or adding words,
by compounding two phrases into one, and by fitting
the rest of the language to the biblical phrases by an
imitative antique construction. In this manner the
scriptural expressions, instead of appearing as distin-
guished points on a common ground, as gems advan-
tageously set in an inferior substance, are reduced to
242 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN Of TASTE
become an ordinary and desecrated ingredient in an
uncouth phraseology. They are no longer brought
directly from the scriptures, by an act of thought and
choice in the person who uses them, and with a recol-
lection of their sacred origin ; but merely recur to him
in the common usage of the diction, into which they
have degenerated in the school of divines. They there-
fore are now in no degree of the nature of quotations,
introduced for their special appositeness in the par-
ticular instance, as the expressions of an admired and
revered human author would be repeated.
This is the kind of biblical phraseology which I
could wish to see less employed, unless it be either
more venerable or more lucid than that which I have
recommended. We may be allowed to doubt how
far such language can be venerable, after considering,
that it gives not the smallest assurance of striking or
elevated thought, since in fact a vast quantity of most
inferior writing has appeared in this kind of diction ;
that it is not now actually drawn from the sacred
fountains ; that the incessant repetition of its phrases
in every kind of religious exercise and performance has
worn out any solemnity it might ever have had ; and
that it is the very usual concomitant and sign of a
servilely systematic and cramped manner of thinking.
It may be considered also, that, from whatever high
origin any modes and figures of speech may be drawn,
they are reduced, "n point of dignity, to the quality of
the material with which they become interfused ; so
that if the whole character of the dialect of divines in
not adapted tc excito veneration, the proportion of it
which gives a colour of scripture-phraseology, not
standing out distinct from the composition, will have
lost the virtue to excite it. And again, let it be con-
sidered, that in almost all i-ases a-j attempt to imitate
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION 243
the peculiarity of form in which a venerable objeu is
presented, not only fails to excite veneration, but pro-
vokes the contrary sentiment ; especially when all
things in the form of the venerable model are homo-
geneous, while the imitation exhibits some features of
resemblance incongruously combined with what is
mainly and unavoidably of a different cast. A grand
ancient edifice, of whatever order, or if it were of a
construction peculiar to itself, would be an impressive
object ; but a modern little one raised in its neighbour-
hood, of a conformation for the greatest part glaringly
vulgar, but with a number of antique windows and
angles in imitation of the grand structure, would be a
grotesque and ridiculous one.
Scriptural phrases then can no longer make a solemn
impression, when modified and vulgarized into the tex-
ture of a language which, taken altogether, is the re-
verse of every thing that can either attract or command.
Such idioms may indeed remind one of prophets and
apostles, but it is a recollection which prompts to say,
Who are these men that, instead of respectfully intro-
ducing at intervals the direct words of those revered
dictators of truth, seem to be mocking the sacred lan-
guage by a barbarous imitative diction of their own ?
They may affect the forms of a divine solemnity, but
there is no fire from heaven. They may show something
like a burning bush, but it is without an angel.
As to perspicuity, there will not be a question whether
that be one of the recommendations of this corrupt
modification of the biblical phraseology. Without our
leave, the mode of expression habitually associated with
the general exercise of our intelligence, conveys ideas
to us the most easily and the most clearly. And not
unfrequently even in citing the pure expressions of
scripture, especially in doctrinal subjects, a religious
R 2
ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
instructor will find it indispensable to add a sentence
in order to expose the sense in a plainer manner; and
that not as comment, but as explanation. He has many
occasions for seeing that unless he do this, there will
not be, in the minds of the persons to be instructed
oxactly and definitively the idea which he understands
V> be expressed in the cited passage. Even to possess
Aimself of a clear apprehension, there is, he might
perceive in his mind, a kind of translating operation,
embodying the idea in more common language, equi
valent to the biblical.
Hut would not the disuse of a language which seem
to bear a constant reference to the Bible, by this in-
timate blending of its phraseology, tend to put the
Bible out of remembrance? It may be answered, that
the Bible, as a book which will be read beyond all
comparison more than any other, will keep itself in
remembrance, among the serious part of mankind.
Besides, it may be presumed that religious teachers
and writers, however secularized the language they
may adopt, will too often bring the sacred book in
view by direct reference and citation, to admit any
danger, from them, of its being forgotten. And though
its distinct unmodified expressions should be introduced
much seldomer in the course of their sentences, than
the half-scriptural phrases are recurring in the diction
under consideration, they would remind us of the Bible
in a more advantageous manner, than a dialect which
has lost the dignity of a sacred language without
acquiring the grace of a classical one. I am sensible
in how many points the illustration would be defective,
but it would partly answer my purpose to observe, that
if it were wished to promote the study of some vene-
rated human author of a former age, suppose Hooker,
the way would not be to attempt incorporating a great
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 245
number of his turns of expression into the essential
structure of our own diction, which would generally
have a most uncouth effect, but to make respectful
references, and often to insert in our composition sen-
tences, and parts of sentences, distinctly as his, while
our own cast of diction was conformed to the general
modern standard.
Let the oracles of inspiration be cited continually,
both as authority and illustration, in a manner that
shall make the mind instantly refer each expression
that is introduced to the venerable book whence it is
taken ; but let our part of religious language be simply
ours, and let those oracles retain their characteristic
form of expression unimitated, unparodied, to the end
of time.*
An advocate for the theological diction, who should
hesitate to maintain its necessity or utility on the ground
* In the above remarks, I have not made any distinction hetween
the sacred books in their own language, and as translated. It might
not however be improper to notice, that though there is a great pe-
culiarity of language in the original, yet a certain proportion of the
phraseology, as it stands in the translated scriptures, does not properly
belong to the structure of the original composition, but is to be
ascribed to the complexion of the language at the time when the
translation was made. A translation, therefore, made now, and con-
formed to the present state of the language, in the same degree in
which the earlier translation was conformed to the state of the lan-
guage at that time, would make an alteration in some parts of that
phraseology which the theological dialect has attempted to incor-
porate and imitate. If therefore it were the duty of divines to take
the biblical mode of expression for their model, it would still be
quite a work of supererogation to take this model in a wider degree
of difference from the ordinary language suited to serious thoughts
than as it would appear in such a later version. This would be a
homage, not to the real diction of the sacred scriptures, but to the
earlier cast of our own language. At the same time it must be
admitted, both that the change of expression which a later version
might, on merely philological princ.ples, be justified by the progress
{Hid present standard of our language for making, would not be
great: and that every sentiment of prudence and devotional taste
246 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
that a considerable proportion of it has grown out of
the language of scripture, may yet think it has become
necessary in consequence of so many people having
been so long accustomed to it. I cannot but be aware,
that many respectable teachers of Christianity would
h'nd a very great difficulty to depart from their inveterate
usage. Nor could they acquire, if the change were
attempted, a happy command of a more general lan-
guage, without being considerably conversant with
good writers on general subjects, and sedulously exer-
cising themselves to throw their thoughts into a some-
what similar current of language. Unless, therefore,
this study has been cultivated, or is intended to be
cultivated, it will perhaps be better for them, especially
f far advanced in life, to retain the accustomed mode
of expression with all disadvantages. Younger theo-
logical students, however, are supposed to become
forbids to make quite so much alteration as those principles might
warrant. All who have long venerated the scriptures in their some-
what antique version, would protest against their being laboriously
modernized into every nice conformity with the present standard of
the language, and against any other than a very literal translation.
If it could be supposed that our language had not yet attained a
fixed state, but would progressively change for ages to come, it would
be desirable that the translation of the Bible should always continue,
except in what might essentially aifect the sense, a century or two
behind, for the sake of that venerable air which a shade of antiquity
confers on the form, of what is so sacred and authoritative in
substance. .But I cannot allow that the same law is to be extended
to the language of divines. They have no right to assume the same
ground and the same distinctions as the Bible ; they ought not to
affect to keep it company. There is no solemn dignity in their
writings, which can claim to be invested with a venerable peculiarity.
Imitate the Bible or not, their composition is merely of the ordinary
human quality, and subject to the same rules as that of their con-
temporaries who write on other subjects. And if they remain behind
the advanced state of the classical diction, those contemporaries
will not allow them to excuse themselves by pretending to identify
themselves with the Bible.
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 247
acquainted with those authors who have displayed the
utmost extent and powers of language in its freest
form : and it is right for them to be told that evan-
gelical doctrine would incur no necessary corruption or
profanation by being conveyed in so liberal, diversified,
and what I may call natural a diction ; a language
which may be termed the day-light of thought, as
compared with the artificial lights of the peculiar
dialect. With regard also to a considerable proportion
of Christian readers and hearers, I am sensible that a
reformed language would be excessively strange to
them. But may I not allege, without any affectation
of paradox, that its being so strange to them would b"
a proof that it is quite time it were adopted ? For the
manner in which some of them would receive this
altered dialect, would prove that the customary phra-
seology had scarcely given them any clear notions. It
would be found, as I have observed before, that to them
the peculiar phrases had been not so much the vehicles
of ideas, as substitutes for them. So undefined has
been their understanding of the sense, while they me-
chanically chimed to the sound, that if they hear the
very ideas which these phrases signify, or did or should
signify, expressed ever so plainly in other language,
they do not recognise them ; and are instantly on the
alert with the epithets, sound, orthodox, and all the
watch-words of ecclesiastical suspicion. For such
Christians, the diction is the convenient asylum of ig-
norance, indolence, and prejudice.
But I have enlarged far beyond my intention, which
was only to represent, with a short illustration, that
this peculiar dialect is unfavourable to a cordial re-
ception of evangelical doctrines in minds of cultivated
taste. This I know o be a fact from many observations
in real life, especially among intellectual young persons.
24-8 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
not altogether regardless of serious subjects, and not
seduced, though not out of danger of being so, by the
cavils against the divine authority of Christianity itself.
After dismissing the consideration of the language,
which has unfortunately been made the canonical garb
of religion, I meant to have taken a somewhat more
general view of the accumulation of bad writing, under
which the evangelical theology has been buried ; and
which has contributed to bring its principles in dis-
favour with too many persons of accomplished mental
habits. A large proportion of that writing may be
sentenced as bad, on more accounts than merely the
peculiarity of dialect. But this is an invidious topi?,
and I shall make only a few observations.
Proofs of an intellect considerably above the com-
mon level, with a literary execution disciplined to great
correctness, and partaking somewhat of elegance, are
requisite on the lowest terms of acceptance for good
writing, with cultivated readers. Superlatively strong
sense will indeed command attention, and even ad-
miration, in the absence of all the graces, and not-
withstanding much incorrectness or clumsiness in the
workmanship of the composition. But when thus
standing the divested and sole excellence, it must be
pre-eminently conspicuous to have this power. Below
this pitch of single or of combined merit, a book
cannot please persons of discerning judgment and
refined taste, though its subject be the most interesting
on earth ; and for acceptableness, therefore, the subject
is unfortunate in coming to those persons in that book.
A disgusting cup will spoil the finest element which
can be conveyed in it, though that were the nectar of
immortality.
Now, in this view, I suppose it will be acknowledged
that the evangelical cause has been, on the whole, far
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 249
from happy in its prodigious list of authors. A
number of them have displayed a high order of ex-
cellence ; but one regrets as to a much greater number,
that they did not revere the dignity of their religion
too much, to beset and suffocate it with their super-
fluous offerings. To you I need not expatiate on the
character of the collective Christian library. It will
have been obvious to you that there is a multitude of
books which form the perfect vulgar of religious
authorship ; a vast exhibition of the most subordinate
materials that can be called thought, in language too
grovelling to be called style. Some of these writers
seem to have concluded that the greatness of the
subject was to do every thing, and that they had but to
pronounce, like David, the name of " the Lord of
Hosts," to give pebbles the force of darts and spears.
Others appear to have really wanted the perception of
any great difference, in point of excellence, between
the meaner and the superior modes of writing. If
they had read alternately Barrow's or South's pages
and their own, they probably might have doubted on
which side to assign the palm. A number of them,
citing, in a perverted sense, the language of St. Paul,
" not with excellency of speech," " not with enticing
words of man's wisdom," " not in the words which
man's wisdom teacheth," expressly disclaim every thing
that belongs to fine writing, not exactly as what they
<ould not have attained, but as what they judge incom-
patible with the simplicity of evangelical truth and
intentions. In the books of these several but kindred
classes you are mortified to see how low religious
thought and expression can sink ; and you almost
wonder how it was possible for the noblest ideas that
are known to the sublimest intelligences, the ideas of
God, of Providence, of redemption, of eternity, to
250 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
shine on a serious human mind without imparting some
small occasional degree of dignity to the strain of
thought. The indulgent feelings, which you entertain
for the intellectual and literary deficiency of humble
Christians in their religious communications in private,
are with difficulty extended to those who make for
their thoughts this demand on public attention : it was
necessary for them to be Christians, but what made it
their duty to become authors ? Many of the books
are indeed successively ceasing, with the progress of
time, to be read or known ; but the new supply con-
tinually brought forth is so numerous, that a person
who turns his attention to religious reading is certain
to meet a variety of them. Now only suppose a man
who has been conversant and enchanted with the works
of eloquence, glowing poetry, finished elegance, or
strong reasoning, to meet a number of these books in
the outset of his more serious inquiries ; in what light
would the religion of Christ appear to him, if he did
not find some happier illustrations of it ?
There is another large class of Christian books,
which bear the marks of learning, correctness, and
an orderly understanding ; and by a general pro-
priety leave but little to be censured ; but which
display no invention, no prominence of thought, or
living vigour of expression ; all is flat and dry as a
plain of sand. It is perhaps the thousandth iteration
of common-places, the listless attention to which is
hardly an action of the mind ; you seem to understand
it all, and mechanically assent while you are thinking of
something else. Though the author has a rich immea-
surable field of possible varieties of reflection and illus-
tration around him, he seems doomed to tread over again
the narrow space of ground long since trodden to dust,
and in all his movements appears clothed in sheets of lead.
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 251
There is a smaller class that might be called mock-
eloquent writers. These saw the effect of brilliant ex-
pression in those works of eloquence and poetry where
it was dictated and animated by energy of thought ;
and very reasonably wished that Christian sentiments
might assume a language as impressive as any subject
had ever employed to fascinate or command. But un-
fortunately they forgot that eloquence resides essentially
in the thought, and that no words can make genuine
eloquence of that which would not be such in the
plainest that could fully express the sense. Or proba-
bly, they were quite confident of the excellence of the
thoughts that were demanding to be so finely sounded
forth. Perhaps they concluded them to be vigorous
and sublime from the very circumstance, that they
disdained to show themselves in plain language. The
writers would be but little inclined to suspect of poverty
or feebleness the thoughts which seemed so naturally
to be assuming, in their minds and on their page, such
a magnificent style. A gaudy verbosity is always elo-
quence in the opinion of him that writes it ; but what
is the effect on the reader ?* Real eloquence strikes
with immediate force, and leaves not the possibility of
asking or thinking whether it be eloquence ; but the
sounding sentences of these writers leave you cool
enough to examine with doubtful curiosity a language
that seems threatening to move or astonish you, with-
out actually doing so. It is something like the case of
a false alarm of thunder ; where a sober man, who is
not apt to startle at sounds, looks out to see whether it
be not the rumbling of a cart. Very much at your
ease, you contrast the pomp of the expression with the
* I should be accurate, and say, the reader of disciplined judgment
and good taste ; for it is true enough that readers are not wanting,
nor few, who can be taken with glare and bombast.
252 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
quality of the thoughts ; and then read on for amuse-
ment, or cease to read from disgust. In a serious hour,
indeed, the feelings both of amusement and disgust
give place to the regret, that it should be in the power
of bad writing to bring the most important subjects in
danger of something worse than failing to interest.
The unpleasing effect it has on your own mind will
lead you to apprehend its having a very injurious one
on many others.
A principal device in the fabrication of this style,
is, to multiply epithets, dry epithets, laid on the surface,
and into which no vitality of the sentiment is found to
circulate. You may take a number of the words out
of each page, and find that the sense is neither more
nor less for your having cleared the composition of these
epithets of chalk of various colours, with which the tame
thoughts had submitted to be dappled and made fine.
Under the denomination of mock-eloquence may
also be placed the mode of writing which endeavours
to excite the passions, not by presenting striking ideas
of the object of passion, but by the appearance of an
emphatical enunciation of the writer's own feelings
concerning it. You are not made to perceive how the
thing itself has the most interesting claims on your
heart ; but are required to be affected in mere sympathy
with the author, who attempts your feelings by frequent
exclamations, and perhaps by an incessant application
to his fellow-mortals, or to their Redeemer, of all the
appellations and epithets of passion, and sometimes of
a kind of passion not appropriate to the object. To
this last great Object, especially, such forms of ex-
pression are occasionally applied, as must excite a
revolting emotion in a man who feels that he cannot
meet the same being at once on terms of adoration and
of caressing equality
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 253
It would be going beyond my purpose, to carry my
remarks from the literary merits, to the moral and
theological characteristics, of Christian books ; else a
very strange account could be given of the injuries
which the gospel has suffered from its friends. You
might often meet with a systematic writer, in whose
hands the whole wealth, and variety, and magnificence,
of revelation, shrink into a meagre list of doctrinal
points, and who will let no verse in the Bible tell its
meaning, or presume to have one, till it has taken its
stand by one of those points. You may meet with a
Christian polemic, who seems to value the arguments
for evangelical truth as an assassin values his dagger,
and for the same reason ; with a descanter on the in-
visible world, who makes you think of a popish cathe-
dral, and from the vulgarity of whose illuminations you
are glad to escape into the solemn twilight of faith ; or
with a grim zealot for such a theory of the divine at-
tributes and government, as seems to delight in repre-
senting the Deity as a dreadful king of furies, whose
dominion is overshaded with vengeance, whose music
is the cries of victims, and whose glory requires to be
illustrated by the ruin of his creation.
It is quite unnecessary to say, that the list of ex-
cellent Christian writers would be very considerable.
But as to the vast mass of books that would, by the
consenting adjudgment of all men of liberal cultivation,
remain after this deduction, one cannot help deploring
the effect which they must have had on unknown thou-
sands of readers. It would seem beyond all question
that books which, though even asserting the essential
truths of Christianity, yet utterly preclude the full im-
pression of its character ; which exhibit its claims on
admiration and affection with insipid feebleness of
sentiment ; or which cramo its simple majesty into an
251- ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
artificial form at once distorted and mean ; must be
seriously prejudicial to the influence of this sacred
subject, though it be admitted that many of them have
sometimes imparted a measure both of instruction and
of consolation. This they might do, and yet at the
same time convey extremely contracted and inadequate
ideas of the subject.* There are a great many of them
into which an intelligent Christian cannot look without
rejoicing that they were not the books from which he
received his impressions of the glory of his religion.
There are many which nothing would induce him, even
though he did not materially differ from them in the
leading articles of his belief, to put into the hands of an
inquiring young person ; which he would be sorry and
ashamed to see on the table of an infidel ; and some of
which he regrets to think may still contribute to keep
down the standard of religious taste, if I may so express
it, among the public instructors of mankind. On the
whole it would appear, that a profound veneration for
Christianity would induce the wish, that, after a judicious
selection of books had been made, the Christians also
had their Caliph Omar, and their General Amrou.
LETTER V.
THE injurious causes which I have thus far con-
sidered, are associated immediately with the object,
and, by misrepresenting it, render it less acceptable to
refined taste ; but there are others, which operate by
perverting the very principles of this taste itself, so as
* It is true enough that on every other subject, on which a multi-
tude of books have been written, there must have been many which
in a literary sense were bad. But I cannot help thinking that the
number coming under this description, bear a larger proportion to
the excellent ones in the religious department than any other. One
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION.
to put it in antipathy to the religion of Christ, even
though presented in its own full and genuine character,
cleared of all these associations. I shall remark chiefly
on one of these causes.
I fear it is incontrovertible, that what is denominated
Polite Literature, the grand school in which taste
acquires its laws and refined perceptions, and in which
are formed, much more than under any higher austerer
.liscipline, the moral sentiments, is, for the far greater
part, hostile to the religion of Christ; partly, by intro-
ducing insensibly a certain order of opinions uncon-
sonant, or at least not identical, with the principles of
that religion ; and still more, by training the feelings
to a habit alien from its spirit. And in this assertion,
I do not refer to writers palpably irreligious, who have
laboured and intended to seduce the passions into vice,
or the judgment into the rejection of divine truth; but
to the general community of those elegant and ingenious
authors who are read and admired by the Christian
world, held essential to a liberal education and to the
progressive accomplishment of the mind in subsequent
life, and studied often without an apprehension, or even
a thought, of their injuring the views and temper of
spirits advancing, with the New Testament for their
chief instructor and guide, into another world.
It is modern literature that I have more particularly
in view ; at the same time, it is obvious that the writ-
ings of heathen antiquity have continued to operate
till now, in the very presence and sight of Christianity,
with their own proper influence, a correctly heathenish
chief cause of this has been, the mistake by which many good men,
professionally employed in religion, have deemed their respectable
mental competence to the office of public speaking, the proof of an
equal competence to a work which is subjected to much severer
literary and intellectual laws.
256 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
influence, on the minds of many who have never thought
of denying or doubting the truth of that religion.
This is just as if an eloquent pagan priest had been
allowed constantly to accompany our Lord in his
ministry, and had divided with him the attention and
interest of his disciples, counteracting, of course, as
far as his efforts were successful, the doctrine and
spirit of the Teacher from heaven.*
The few observations which the subject may require
to be made on ancient literature, will be directed to
the part of it most immediately descriptive of what
may be called human reality, representing character,
sentiment, and action. For it will be allowed, that the
purely speculative part of that literature has in a great
measure ceased to interfere with the intellectual disci-
pline of modern times. It obtains too little attention,
and too little deference, to contribute materially to the
formation of the mental habits, which are adverse to
the Christian doctrines and spirit. Divers learned and
* It is however no part of my object in these letters to remark on
the influence, in modern times, of the fabulous religion that infested
the ancient works of genius. That influence is at the present time,
I should think, extremely small, from the fables being so stale : all
readers are sufficiently tired of Jupiter, Apollo, Minerva, and the
rest. As long however as they could be of the smallest service, they
were piously retained by the Christian poets of this and other coun-
tries, who are now under the necessity of seeking out for some other
mythology, the northern or the eastern, to support the languishing
spirit of poetry. Even the ugly pieces of wood, worshipped in the
South Sea Islands, will probably at last receive names that may
more commodiously hitch into verse, and be invoked to adorn and
sanctify the belles lettres of the next century. The Mexican abomi-
nations and infernalities have already received from us their epic
tribute. The poet has no reason to fear that the supply of gods may
fail ; it is at the same time a pity, one thinks, that a creature so
immense should have been placed in a world so small as this, where
all nature, all history, all morals, all true religion, and the whole
resources of innocent fiction, are too little to furnish materials
enough for the wants and labours of his genius.
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 257
fanatical devotees to antiquity and paganism, have
indeed made some effort to recall the long departed
veneration for the dreams and subtleties of ancient
phi osophy. But they might with as good a prospect
of success recommend the building of temples or a
pantheon, and the revival of the institutions of idola-
trous worship. The greater number of intelligent,
and even learned men, would feel but little regret in
consigning the largest proportion of that philosophy to
oblivion ; unless they may be supposed to like it as
heathenism more than they admire it as wisdom ; or
unless their pride would wish to retain a reminiscence
of it for contrast to their own more rational philoso-
phizing.
The ancient speculations of the religious order in-
clude indeed some splendid ideas relating to a Supreme
Being ; but these ideas impart no attraction to that
immensity of inane and fantastic follies from the chaos
of which they stand out, as of nobler essence and
origin. For the most part they probably were tra-
ditionary remains of divine communications to man in
the earliest ages. A few of them were, possibly, the
utmost efforts of human intellect, at some happy
moments excelling itself. But in whatever proportions
they be referred to the one origin or the other, they
stand so distinguished from the accumulated multi-
farious vanities of pagan speculation on the subject of
Deity, that they throw contempt on those speculations.
They throw contempt on the greatest part of the theo-
logical dogmas and fancies of even the very philosophers
who would cite and applaud them. They rather direct
our contemplation and affection toward a religion di-
vinely revealed, than obtain any degree of favour for
those notions of the Divinity, which sprang and inde-
finitely multiplied from a melancholy combination of
258 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
ignorance and depraved imagination. As to the ap-
parent analogy between certain particulars in the pagan
religions, and some of the most specific articles of
Christianity, those notions are presented in such fan-
tastic, and varying, and often monstrous shapes, that
they can be of no prejudice to the Christian faith, either
by pre-occupying in our minds the place of the Christian
doctrines, or by indisposing us to admit them, or by
perverting our conception of them.
As to the ancient metaphysical speculation, whatever
may be the tendency of metaphysical study in general,
or of the particular systems of modern philosophers,
as affecting the cordial and simple admission of Christian
doctrines, the ancient metaphysics may certainly be pro-
nounced inoperative and harmless. If it were possible
to analyze the mass of what may be termed our effective
literature, so as to ascertain what elements and inter-
fusions in it have been of influential power, and in what
respective proportions, in forming our habits of thinking
and feeling, it is probable that a very small share would
be found derived from the ideal theories of the old
philosophers. It is probable also, that in future not
one of a thousand men, cultivated in a respectable
degree, will ever take the trouble of a resolute and
persisting effort to master those speculations. Besides
the too prevailing and still increasing indisposition to
metaphysical study in any school, there is a settled con-
viction that those speculations were baseless and useless,
and that whoever aspires to the high and abstracted
wisdom must learn it from the later philosophers. And
as the only thing we can seek and value in pure ab-
stracted speculations is truth, when the persuasion of
their truth is gone their attraction and influence are
extinct. That which could please the imagination or
interest the atfocti.iis, might in a considerable degree
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION 1 . 259
continue to please and interest them, though convicted
of much fallacy. But that which is too subtile and
intangible to please the imagination, loses all its power
when it is rejected by the judgment. This is the pre-
dicament to which time has reduced the metaphysics of
the old philosophers. The captivation of their systems
seems almost as far withdrawn from us as the songs of
their Syrens, or the enchantments ol Medea.
While these thin speculations have been suspended
in air, taking all the forms and colours of clouds or
rainbows, meteors or fogs, the didactic morality of some
of the ancient philosophers, faithfully keeping to the
solid ground of human interests, has doubtless had a
considerable influence on the moral sentiments of cul-
tivated men, progressively on to the present time. A
certain quality, derived from it into literature, has per-
petuated its operation indirectly on many who are not
conversant with it immediately at its origin. But it
may have a considerable direct influence on those who
are in acquaintance with the great, primary moralists
themselves. After a long detention among the vagaries
and monsters of mythology, or a bewildered adventure
in the tenebrious and fantastic region of ancient meta-
physics, in chase of that truth which the pursuer some-
times thinks, though doubtfully, that he sees, but which
still eludes him, the student of antiquity is gratified at
meeting with a sage who leads him among interesting
realities, and discourses to him in plain and impressive
terms of direct instruction concerning moral principles
and the means of happiness. And since it is necessarily
the substantial object of this instruction to enforce
virtue, excellence, goodness, he feels little apprehension
ot any vitiating effect on his moral sentiments. He
entirely forgets that moral excellence, or virtue, has
been defined and enforced by another authority; anJ
s 2
260 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
that though a large portion of the scheme must be, as
matter of practice, mainly the same in the dictates of
that authority, and in the writings of Epictetus, or
Cicero, or Antoninus, yet there is a specific difference
of substance in certain particulars, and a most im-
portant one in the principles that constitute the general
basis. While he is admiring the beauty of virtue as
displayed by one accomplished moralist, and its lofty
independence as exhibited by another, he is not admo-
nished to suspect that any thing in their sentiments, or
his animated coalescence with them, can be wrong.
But the part of ancient literature which has had in
comparably the greatest influence on the character of
cultivated minds, is that which has turned, if I may so
express it, moral sentiments into real beings and inter-
esting companions, by displaying the life and actions
of eminent individuals. A few of the personages of
fiction are also to be included. The captivating spirit
of Greece and Rome dwells in the works of the biogra-
phers ; in so much of the history as might properly be
called biography, from its fixing the whole attention
and interest on a few signal names ; and in the works
of the "principal poets.
No one, I suppose, will deny, that both the characters
ai d the sentiments, which are the favourites of the
p< et and the historian, become the favourites also of
th admiring reader ; for this would be a virtual denial
of the excellence of the performance, in point of elo-
quence or poetic spirit. It is the high test and proof
of genius that a writer can render his subject interesting
to his readers, not merely in a general way, but in the
very same manner in which it interests himself. If the
great works of antiquity had not this power, they would
long since have ceased to charm. We could not long
tolerate what caused a revolting o** our moral feelings,
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 261
while it was designed to please them. But if their
characters and sentiments really do thus fascinate the
heart, how far will this influence be coincident with the
spirit and with the design of Christianity ?*
Among the poets, I shall notice only the two or three
pre-eminent ones of the Epic class. Homer, you
know, is the favourite of the whole civilized world ;
and it is many centuries since there needed one addi-
tional word of homage to the prodigious genius dis-
played in the Iliad. The object of inquiry is, what
kind of predisposition will be formed toward Chris-
tianity in a young and animated spirit, that learns to
glow with enthusiasm at the scenes created by the
poet, and to indulge an ardent wish, which that enthu-
siasm will probably awaken, for the possibility of emu-
lating some of the principal characters ? Let this
susceptible youth, after having mingled and burned in
imagination among heroes, whose valour and anger
flame like Vesuvius, who wade in blood, trample on
dying foes, and hurl defiance against earth and heaven ;
let him be led into the company of Jesus Christ and
his disciples, as displayed by the evangelists, with whose
narrative, I will suppose, he is but slightly acquainted
before. What must he, what can he, do with his
feelings in this transition ? He will find himself flung
as far as " from the centre to the utmost pole ;" and one
of these two opposite exhibitions of character will in
evitably excite his aversion. Which of them is that
likely to be, if he is become thoroughly possessed with
the Homeric passions ?
It may be noticed here that a great part of what could be said
on heathen literature as opposed to the religion of Christ, must
necessarily refer to the peculiar moral spirit of that religion. It
would border on the ridiculous to represent the martial enthusiasm
of ancient historians and poets as counteracting the peculiar doctrine*
of the gospel, meaning by the term those dictates of truth that do
not directly involve moral distiu^tina*
262 ON THE AVERSION OF MKM u*' TASTE
Or if, reversing the order, you will suppose a person
to have first become profoundly interested by the New
Testament, and to have acquired the spirit of the
Saviour of the world, while studying the evangelical
history ; with what sentiments will he come forth from
conversing with heavenly mildness, weeping benevo-
lence, sacred purity, and the eloquence of divine wisdom,
to enter into a scene of such actions and characters,
and to hear such maxims of merit and glory, as those
of Homer ? He would be still more confounded by
the transition, had it been possible for him to have en-
tirely escaped that deep depravation of feeling which
can think of crimes and miseries with little emotion,
and which we liave all acquired from viewing the pro-
minent portion of the world's history as composed of
scarcely any thing else. He would find the mightiest
strain of poetry employed tc represent ferocious courage
as the greatest of virtues, and those who do not possess
it as worthy of their fate, to be trodden in the dust.
He will be taught, at least it will not be the fault of the
poet, if he be not taught, to forgive a heroic spirit for
finding the sweetest luxury in insulting dying pangs,
and imagining the tears and despair of distant relations.
He will be incessantly called upon to worship revenge,
the real divinity of the Iliad, in comparison of which
the Thunderer of Olympus is but a subaltern pre-
tender to power. He will be taught that the most
glorious and enviable life is that, to which the greatest
number of other lives are made a sacrifice ; and that it
is noble in a hero to prefer even a short life attended
bv this felicity, to a long one which should permit a
longer life also to others. The terrible Achilles, a
being whom, if he had really existed, it had been worth
a temporary league of the tribes then called nations to
reduce to the quietness of a dungeon or a tomb, is
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 263
rendered interesting even amidst the horrors of revenge
and destruction, by the intensity of his affection fo?
his friend, by the melancholy with which he appears in
the funeral scene of that friend, by one momentary
instance of compassion, and by his solemn references
to his own impending and inevitable doom. A reader who
has even passed beyond the juvenile ardour of life, feels
himself interested, in a manner that excites at interval*
his own surprise, in the fate of this fell exterminator ;
and he wonders, and he wishes to doubt, whether the
moral that he is learning, be, after all, exactly no other
than that the grandest employment of a great spirit is
the destruction of human creatures, so long as revenge,
ambition, or even caprice, may choose to regard them
under an artificial distinction, and call them enemies.
But this, my dear friend, is the real and effective moral
of the Iliad, after all that critics have so gravely written
about lessons of union, or any other subordinate moral
instructions, which they discover or imagine in the
work. Who but critics ever thought or cared about
any such drowsy lessons ? Whatever is the chief and
grand impression made by the whole work on the
ardent minds which are most susceptible of the in-
fluence of poetry, that shows the real moral ; and
Alexander, and Charles XII. through the medium of
" Macedonia's madman," correctly received the genuine
inspiration.
If it be said, that such works stand on the same
ground, except as to the reality or accuracy of the
facts, with an eloquent history, which simply exhibits
the actions and characters, I deny the assertion. The
actions and characters are presented in a manner which
prevents their just impression, and empowers them to
make an opposite one. A transforming magic of geniu^
displays a number of atrocious savages in a hideous
264* ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
slaughter-house of men, as demi-gods in a temple of
glory. No doubt an eloquent history might be so
written as to give the same aspect to such men, and
such operations ; but that history would deserve to be
committed to the flames. A history that should give
a faithful representation of miseries and slaughter,
would set no one, who had not attained the last depra-
vation, on fire to imitate the principal actors. It would
excite in a degree the same emotion as the sight of a
field of dead and dying men after a battle is over; a
sight at which the soul would shudder and revolt, and
earnestly wish that this might be the last time the sun
should behold such a spectacle : but the tendency of
the Homeric poetry, and of a great part of epic poetry
in general, is to insinuate the glory of repeating such a
tragedy. I therefore ask again, how it would be pos-
sible for a man whose mind was first completely assimi-
lated to the spirit of Jesus Christ, to read such a work
Avithout a most vivid antipathy to what he perceived to
be the moral spirit of the poet ? And if it were not too
strange a supposition, that the most characteristic parts
of the Iliad had been read in the presence and hearing
of our Lord, and by a person animated by a fervid
sympathy with the work do you not instantly imagine
Him expressing the most emphatical condemnation ?
Would not the reader have been made to know, that in
the spirit of that book he could never become a disciple
and a friend of the Messiah? But then, if he believed
this declaration, and were serious enough to care about
being the disciple and friend of the Messiah, would he
not have deemed himself extremely unfortunate to
have been seduced, through the pleasures of taste and
imagination, into habits of feeling which rendered it
impossible, till their predominance should be de-
stroyed, for him to receive the only true religion, and
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 265
the only Redeemer of the world ? To show Jiow
impossible it would be, I wish I may be pardoned for
making another strange and indeed a most monstrous
supposition, namely, that Achilles, Diomede, Ulysses,
and Ajax had been real persons, living in the time of
our Lord, and had become his disciples, and yet,
(excepting the mere exchange of the notions of my-
thology for Christian opinions,) had retained entire
the state of mind with which their poet has exhibited
them. It is instantly perceived that Satan, Beelzebub,
and Moloch might as consistently have been retained
in heaven. But here the question comes to a point : if
these great examples of glorious character pretending
to coalesce with the transcendent Sovereign of virtues,
would have been probably the most enormous incon
gruity existing, or that ever had existed, in the creation,
what harmony can there be between a man who has
acquired a considerable degree of congeniality with the
spirit of these heroes, and that paramount Teacher and
Pattern of excellence ? And who will assure me that
the enthusiast for heroic poetry does not acquire a
degree of this congeniality ? But unless I can be so
assured, I necessarily persist in asserting the noxious-
ness of such poetry.
Yet the work of Homer is, notwithstanding, the
book which Christian poets have translated, which
Christian divines have edited and commented on with
pride, at which Christian la'lies have been delighted to
see their sons kindle into rapture, and which forms an
essential part of the course of a liberal education, over
all those countries on which the gospel shines. And
who can tell how much that passion for war which,
from the universality of its prevalence, might seem
inseparable from the nature of man, may have been,
ill the civilized world, reinforced by the enthusiastic
266 ON THE AVERSION Of MEM OF TASTB.
admiration with which young men have read Homer,
and similar poets, whose genius transforms what is, and
ought always to appear purely horrid, to an aspect of
grandeur ? Should it be asked, What ought to be the
practical consequence of such observations ? I may
surely answer that I cannot justly be required to assign
that consequence. I cannot be required to do more
than exhibit in a simple light an important point of
truth. If such works do really impart their own spirit
to the mind of an admiring reader, and if this spirit
be totally hostile to that of Christianity, and if Christi-
anity ought really and in good faith to be the supreme
regent of all moral feeling, then it is evident that the
Iliad, and all books which combine the same tendency
with great poetical excellence, are among the most
mischievous things on earth. There is but little satis-
faction, certainly, in illustrating the operation of evils
without proposing any adequate method of contending
with them. But in the present case, I really do not
see what a serious observer of the character of mankind
can offer. To wish that the works of Homer, and some
other great authors of antiquity, should cease to be
read, is just as vain as to wish they had never been
written. As to the far greater number of readers, it
were equally in vain to wish that pure Christian senti-
ments might be sufficiently recollected, and loved, to
accompany the study, and constantly prevent the in-
jurious impression, of the works of pagan genius. The
few maxims of Christianity to which the student may
have assented without thought, and for which he has
but little veneration, will but feebly oppose the in-
fluence ; the spirit of Homer will vanquish as irre-
sistibly as his Achilles vanquished. It is also most
perfectly true, that as long as pride, ambition, and
vindictiveness, hold so mighty a prevalence in the
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 267
character and in the nature of our species, they would
still amply display themselves, though the stimulus of
heroic poetry were withdrawn, by the annihilation of
all those works which have invested the worst passions
and the worst actions with a glare of grandeur. With
or without the infections of heroic poetry, men and
nations will continue to commit offences against one
another, and to avenge them ; to assume an arrogant
precedence, and account it and laud it as noble spirit ;
to celebrate their deeds of destruction, and call them
glory; to idolize the men who possess, and can infuse,
the greatest share of an infernal fire ; to set at nought
all principles of virtue and religion in favour of some
thoughtless vicious mortal who consigns himself in the
same achievement to fame and perdition ; to vaunt in
triumphal entries, or funeral pomps, or bombastic odes,
or strings of scalps, how far human skill and valour
can surpass the powers of famine and pestilence ; men
and nations will continue thus to act, till a mightier
intervention from heaven shall establish the dominion
of Christianity. In that better season, perhaps the
great works of ancient genius will be read in such a
disposition of mind as can receive the intellectual im-
provement derivable from them, and at the same time
as little coincide or be infected with their moral spirit,
as in the present age we venerate their mythological
vanities.
In the mean time, one cannot believe that any man,
who seriously reflects how absolutely the religion of
Christ claims a conformity of his whole nature, will
without regret feel himself animated with a class of
sentiments, of which the habitual prevalence would be
the total preclusion of Christianity.
And it seems to show how little this religion is
really understood, or even considered, in any of the
268 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
countries denominated Christian, that so many who
profess to adopt it never once thought of guarding
their own minds, and those of their children, against
the eloquent seductions of so opposite a spirit. Pro-
bably they would be more intelligent and vigilant, if
any other interest than that of their professed religion
were endangered. But a thing which injures them
only in that concern, is sure to meet with all possible
indulgence.
With respect to religious parents and preceptors,
whose children and pupils are to receive that liberal
education which must inevitably include the study of
these great works, it will be for them to accompany
the youthful readers throughout, with an effort to show
them, in the most pointed manner, the inconsistency
of many of the sentiments, both with moral rectitude
in general, and with the special dictates of Christianity.
And in order to give the requisite force to those
dictates, it will be an important duty to illustrate to
them the amiable tendency, and to prove the awful
authority, of this dispensation of religion. This careful
effort will often but partially prevent the mischief; but
it seems to be all that can be done.
Virgil's work is a kind of lunar reflection of the
ardent effulgence of Homer ; surrounded, if I may
extend the figure, with a beautiful halo of elegance
and tenderness. So much more refined an order of
sentiment might have rendered the heroic character
far more attractive, to a mind that can soften as well
as glow, if there had actually been a hero in the poem.
But none of the personages intended for heroes take
hold enough of the reader's feelings to assimilate them
in moral temper. No fiction or history of human cha-
racters and actions will ever powerfully transfuse its
spirit, without some one or some very few individuals
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 269
of signal peculiarity or greatness, to concentrate and
embody the whole energy of the work. There would
be no danger therefore of any one's becoming an
idolater of the god of war through the inspiration of
the JEneid, even if a larger proportion of it had re-
sounded with martial enterprise. Perhaps the chief
counteraction to Christian sentiments which I should
apprehend to an opening susceptible mind, would be a
depravation of its ideas concerning the other world,
from the picturesque scenery which Virgil has opened
to his hero in the regions of the dead, and the imposing
images with which he has shaded the avenue to them.
Perhaps also the affecting sentiments which precede
the death of Dido, might tend to lessen, especially in
a pensive mind, the horror of that impiety which would
throw back with violence the possession of life, as if
in reproach to its great Author, for having suffered
that there should be unhappiness in a world where
there is sin.
LETTER VI.
IN naming Lucan, I am not unaware that an avowal
of high admiration may hazard all credit for correct
discernment. I must, however, confess that, in spite
of his rhetorical ostentation, and all the offences of a too
inflated style, he does in my apprehension greatly
surpass all the other ancient poets in direct force of
the ethical spirit ; and that he would have a stronger
influence to seduce my feelings, in respect to moral
greatness, into a discordance from Christian principles.
His leading characters are widely different from those
of Homer, and of an eminently superior order. The
mighty genius of Homer appeared and departed in a
270 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
rude age of the human mind, a stranger to the intel-
lectual enlargement which would have enabled him to
combine in his heroes the dignity of thought, instead
of mere physical force, with the energy of passion.
For want of this, they are great heroes without being
great men. They appear to you only as tremendous
fighting and destroying animals ; a kind of human
mammoths. The prowess of personal conflict is all
they can understand and admire, and in their warfare
their minds never reach to any of the sublimer views
and results even of war ; their chief and final object
seems to be the mere savage glory of fighting, and the
annihilation of their enemies. When the heroes of
Lucan, both the depraved and the nobler class, are
employed in war, it seems but a small part of what
they can do. and what they intend ; they have always
something further and greater in view than to evince
their valour, or to riot in the vengeance of victory.
Ambition as exhibited in Pompey and Caesar seems
almost to become a grand passion, when compared if
the contracted and ferocious aim of Homer's chiefs ;
while this passion, even thus elevated, serves to exalt
by comparison the far different and nobler sentiments
and objects of Cato and Brutus. The contempt ot
death, which in the heroes of the Iliad often seems
like an incapacity or an oblivion of thought, is in
Lucan's favourite characters the result, or at least the
associate, of high philosophic spirit ; and this strongly
contrasts their courage with that of Homer's warriors,
which is, (according indeed to his own frequent similes,)
the reckless daring of wild beasts. Lucan sublimates
martial into moral grandeur. Even if you could deduct
from his great men all that which forms the specific
martial display of the hero, you would find their great-
ness little diminished ; they would still retain their
TO EVAKGEL1CAL RELIGION. 271
commanding and interesting aspect. The better class
of them, amidst war itself, hate and deplore the spirit
and destructive exploits of war. They are indignant
at the vices of mankind for compelling their virtue into
a career in which such sanguinary glories can be ac-
quired. And while they deem it their duty to exert
their courage in conflict for a just cause, they regard
camps and battles as vulgar things, from which their
thoughts often turn away into a train of solemn and
presaging reflections, in which they approach sometimes
the most elevated sublimity. You have a more absolute
impression of grandeur from a speech of Cato, than
from all the mighty exploits that epic poetry ever bla-
zoned. The eloquence of Lucan's moral heroes does
not consist in images of triumphs and conquests, but
in reflections on virtue, sufferings, destiny, and death ;
and the sentiments expressed in his own name have
often a melancholy tinge which renders them irre-
sistibly interesting. He might seem to have felt a
presage, while musing on the last of the Romans, that
their poet was soon to follow them. The reader becomes
devoted both to the poet, and to these illustrious men ;
but, under the influence of this attachment, he adopts
all their sentiments, and exults in the sympathy ; for-
getting, or unwilling, to reflect, whether this state of
feeling be concordant with the religion of Christ, and
with the spirit of the apostles and martyrs. The most
captivating of Lucan's sentiments, to a mind enamoured
of pensive sublimity, are those concerning death. I
remember the very principle which I would wish to
inculcate, that is, the necessity that a believer of the
gospel should preserve the Christian tenour of feeling
predominant in his mind, and clear of incongruous
mixture, having struck me with great force amidst the
enthusiasm with which I read many times over the
272 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
memorable account of Vulteius, the speech by which
he inspired his gallant band with a passion for death,
and the reflections on death with which the poet closes
the episode. I said to myself, at the suggestion of
conscience, What are these sentiments with which I am
glowing ? Are these the just ideas of death ? Are
they such as were taught by the Divine Author of our
religion ? Is this the spirit with which St. Paul ap-
proached his last hour ? And I felt a painful collision
between this reflection and the passion inspired by the
poet. I perceived clearly that the kind of interest
which I felt was no less than a real adoption, for the
time, of the very same sentiments with which he was
animated.
The epic poetry has been selected for the more
pointed application of my remarks, from the belief
that it has had a much greater influence on the moral
sentiments of succeeding ages than all the other poetry
of antiquity, by means of its impressive display of in-
dividual great characters. And it will be admitted that
the moral spirit of the epic poets, taken together, is as
little in opposition to the Christian theory of moral
sentiments as that of the collective poetry of other
kinds. Some just and fine sentiments to be found in
the Greek tragedies are in the tone of the best of the
pagan didactic moralists. And they infuse themselves
more intimately into our minds when thus coming warm
in the course of passion and action, and speaking to us
with the emphasis imparted by affecting and dreadful
events ; but still are of less vivid and penetrating charm,
than as emanating from the insulated magnificence of
such striking and sublime individual characters as those
of epic poetry. The mind of the reader does not, from
those dramatic scenes, retain for months and years an
animated recollection of some personage whose name
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 273
Constantly recalls the sentiments which he uttered, or
with which his conduct inspired us. The Greek drama
is extremely deficient in both grand and interesting
characters, in any sense of the epithets that should
imply an imposing or a captivating moral power. Much
the greatest number of the persons and personages
brought on the scene are such as we care nothing about,
otherwise than merely on account of the circumstances
in which we see them acting or suffering. With few
exceptions they come on the stage, and go off, without
possessing us with either admiration or affection. When
therefore the maxims or reflections which we hear from
them have an impressive effect, it is less from any com-
manding quality in the persons, than from the striking,
and sometimes portentous and fearful situations, that
the sentiments have their pathos. There are a few
characters of greater power over our respect and our
sympathies, who draw us, by virtue of personal qua-
lities, into a willing communion with them, at times, in
moral principles and emotions. We are relieved and
gratified, after passing through so much wickedness,
misfortune, and inane common-place moralizing, to be
greeted with fine expressions of justice, generosity, and
fidelity to a worthy purpose, by persons whom we can
regard as living realizations of such virtues. It is
like finding among barbarous nations, (as sometime*
happens,) some individual or two eminently and un-
accountably above the level of their tribe, whose in-
telligence and virtues have, by the contrast and the
surprise, a stronger attraction than similar qualities
meeting us in a cultivated community. But the
delight sometimes kindled by sentiments of magna-
nimous or gentle virtue, is exceedingly repressed, and
often quenched, in the reader of the Greek drama, by
the incessant intrusion of a hideous moral barbarism
T
274- ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
especially by the implication of the morality with an
execrable mythology. There is an odious interference
of " the gods," sometimes by their dissensions with one
another perplexing and confounding the rules of human
obligation ; often contravening the best intentions and
efforts; depriving virtue of all confidence and resource ;
despising, frustrating, or punishing it ; turning its ex
ertious and sacrifices to vanity or disaster ; and yet to
be the objects of devout homage, a homage paid with
intermingled complaints and reproaches, extorted from
defeated or suffering virtue, which is trying to be better
than the gods. Nothing can be more intensely dreary
than the moral economy as represented in much of that
drama. Let any one contemplate it as displayed for ex-
ample, in the Prometheus Chained, or the whole stories
of CEdipus and Orestes. On the whole I have con-
ceded much in saying, that a small portion of the
norality of that drama may have a place with that of
the best of the didactic moralists.
I shall not dwell long on the biography ana history,
since it will be allowed that their influence is very
nearly coincident with that of the epic poetry. The
work of Plutarch, the chief of the biographers, (a work
so necessary, it would seem, to the consolations of a
Christian, that I have read of some learned man de-
claring, and without any avowed rejection of the Bible,
that if he were to be cast on a desert island, and could
have one book, and but one, it should be this,) the work
of Plutarch delineates a greatness partly of the same
character as that celebrated by Homer, and partly of the
more dignified and intellectual kind which is so com-
manding in the great men of Lucan, several of whom
indeed are the subjects also of the biographer. Various
ilistinctions might, no doubt, be remarked in the im-
pression made by great characters as illustrated in
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 275
poetry, and as exposed in the plainness of historical
record : but I am persuaded that the habits of feeling
which will grow from admiring the one or the other, will
be substantially the same as affecting the temper of the
mind in regard to Christianity.
A number of the men exhibited by the biographers
and historians, rose so eminently above the general
character of the human race, that their names have
become inseparably associated with our ideas of moral
greatness. A thoughtful student of antiquity entes
this majestic company with an impression of mystical
awfulness, resembling that of Ezekiel in his vision. Ih
this select and revered assembly we include only thosa
who were distinguished by elevated virtue, as well as
powerful talents and memorable actions. Undoubtedly
the magnificent powers and energy without moral ex-
cellence, so often displayed on the field of ancient
history, compel a kind of prostration of the soul in the
presence of men, whose surpassing achievements seem
to silence for a while, and but for a while, the sense of
justice which must execrate their ambition and their
crimes ; but where greatness of mind seems but se-
condary to greatness of virtue, as in the examples of
Phocion, Epaminondas, Aristides, Timoleon, Dion,
Cimon, and several more, the heart applauds itself for
feeling an irresistible captivation. This number indeed
is small, compared with the whole galaxy of renowned
names; but it is large enough to fill the mind, and to
give as venerable an impression of pagan greatness, as
if none of its examples had been the heroes whose fierce
brilliance lightens through the blackness of their depra-
vity; or the legislators, orators, and philosophers, whose
wisdom was degraded by imposture, venality, or vanitv.
A most impressive part of the influence of ancient
character on modern feelings, is derived from the
276 ON THE AVERSION OF AIEN OF TASTE
accounts of two or three of the greatest philosophers,
whose virtue, protesting and solitary in the times in
which they lived, whose intense devotedness in the pur-
suit of wisdom, and whose occasional sublime gluupses
of apprehension, received from beyond the sphere of
error in which they were enclosed and benighted,
present them to the mind with something like the
venerableness of the prophets of God. Among the
exhibitions of this kind, it is unnecessary to say that
Xenophon's Memoir of Socrates stands unrivalled and
above comparison.
Sanguine spirits without number have probably been
influenced in modern times by the ancient history of
mere heroes ; but persons of a reflective disposition
have been incomparably more affected by the con-
templation of those men whose combination of mental
power with illustrious virtue constitutes the supreme
glory of heathen antiquity. And why do I deem the
admiration of this noble display of moral excellence
pernicious to these reflective minds, in relation to the
religion of Christ ? For the simplest possible reason ;
because the principles of that excellence are not iden-
tical with the principles of this religion ; as I believe
every serious and self-observant man who has been
attentive to them both, will have verified in his own
experience. He has felt the animation which pervaded
his soul, in musing on the virtues, the sentiments, and
the great actions, of these dignified men, suddenly ex-
piring, when he has attempted to prolong or transfer it
to the virtues, sentiments, and actions, of the apostles
of Jesus Christ. Sometimes he has, with mixed wonder
and indignation, remonstrated with his own feelings,
and has said, I know there is the highest excellence in
the religion of the Messiah, and in the characters of
his most magnanimous followers; ami surely it is car-
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 277
cellence also that attracts ine to those other illustrious
men ; why then cannot I take a full delightful interest
in them both ? But it is in vain ; he finds this amphi-
bious devotion impossible. And he will always find it
so ; for, antecedently to experience, it would be obvious
that the order of sentiments which animated the one
form of excellence, is extremely diverse from that which
is the vitality of the other. If the whole system of a
Christian's sentiments is required to be exactly adjusted
to the economy of redemption, they must be widely
different from those of the men, however wise or vir-
tuous, who never thought or heard of the Saviour of
the world ; else where is the peculiarity or importance
of this new dispensation, which does however botli
avow and manifest a most signal peculiarity, and witli
which heaven has connected the signs and declarations
of infinite importance ? If, again, a Christian's grand
object and solicitude is to please God, this must con-
stitute his moral excellence, (even though the facts, the
mere actions, were the same,) of a very different nature
from that of the men who had not in firm faith an/
god that they cared to please, and whose highest glory
it might possibly become, that they boldly differed from
their deities ; as Lucan undoubtedly intended it as the
most emphatical applause of Cato, that he was the
inflexible patron and hero of the cause which was the
aversion of the gods.* If humility is required as a
characteristic of a Christian's mind, he is here again
placed in a state of contrariety to that self-idolatry, the
love of glory which accompanied, and was applauded
as a virtue while it accompanied, almost all the moral
greatness of the heathens. If a Christian lives for
eternity, and advances towards death with the certain
expectation of judgment, and of a new and awful world,
V'ctrix causa Diis clacuit, sed victa Catoni.
^218 ON niE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
how different must be the essential quality of his serious
sentiments, as partly created, and wholly pervaded, by
this mighty anticipation, from the order of feeling of
the virtuous heathens, who had no positive or sublime
expectations beyond death. The interior essences, if
I may so speak, of the two kinds of excellence, sus-
tained or produced by these two systems of principles,
are so different, that they will hardly be more con-
vertible or compatible in the same mind than even ex-
cellence and turpitude. Now it appears to me that the
enthusiasm, with which a mind of deep and thoughtful
sensibility dwells on the history of sages, virtuous legis-
lators, and the worthiest class of heroes of heathen
antiquity, will be found to beguile that mind into an
order of sentiments congenial with theirs, and therefore
thus seriously different from the spirit and principles
of Christianity.* It is not exactly that the judgment
admits distinct pagan propositions, but the heart insen-
sibly acquires an unison with many of the sentiments
which imply those propositions, and are wrong unless
those propositions be right. It forgets that a different
state of feeling, corresponding to a greatly different
scheme of principles, is appointed by the Sovereign
Judge of all things as (with relation to us) an indis-
pensable preparation for entering the eternal paradise ;f
* Should it be pretended that, in admiring pagan excellence, the
mind takes the mere facts of that excellence, separately from the
principles, and as far as they are identical with the facts of Christian
excellence, and then, connecting Christian principles with them,
converts the whole ideally into a Christian character before it cor-
dially admires, I appeal to experience that this is not true. Jf it
were, the mind would be able to turn with full complacency from an
affectionate admiration of an illustrious heathen, to admire, in the
same train of feeling and with still warmer emotion, the excellence
of St. Paul ; which is not the fact.
+ 1 hope none of these observations will be understood to insinuate
the impossibility of the future happiness of virtuous heathens. Bui
a question on that subject would here be out of place.
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION 279
and that now, no moral distinctions, however splendid,
are excellence in his sight, if not conformed to his
declared standard. It slides into a persuasion that,
under any economy, to be like one of those heathen
examples should be a competent fitness for any world
to which good spirits are to be assigned. The devoted
admirer contemplates them as the most enviable spe-
cimens of his nature, and almost wishes he could have
been one of them ; without reflecting that this would
probably have been under the condition, among many
other circumstances, of adoring Jupiter, Bacchus, or
^Esculapius, and yet despising the deities that he adored ;
and under the condition of being a stranger to the Son
of God, and to all that he has disclosed and accom-
plished for the felicity of our race. It would even
throw an ungracious chill on his ardour, if an evan-
gelical monitor should whisper, " Remember Jesus
Christ," and express his regret that these illustrious
men could not have been privileged to be elevated into
Christians. If precisely the word " elevated" were used,
the admonished person might have a feeling, at the
instant, as if it were not the right word. But this
state of mind is no less in effect than hostility to the
gospel, which these feelings are practically pronouncing
to be at least unnecessary ; and therefore that noblest
part of ancient literature which tends to produce it, is
inexpressibly injurious. It hud been happy for many
Cultivated and aspiring minds, if the men whose cha-
racters are the moral magnificence of the classical his-
tory, had been such atrocious villains, that their names
could not have been recollected without execration.
Nothing can be more disastrous than to be led astray
by eminent virtue and intelligence, which can give a
sense of congeniality with grandeur in the deviation.
It will require a very affecting impression of the
280 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
Christian truth, a decided conception of the Christian
character, and a habit of thinking with sympathetic
admiration of the most elevated class of Christians, to
preserve the genuine evangelical spirit amidst this ideal
society with personages who might pardonably have
been esteemed of the noblest form of human nature,
if a revelation had not been received from heaven.
Some views of this excellence it were in vain for a
Christian to forbid himself to admire ; but he must
learn to admire under a discriminative restriction, else
the emotion involves a desertion of his cause. He
must learn to assign these men in thought to another
sphere, and to regard them as beings under a different
economy with which our relations ane dissolved ; as
wonderful examples of a certain imperfect kind of
moral greatness, formed on a model foreign to true
religion, and which is crumbled to dust and given tc
the winds. At the same time, he may well, while
beholding some of these men, deplore that if so much
excellence could be formed on such a model, the sacred
system which gives the acknowledged exemplar for his
own character should not have far more assimilated him
to heaven. So much for the effect of the most inter-
esting part of ancient literature.
In the next letter I shall make some observations on
modern polite literature, in application of the same
rule of judgment. Many of them must unavoidably
be very analogous to those already made ; since the
greatest number of the modern fine writers acquired
much of the character of their minds from those of
the ancient world. Probably indeed the ancients have
exerted a much more extensive influence in modern
times by means of the modern writers to whom they
have communicated their moral spirit, than immediately
bv their own works.
T EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 2SJ
LETTER V7X
To a man who had long observed the inflaences
which tyrannize over human passions and opinions, it
would not perhaps have appeared strange, that when
the Grand Renovator came on earth, and during the
succeeding ages, a number of the men whose superior
talents were to carry on the course of literature, and
promote and guide the progress of the human mind,
should reject his religion. These I have placed out of
the question, as it is not my object to show the injuries
done to Christianity by its avowed enemies. But it
might have been expected, that all the intelligent men,
from that hour to the end of time, who should really
admit the truth of this religion, would perceive the
sovereignty and universality of its claims, feel that
every thing unconsonant with it ought instantly to
vanish from the whole system of approved sentiments
and the whole school of literature, and to keep as
clearly aloof as the Israelites from the boundary that
guarded the sanctity of Mount Sinai. It might have
been presumed, that all principles which the new dis-
pensation rendered obsolete, or declared or implied to
be wrong, should no more be regarded as belonging
to the system of principles to be henceforward received
and taught, than dead bodies in their graves belong to
the race of living men. To retain or recall them would
therefore be as offensive to the judgment, as to take up
these bodies and place them in the paths of men would
be offensive to the senses; and as absurd as the practice
of the ancient Egyptians, who made their embalmed
ancestors their companions at their festivals. It might
have been supposed, that whatever Christianity had
282 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
actually substituted, abolished, or supplied, would
therefore be practically regarded by these believers
of it as substituted, abolished, or supplied ; and that
they would, in all their writings, be at least as careful
of their fidelity in this great article, as an adherent to
the Newtonian philosophy would be certain to exclude,
from his scientific discourse, all notions that seriously
implied the Ptolemaic or the Tychonic system to be
true. Necessarily, a number of these literary believers
would write on subjects so completely foreign to what
comes within the cognizance of Christianity, that a pure
neutrality, which should avoid all interference with it,
would be all that could be claimed from them in its
behalf ; though at the same time, one should feel some
degree of regret, to see a man of enlarged mind
exhausting his ability and his life on these foreign
subjects, without devoting some short interval to the
service of that which he believes to be of far sur-
passing moment.*
But the great number who chose to write on subjects
I could not help feeling a degree of this regret in reading lately
the memoirs of the admirable and estimable Sir William Jones.
Some of his researches in Asia have incidentally served the cause of
religion ; but did he think that nothing more remained possible to
be done in service to Christianity, that his accomplished mind was
left at leisure for hymns to the Hindoo gods? Was not this even
a violation of the neutrality, and an offence, not only against the
gospel, but against theism itself? I know what may be said about
personification, license of poetry, and so on ; but should not a wor-
shipper of God hold himself under a solemn obligation to abjure all
tolerance of even poetical figures that can seriously seem, in any
way whatever, to recognise the pagan divinities or abominations,
as the prophets of Jehovah would have called them? What would
Elijah have said to such an employment of talents in his time? It
would have availed little to have told him that these divinities were
only personifications (with their appropriate representative idols) of
objects in nature, of elements, or of abstractions. H<s would have
sternly replied, And was not Baal, whose prophets I destroyed, the
t; 1:110 *
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION 283
thai come within the relations of the Christian system,
as on the various views of morals, the distinctions and
judgments of human character, and the theory of hap-
piness, with almost unavoidable references sometimes
to our connexion with Deity, to death, and to a future
state, ought to have written every page under the re-
collection, that these subjects are not left free for
careless or arbitrary sentiment since the time that
" God has spoken to us by his Son ;" and that the
finest composition would be only so much eloquent
impiety, if essentially discordant with the dictates of
the New Testament. Had this been a habitual and
influential recollection with the admired writers of the
Christian world, an ingenuous mind might have been
conversant alternately with their works and those of
evangelists and apostles, without being confounded iu
the conflict of antipathy between the inspirations of
genius and the inspirations of heaven.
I confine my view chiefly to the elegant literature
of our own country. And there is a presumption in
its favour, independently of actual comparison, that it
is much less exceptionable than the belles lettres of
the other countries of modern Europe ; for this plain
reason, that the extended prevalence of the happy light
of the Reformation through almost the whole period
of the production of our works of genius and taste,
must necessarily, by presenting the religion of Christ
in an aspect more true to its genuine dignity, have
compelled from the intellectual men who did not deny
its truth, and could not be entirely ignorant of its most
essential properties, a kind and degree of respect which
would not be felt by the same order of men in popish
countries, whose belief in Christianity was no more
than a deference to the authority of the church, and
whose occasional allusions or testimonies to it would
284 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASlt.
recognise it in no higher character than that in which
it appears as degraded into a superstition ; so that there
would be only a fallacious or equivocal glimmer of
Christianity thrown occasionally on their pages of moral
sentiment.
In this assumption in favour of our polite literature,
against that of the popish countries, I set out of view,
on both sides, that portion which is of directly immoral
or infidel tendency ; since it is not at all my object to
comment on the antichristian effect of the palpably
vicious part of our literature, but to indicate a certain
moral and religious insalubrity in much of that which,
in general account, is for the most part tolerably ac-
cordant, and in many instances actively subservient, to
truth and virtue.
Going over from the vicious and irreligious to the
directly opposite quarter, neither do I include in the
literature on which I am animadverting any class of
authors formally theological, not even the most admired
sermon writers in our language ; because it is probable
that works specifically theological have not been ad-
mitted to constitute more than a small part of tha*
school of thinking and taste, in which the generality of
cultivated men have acquired the moral habitude of
their minds. That school is composed of poets, moral
philosophers, historians, essayists, and you may add the
writers of fiction. If the great majority of these authors
have injured, and still injure, their pupils in the most
important of all their interests, it is a very serious con-
sideration, both in respect to the accountableness of
the authors, and the final effect on their pupils. I
maintain that they are guilty of this injury.
On so wide a field, my dear friend, it would be in
vain to attempt making particular references and selec-
tions to verify all these remarks. I must appeal foi
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. ^y.<\
their truth to your own acquaintance with our popular
fine writers.
In the- first place, and as a general observation, the
alleged injury has been done, to a great extent, by
Omission, or rather it should be called Exclusion. I
do not refer so much to that unworthy care, maintained
through the works of our ingenious authors to avoid
formally treating on any topics of an expressly evan-
gelical kind, as to the absence of that Christian ting;
and modification, (rendered perceptible partly by a
plain recognition occasionally of some great Christian
truth, and partly by a solicitous, though it were a tacit,
conformity to every principle of the Christian theory,)
which should pervade universally the sentiments re-
garding man as a moral being. Consider how small a
portion of the serious subjects of thought can be de-
tached from all connexion with the religion of Christ,
without narrowing the scope to which he meant it to
extend, and repelling its intervention where he required
ii should intervene. The book which unfolds it, has
exaggerated its comprehensiveness, and the first dis-
tinguished Christians had a delusive view of it, if it
does not actually claim to mingle its principles with
the whole system of moral ideas, so as to give them a
special modification ; as the principle of fire, intei fused
through the various forms and combinations of the
elements, contributes essentially to constitute that
condition by which they are adapted to their im-
portant uses, which condition and adaptation therefore
they would lose if that principle were no longer in-
herent.
And this claim for the extensive interference of the
Christian principles, made as a requirement from autho-
rity, appears to be just in virtue of their own nature.
For they are not of a nature which necessarily restrict
'<JK6 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
them to a peculiar department, like the principles
appropriate to some of the sciences. We should at
once perceive the absurdity of a man who should be
pretending to adjust all his ideas on general subjects
according to the rules of geometry, and should main-
tain (if any man could do so preposterous a thing) that
geometrical laws ought to be taken as the basis of our
reasoning on politics and morals. Or, if this be too
extreme a supposition, let any other class of principles,
foreign to moral subjects, be selected, in order to show
how absurd is the effect of an attempt to stretch them
beyond their proper sphere, and force them into some
connexion with ideas with which they have no natural
relation. Let it be shown how such principles can in
no degree modify the subject to which they are at-
tempted to be applied, nor mingle with the reasons
concerning it, but refuse to touch it, like magnetism
applied to brass. I would then show, on the contrary,
that the Christian principles are of a quality which
puts them in relation with something in the nature of
almost all serious subjects. Their introduction into
those subjects therefore is not an arbitrary and forced
application of them ; it is merely permitting their cog-
nizance and interfusion in whatever has some quality
of a common nature with them. It must be evident in
a moment that the most general doctrines of Chris-
tianity, such as those of a future judgment, and immor-
tality, have a direct relation with every thing that can
be comprehended within the widest range of moral
speculation and sentiment. It will also be found that
the more particular doctrines, such as those of the
moral pravity of our nature, an atonement made by
the sacrifice of Christ, the interference of a special
divine influence in renewing the human mind, and con-
ducting it through the discipline for a future state.
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 28?
together with all the inferences, conditions, and motives
resulting from them, cannot be admitted and religiously
regarded, without combining in numberless instances
with a man's ideas on moral subjects. That writer must
therefore have retired beyond the limits of an immense
field of important and most interesting speculations,
indeed beyond the limits of all the speculation most im-
portant to man, who can say that nothing in the religion
of Christ bears, in any manner, on any part of his subject,
any more than if he were a philosopher of Saturn.
In thus habitually interfering and combining with
moral sentiments and speculations, the Christian prin-
ciples will greatly modify them. The ideas infused
from those principles to be combined with the moral
sentiments, will not appear as simply additional ideas
in the train of thought, but as also affecting the cha-
"acter of the rest. A writer whose mind is so possessed
with the Christian principles that they continually sug-
gest themselves in connexion with his serious specu-
lations, will unavoidably present a moral subject in a
somewhat different aspect, even when he makes no
express references to the gospel, from that in which it
would be presented by another writer, whose habits of
thought were clear of evangelical recollections. Now
in every train of thinking in which the recognition of
those principles would effect this modification, it ought
to be effected ; so that the very last idea within the
compass of speculation which would have a different
cast as a ray of the gospel falls, or does not fall, upon
it, should be faithfully presented in that light. The
Christian principles cannot be true, without determining
what shall be true in the mode of representing every
subject in which there is any thing belonging to them
by essential relation. Obviously, as far as the gospeJ
can go, and does by sucl relation with things claim to
^88 ON THE AVERSION OF MEX OF TASTC
go, with a modifying action, it cannot be a matter ol
indifference whether it do go or not ; for nothing on
which its application would have this effect, would be
equally right as so modified and as not so modified. That
which is made precisely correct by this qualified con
dition, must therefore, separately from it, be incorrect.
He who has sent a revelation to declare the theory ot
saored truth, and to order the relations of all moral
sentiment with that truth, cannot give his sanction at
once to this final constitution, and to that which refuses
to be conformed to it. He therefore disowns that
which disowns the religion of Christ. And what he
disowns he condemns ; thus placing all moral senti-
ments in the same predicament with regard to the
Christian economy, in which Jesus Christ placed his
contemporaries, " He that is not with me is against
me." The order of ideas dissentient from the Christian
system, presumes the existence, or attempts the creation,
of some other economy.
Now, in casting a recollective glance over our elegant
literature, as far as I am acquainted with it, I cannot help
thinking that much the greater part falls under this con-
demnation. After a comparatively small number of
names and books are excepted, what are called the British
Classics, with the addition of very many works of great
literary merit that have not quite attained that rank,
present an immense vacancy of christianized sentiment.
The authors do not give signs of having ever deeply
studied Christianity, or of having been aware that any
such thing is a duty. Whatever has strongly occupied
a man's attention, affected his feelings, and filled his
mind with ideas, will even unintentionally show itself
in the train and cast of his discourse ; these writers do
not in this manner betray that their faculties have been
occupied and interested by the special views unfolded
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 289
in the evangelic dispensation. Of their coming from
the contemplation of these views you discover no notices
analogous, for instance, to those which appear in the
writing or discourse of a man, who has been passing
some time amidst the wonders of Rome or Egypt, ana
who shows you, by almost unconscious allusions and
images occurring in his language even on other subjects,
how profoundly he has been interested in beholding
triumphal arches, temples, pyramids, and cemeteries.
Their minds are not naturalized, if I may so speak, to
the images and scenery of the kingdom of Christ, or to
that kind of light which the gospel throws on all objects.
They are somewhat like the inhabitants of those towns
within the vast salt mines of Poland, who, seeing every
object in their region by the light of lamps and candles
only, have in their conversation hardly any expressions
describing things in such aspects as never appear but
under the lights of heaven. You might observe, the
next time that you open one of these works, how far
you may read, without meeting with an idea of such a
nature, or so expressed, as could not have been unless
Jesus Christ had come into the world ;* though the
subject in hand may be one of those which he came in
a special manner to illuminate, and to enforce on the
mind by new and most cogent arguments. And where
so little of the light and rectifying influence of theso
communications has been admitted into the habits oi
thought, there will be very few cordially reverential
and animated references to the great Instructor himself.
These will perhaps occur not oftener than a traveller
in some parts of Africa, or Arabia, comes to a spot of
green vegetation in the desert. You might have read
Except perhaps in respect to humanity and benevolence, on
which subject his instructions have improved the sentiments of in-
fidels themselves, in spite of the rejection of their divine authority.
U
2 ( JO ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
a considerable number of volumes, without becoming
clearly apprised of the existence of the dispensation, or
that such a sublime Minister of it had ever appeared
among men. And you might have diligently read, for
several years, and through several hundred volumes
without discovering its nature or importance, or that
the writers, when alluding to it, acknowledged any
peculiar and essential importance as belonging to it.
You would only have conjectured it to be a scheme of
opinions and discipline which had appeared, in its day, as
many others had appeared, and 'eft us, as the others
have left us>, to follow our speculations very much in our
own way, taking from those schemes, indifferently, any
notions that we may approve, and facts or fictions that
we may admire.
You would have supposed that these writers had
heard of one Jesus Christ, as they had heard of one
Confucius, as a teacher whose instructions are admitted
to contain many excellent things, and to whose system
a liberal mind will occasionally advert, well pleased to
.see China, Greece, and Judea, as well as England, pro-
ducing their philosophers, of various degrees and modes
of illumination, for the honour of their respective coun-
tries and periods, and for the concurrent promotion of
human intelligence. All the information which they
would have supplied to your understanding, and all the
conjectures to which they might have excited your
curiosity, would have left you, if not instructed from
other sources, to meet the real religion itself, when at
length disclosed to you, as a thing of which you had
but slight recognition, further than its name ; as a won-
derful novelty. How little you would have expected,
from their literary and ethical glimpses, to find the case
to be, that the system so insignificantly and carelessly
acknowledged in the course of their fine sentiments, la
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 291
the actual and sole economy by the provisions of which
their happiness can be secured, by the laws of which
they will be judged, which has declared the relations of
man with his Creator, and specified the exclusive ground
of acceptance; which is theiefore of infinite consequence
to you, and to them, and to all their readers, as fixing
the entire theory of the condition and destinies of man
on the final principles, to which all theories and sen-
timents are solemnly required to be " brought into
obedience."
Now, if the fine spirits, who have thus preserved an
ample, rich, diversified, crowded province of our litera-
ture, clear of evangelical intrusion, are really the chief
instructors of persons of taste, and form, from early life,
their habits of feeling and thought, the natural result
must be a state of mind very uncongenial with the
gospel. Views habitually presented to the mind in its
most susceptible periods, and during the prolonged
course of its improvements, in the varied forms and
lights of sublimity and beauty, with every fascination
of the taste, ingenuity, and eloquence, which it has
admired still more each year as its faculties have ex-
panded, will have become the settled order of its ideas.
And it will feel the same complacency in this intellectual
order, that we feel, as inhabitants of the material world,
in the great arrangement of nature, in the green bloom-
ing earth, and the splendid hemisphere of heaven.
LETTER VIII.
IT will be proper to specify, somewhat more dis-
tinctly, several of the particulars in which I consider
the majority of our fine writers as at variance with
the tenour of the Christian revelation, and therefore
u2
'J9'2 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTB
beguiling their readers into a complacency in an order
of sentiments that sometimes virtually, and sometimes
directly, disowns it.
One thing extremely obvious to remark is, that the
good man, the man of virtue, who is necessarily coming
often in view in the volumes of these writers, is not a
Christian. His character could have been formed though
the Christian revelation had never been opened on the
earth, or though the New Testament had perished ages
since , and it might have been a fine spectacle, but of
no striking peculiarity. It has no such complexion and
aspect as would have appeared foreign and unaccount-
able in the absence of the Christian truth, and have
excited wonder what it should bear relation to, and on
what model, or in what school, such a conformation of
principles and feelings could have taken its consistence.
Let it only be said, that this man of virtue had been
conversant whole years with such oracles and examples
;is Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Antoninus, and Seneca, se-
lecting what in any of them appeared the wisest or best,
and all would be explained ; there would be nothing to
suggest the question, " But if so, with whom has he
conversed since, to lose so strangely the proper cha-
racter of his school, under the broad impression of
some other mightier influence?"
The good man of our polite literature never talks
with affectionate devotion of Christ, as the great High
Priest of his profession, as the exalted friend and lord,
whose injunctions are the laws of his virtues, whose
work and sacrifice are the basis of his hopes, whose
doctrines guide and awe his reasonings, and whose ox-
ample is the pattern which he is earnestly aspiring to
resemble. The last intellectual and moral designations
in the world by which it would occur to you to describe
him, would be those by which the apostles so much
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 293
exulted to be recognised, a disciple, and a servant, of
Jesus Christ ; nor could you imagine him as at all
gratified by being so described. You do not hear him
express, that he accounts the habitual remembrance of
Christ essential to the nature of that excellence which
he is cultivating. He rather seems, with the utrm/st
coolness of choice, adopting virtue as according with
the dignity of a rational agent, than to be in the least
degree impelled to the high attainment by any relations
with the Saviour of the world.
If you suppose a person of such character to have
fallen into the company of St. Paul, you can easily
imagine the total want of congeniality. Though both
avowedly devoted to truth, to virtue, and perhaps to
religion, the difference in the cast of their sentiments
would have been as great as that between the physical
constitution and habitudes of a native of the country
at the equator, and those of one from the arctic regions.
Would not that determination of the apostle's mind, by
which there was a continual intervention of ideas con-
cerning one great object, in all subjects, places, and
times, have appeared to this man of virtue and wisdom
inconceivably mystical ? In what manner would he have
listened to the emphatical expressions respecting the
!ove of Christ constraining us, living not to ourselves,
,ut to him that died for us and rose again, counting all
.hings but loss for the knowledge of Christ, being ardent
to win Christ and be found in him, and trusting that
Christ should be magnified in our body, whether by
life or by death ? Perhaps St. Paul's energy of tempera-
ment, evidently combined with a vigorous intellect,
might have awed him into silence. But amidst tha*
silence, he must have decided, in order to defend his
self-complacency, that the apostle's mind had fallen,
notwithstanding its strength, under the dominion of -in
294" ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTK
irrational association ; for he would have been conscious
that no such ideas had ever kindled his affections, and
that no such affections had ever animated his actions ;
and yet he was indubitably a good man, according to a
generally approved standard, and could, in another style,
be as eloquent for goodness as St. Paul himself. He
would therefore have assured himself, either that it was
not necessary to be a Christian, or that this order of
eelings was not necessary to that character. But if
die apostle's sagacity had detected the cause of this
reserve, and the nature of his associate's reflections, he
would most certainly have declared to him with em-
phasis that both these things were necessary or that
he had been deceived by inspiration ; and he would have
parted from this self-complacent man with admonition
and compassion. Would St. Paul have been wrong ?
But if he would have been right, what becomes of those
authors, whose works, whether from neglect or design,
tend to satisfy their readers of the perfection of a form
of character which he would have pronounced essen-
tially unsound ?
Again, moral writings are instructions on the subject
of happiness. Now the doctrine of this subject is
declared in the evangelical testimony: it had been
strange indeed if it had not, when the happiness of
man was expressly the object of the communication.
And what, according to this communication, are the
essential requisites to that condition of the mind
without which no man ought to be called happy;
without which ignorance or insensibility alone can be
content, and folly alone can be cheerful ? A simple
reader of the Christian scriptures will reply that they
are a change of heart, called conversion, the assur-
ance of the pardon of sin through Jesus Christ, a
habit of devotion approaching so near to intercourse
TO EVANGELICAL HELIOIOX { 29?
the Supreme Object of devotion that revelatiot
has called it " communion with God," a process, named
sanctification, of improvement in all internal and ex-
ternal virtue, a confidence in the divine Providence
that all things shall work together for good, and a
conscious preparation for another life, including a firm
hope of eternal felicity. And what else can he reply?
Did the lamp of heaven ever shine more clearly since
omnipotence lighted it, than these ideas display them-
selves through the Christian revelation ? /* this then
absolutely and exclusively the true account of hap-
piness? It is not that which our accomplished writers
in general have chosen to sanction. Your recollection
will tell you that they have most certainly presumed to
avow, or to insinuate, a doctrine of happiness which
implies much of the Christian doctrine to be a needless
intruder on our speculations, or an imposition on our
belief; and I wonder that this grave fact should so
little have alarmed the Christian students of elegant
literature. The wide difference between the dictates
of the two authorities is too evident to be overlooked;
for the writers in question have very rarely, amidst an
immense assemblage of sentiments concerning happi-
ness, made any reference to what the inspired teachers
so explicitly declare to be its constituent and vital
principles. How many times you might read the sun
or the moon to its repose, before you would find an
assertion or a recognition, for instance, of a change of
the mind being requisite to happiness, in any terms
commensurate with the significance which this article
seems to bear, in all the varied propositions and notices
respecting it in the New Testament ! Some of these
writers appear hardly to have admitted or to have
recollected even the maxim, that happiness must essen-
tially consist in something so fixed in the mind itself,
296 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTK
as to bo substantially independent of worldly condition
for their most animated representations of it are merely
descriptions of fortunate combinations of external cir-
cumstances, and of the feelings so immediately de-
pending on them, that they will expire the moment
that these combinations are broken up. The greater
number, however, have fully admitted so plain a truth,
and have given their illustrations of the doctrine of
happiness accordingly. And what appears in these
illustrations as the brightest image of happiness ? It
is, probably, that of a man feeling an elevated com-
placency in his own excellence, a proud consciousness
of rectitude ; privileged with freedom of thought, and
extended views, cleared from the mists of prejudice
and superstition ; displaying the generosity of his
nature in the exercise of beneficence, without feeling,
however, any grateful incitement from remembrance
of the transcendent generosity of the Son of Man ;
maintaining, in respect to the events and bustle of the
surrounding scene, a dignified indifference, which can
let the world go its own way, undisturbed by its dis-
ordered course ; temperately enjoying whatever good
grows on his portion of the field of life, and living in
a cool resignation to fate, without any strong expressions
of a specific hope, or even solicitude, with regard to
the termination of life and to all futurity. Now, not-
withstanding a partial coincidence of this description
with the Christian theory of happiness,* it is evident
that on the whole the two modes are so different that
no man can realize them both. The consequence is
No one can be to absurd as to represent the notions which
pervade the works of polite literature as totally, and at all points,
opposite to the principles of Christianity ; what I am asserting is,
that in some important points they are substantially and essentially
Different, and that in others they disown the Christian modification.
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 297
clear ; the natural effect of incompetent and fallacious
schemes, prepossessing the mind by every grace and
force of genius, will be an aversion to the Christian
scheme ; which will be seen to piace happineso in
elements and relations much less flattering to what will
be called a noble pride ; to make it consist in some-
thing of which it were a vain presumption for the man
to fancy that himself can be the sovereign creator.
It is, again, a prominent characteristic of the Christian
revelation, that having declared this life to be but the
introduction to another, it systematically preserves the
recollection of this great truth through every repre-
sentation of every subject ; so that the reader is not
allowed to contemplate any of the interests of life in
a view which detaches them from the grand object and
conditions of life itself. An apostle could not address
his friends on the most common concerns, for the length
of a page, without the final references. 'He is like a
person whose eye, while he is conversing with you
about an object, or a succession of objects, immediately
near, should glance every moment toward some great
spectacle appearing on the distant horizon. He seen.s
to talk to his friends in somewhat of that manner of
expression with which you can imagine that Elijah
spoke, if he remarked to his companion any circum-
stance in the journey from Bethel to Jericho, and from
Jericho to the Jordan; a manner betraying the sublime
anticipation which was pressing on his thoughts. The
correct consequence of conversing with our Lord and
his apostles would be, that the thought of immortality
should become almost as habitually present and fami
liaiized to the mind as the countenance of a domestic
friend; that it should be the grand test of the value of
all pursuits, friendships, and speculations ; and that it
should mingle a certain nobleness with every thing
2'98 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTft
which it permitted to occupy our time. Now, how far
will the discipline of modern polite literature coincide?
I should be pleased to hear a student of that literature
seriously profess that he is often and impressively re-
minded of futurity; and to have it shown that ideas
relating to this great subject are presented in sufficient
number, and in a proper manner, to produce an eifect
which should form a respectable proportion of the
whole effect produced by these authors on susceptible
minds. But there is no ground for expecting this
satisfaction.
It is true that the idea of immortality is so exceed-
ingly grand, that many writers of genius who have felt
but little genuine interest in religion, have been led by
their perception of what is sublime to introduce an
allusion which is one of the most powerful means of
elevating the imagination : and, in point of energy
and splendour, their language has been worthy of the
subject. In these instances, however, it is seldom
found that the idea is presented in that light which,
while displaying it prominent in its individual grandeur,
shows also its extensive necessary connexion with other
ideas: it appears somewhat like a majestic tower, which
a traveller in some countries may find standing in a
solitary scene, no longer surrounded by the great as-
semblage of buildings, the ample city, of which it was
raised to be the centre, the strength, and the ornament.
Immortality has been had recourse to in one page of
an ingenious work as a single topic of sublimity, in the
same manner as a magnificent phenomenon, or a bril-
liant achievement, has been described in another. The
author's object might rather seem to have been tc
supply an occasional gratification to taste, than tc
reduce the mind and all its feelings under the dominioi.
of a flrand practical principle.
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 299
It is true also, that a graver class of fine writers, who
have expressed considerable respect for religion and
for Christianity, and who, though not writing syste-
matically on morals, have inculcated high moral prin-
ciples, have made references to a future state as the
hope and sanction of virtue. But these references are
made less frequently, and with less enforcement and
emphasis, than the connexion between our present
conduct and a future life must be acknowledged to
claim. The manner in which they are made seems to
betray either a deficiency of interest in the great
subject, or a pusillanimous anxiety not to offend those
readers who would think it too directly religious. It
is sometimes adverted to as if rather from a compelling
sense, that if there is a future state, moral speculation
must be defective, even to a degree of absurdity,
without some allusions to it, than from feeling a pro-
found delight in the contemplation. When the idea
of another life is introduced to aggravate the force of
moral principles, and the authority of conscience, it is
done so as to appear like a somewhat reluctant ac-
knowledgment of the deficiency of inferior sanctions.
The consideration comes and vanishes in transient light,
after the writer has eloquently expatiated on every
circumstance by which the present life can supply
motives to goodness. In some instances, a watchful
reader will also perceive what appears too much like
care to divest the idea, when it must be introduced, of
all direct references to that sacred Person who first
completely opened the prospect of immortality, or to
some of those other doctrines which he taught in im-
mediate connexion with this great truth. There seems
reason to suspect the writer of being pleased that, though
it is indeed to the gospel alone that we owe the positive
assurance of immortality, yet it was a subject so much
300
ON THE AVERSION OF MEX OF TASTK
in the conjectures and speculation of the heathen
sages, that he may mention it without therefore so
expressly recognising the gospel, as he must in the case
of introducing some truth of which not only the evi-
dence, but even the first explicit conception, was com-
municated by that dispensation.
Taking this defective kind of acknowledgment of a
future state, together with that entire oblivion of the
subject which prevails through an ample po.tion of
elegant literature, I think there is no hazard in saying
that a reader who is satisfied without any other in-
structions, will learn almost every lesson sooner than
the necessity of habitually living for eternity. Many
of these writers seem to take as much care to guard
against the inroad of ideas from that solemn quarter
as the inhabitants of Holland do against the irruption of
the sea; and their writings do really form a kind of
moral dyke against the invasion from the other world.
They do not instruct a man to act, to enjoy, and to
suffer, as a being that may by to-morrow have finally
abandoned this orb : every thing is done w> beguile the
feeling of his being a stranger and a pilgrim on the
earth." The relation which our nature bears to the
circumstances of the present state, and which indi-
v]duals bear to one another, is mainly the ground on
wh,ch their considerations of duty proceed and conclude
And their schemes of happiness, though formed for
beings at once immortal and departing, include little
which avowedly relates to that world to which they are
removing, nor reach beyond the period at which thev
will properly but begin to live. They endeavour to
ra,se the groves of an earthly paradise, to shade
from sight that vista which opens to the distance of
eternity.
Another article in which the anti-christian tendency
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. SJ1
of a great part of our productions of taste and genius
is apparent, is, the kind of consolation administered to
distress, old age, and death. Things of a mournful
kind make so large a oortion of the lot of humanity,
that it is impossible for writers who take human life and
feelings for their subject to avoid, (nor indeed have
they endeavoured to avoid,) contemplating man in those
conditions in which he needs every benignant aid to
save him from despair. And here, if any where, we may
justly require an absolute coincidence of all moral in-
structions with the religion of Christ : since consolation
is eminently its distinction and its design ; since a being
in distress has peculiarly a right not to be trifled with
by the application of unadapted expedients ; and since
insufficient consolations are hut to mock it, and decep-
tive ones are to betray. It should then be clearly
ascertained by the moralist, and never forgotten, what
are the consolations provided by this religion, and
under what condition they are offered.
Christianity offers even to the irreligious, who relent
amidst their sufferings, the alleviation springing from
.'nestimable promises made to penitence : any other
system, which should attempt to console them, simply as
suffering, and without any reference to the moral and
religious state of their minds, would be mischievous,
if it were not inefficacious. What are the principal
sources of consolation to the pious, is immediately ap-
oarent. The subjects of adversity and sorrow are
assured that God exercises his paternal wisdom and
kindness in afflicting his children : that this necessary
discipline is to refine and exalt them by making them
" partakers of his holiness ;" that he mercifully regards
their weakness and pains, and will not let them suffer
beyond what they shall be able to bear; that their
great Leader has suffered for them more than they can
302 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
suffer, and compassionately sympathizes with them still ;
that this short life was far less designed to confer a
present happiness, than to mature them to a fitness for
being happy for ever ; and that patient constancy shall
receive a resplendent crown. An aged Christian is
soothed by the assurance that his Almighty Friend will
not despise the enfeebled exertions, nor desert the op
pressed and fainting weakness, of the last stage of his
servant's life. When advancing into the shade of death
itself, he is animated by the faith that the great sacrifice
has taken the malignity of death away ; and that the
divine presence will attend the dark steps of this last
and lonely enterprise, and shew the dying traveller and
combatant that even this melancholy gloom is to him
the utmost limit of the dominion of evil, the very con-
fine of paradise, the immediate access to the region of
eternal life.
Now, in the greater number of the works under
review, what are the modes of consolation which sensi-
bility, reason, and eloquence, have most generally ex-
erted themselves to apply to the mournful circumstances
of life, and to its close ? You will readily recollect such
as these : a man is suffering well, it is the common
destiny, every one suffers sometimes, and some much
more than he ; it is well it is no worse. If he is
unhappy now, he has been happy, and he could not
expect to be so invariably. It were folly to complain
that his nature was constituted capable of suffering, or
placed in a world where it is exposed to the infliction.
If it were not capable of pain, it would not of pleasure.
Would he be willing to lose his being, to escape these
ills ? Or would he consent, if such a thing were possible,
to be any person else ? The sympathy of each kind
relation and friend will not be wanting. His condition
may probably change for the better; there is hope in
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 303
every situation ; and meanwhile, it is an oppoTtunity foi
displaying manly fortitude. A strong mind can proudly
triumph over the oppression of pain, the \exations of
disappointment, and the tyranny of fortune. If the
cause of distress is some irreparable deprivation, it will
be softened by the lenient hand of time.*
The lingering months of an aged man are soothed
inmost, it is pretended, into cheerfulness, by the re-
spectful attention of his neighbours ; by the worldly
prosperity and dutiful regard of the far.iily he has
brought up ; by the innocent gaiety and amusing activity
of their children ; and by the consideration of his fair
character in society. If he is a man of thought, he
has the added advantage of some philosophical consi-
derations ; the cares and passions of his former life are
calmed into a wise tranquillity ; he thinks he has had
a competent share of life ; it is as proper and necessary
for mankind to have their " exits," as their " entrances ;"
and his business will now be to make a " well-graced
retreat from the stage, like a man that has properly acted
his part, and may retire with applause.
As to the means of sustaining the spirit in death, the
general voice of these authors asserts the chief and only
alb-sufficient one to be the recollection of a well-spent
life. Some minor repellents of fear are added ; <*s for
instance, that death is in fact a far less tremendous
thing than that dire form of it by which imagination and
superstition are haunted ; that the sufferings in death
Can it be necessary to notice here again, that every system of
moral sentiments must inevitably contain some principles not dis-
claimed by Christianity ; with whose dictates various particulars in
this assemblage of consolations are not inconsistent if held in a
subordinate rank ? But the enumeration taken altogether, and
exclusively of the grand Christian principles, forms a scheme of
consolation essentially different from that so beneficently displayed
in the religion of Christ.
304- ON THE AVERSION OF MEX OF TASTE
are less than men often endure in the course of life ;
that it is only like one of those transformations with
which the world of nature abounds ; and that it is easy
to conceive, and reasonable to expect, a more com-
modious vehicle and habitation. It would seem almost
unavoidable to glance a thought toward what revelation
has signified to us of "the house not made with hands,"
of the " better country, that is, the heavenly." But
the greater number of the writers of taste advert to the
scene beyond this world with apparent reluctance, unless
it can be done, on the one hand, in the manner of pure
philosophical conjecture, or on the other, under the
form of images, bearing some analogy to the visions of
classical poetry.*
The arguments for resignation to death are not so
much drawn from future scenes, as from a consideration
of the evils of the present life ; the necessity of yielding
to a general and irreversible law ; the dignity of sub-
mitting with that calmness which conscious virtue is
entitled to feel ; and the improbability (as these writers
sometimes intimate) that any formidable evils are to be
apprehended after death, except by a few of the very
worst of the human race. Those arguments are in general
rather aimed to quiet fear than to animate hope. The
pleaders of them seem more concerned to convey the
dying man in peace and silence out of the worid, than
to conduct him to the celestial felicity. Let us but see
* I am very far from disliking philosophical speculation, or daring
flights of fancy, on this high subject. On the contrary, it appears
to me strange that any one firmly holding the belief of a life to come,
should not have both the intellectual faculty and the imagination
excited to the utmost effort in the trial, however unavailing, to give
some outlines of definite form to the unseen realities. What I
mean to censure in the mode of referring to another life, is, the care
to avoid any direct resemblance or recognitio i of the ideas which
the New Testament has given to guide, in some small, very small
decree, our conjectures.
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 305
him embarked on his unknown voyage in fair weather,
and we are not accountable for what he may meet, or
whither he may be carried, when he is gone out of sight.
They seldom present a lively view of the distant hap-
piness, especially in any of those images in which the
Christian revelation has intimated its nature. In whicli
of these books, and by which of the real or fictitious
characters whose last hours and thoughts they some-
times display, will you find, in terms or in spirit, the
apostolic sentiments adopted, " To depart and be with
Christ is far better;" "Willing rather to be absent
from the body, and present with the Lord ? " The very
existence of that sacred testimony which has given the
only genuine consolations in death, and the only just
conceptions of what is beyond it, seems to be scarcely
recollected; while the ingenious moralists are searching
the exhausted common places of the stoic philosophy,
or citing the treacherous maxims of a religion perverted
to accordance with the corrupt wishes of mankind, or
even recollecting the lively sayings of the few whose
wit has expired only in the same moment with life, to
fortify the pensive spirit for its last removal. " Is it not
because there is not a God in Israel, that ye have sent
to inquire of Baalzebub the God of Ekron?"
Another order of sentiments concerning death, of a
character too bold to be called consolations, has been
represented as animating one class of human beings.
In remarking on Lucan, I noticed that desire of death
which has appeared in the expressions of great minds,
sometimes while merely indulging solemn reflections
when no danger or calamity immediately threatened,
but often in the conscious approach towards a fatal cata-
strophe. Many writers of later times have exerted their
whole strength, and have even excelled themselves, in re-
presenting the high sentiments in which this d 'sire has
x
306 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
displayed itself; genius has found its very gold mine in
this field. If this grandeur of sentiment had been of
the genuine spirit to animate piety while it exalts the
passions, some of the poets would have ranked among
our greatest benefactors. Powerful genius, aiding to
inspire a Christian triumph in the prospect of death,
might be revered as a prophet, might be almost loved
as a benignant angel. Few men's emotions can have
approached nearer to enthusiasm than mine, in reading
the sentiments made to be uttered by sages and reflective
heroes in this prospect I have felt these passages as
the last and mightiest of the enchantments of poetry, of
power to inspire for a little while a contempt of all
ordinary interests, of the world which we inhabit, and
of life itself. While the enthusiast is elated with such
an emotion, nothing may appear so captivating as some
noble occasion of dying; such an occasion as that
when Socrates died for virtue ; or that when Brutus at
Philippi fell with falling liberty-* Poetry has delighted
to display personages of this high order, in the same
fatal predicament; and the situation of such men has
appeared inexpressibly enviable, by means of those
sublime sentiments by which they illuminated the
gloom of death. The reader has loved to surround
himself in imagination with that gloom, for the sake of
irradiating it with that sublimity. All other greatness
iias been for a while eclipsed by the greatness of thought
displayed by these contemplative and magnanimous
* Poetry will not easily exceed many of the expressions which
mere history has recorded. I should little admire the capability of
feeling, or greatly admire the Christian temper, of the man who
could without emotion read, for instance, the short observations of
Brutus to his friend, (in contemplation even of a self-inflicted death,)
on the eve of the battle which extinguished all hope of freedom ;
" We shall either be victorious, or pass away beyond the power of
those that are so. We shall deliver our country by victory, or
ourselves by death "
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 307
spirits, though untaught by religion, when advancing to
meet their fate.
But the Christian faith recalls the mind from this en-
chantment, to recollect that the Christian spirit in dying
can be the only right and noble one, and to consider
whether these examples be not exceedingly different
Have not the most enlightened and devout Christians,
whether they have languished in their chambers, or
passed through the fire of martyrdom, manifested their
elevation of mind in another strain of eloquence ? The
examples of greatness in death, which poetry has ex-
hibited, generally want all those sentiments respecting
the pardon of sin, and a Mediator who has accomplished
and confers the deliverance, and often the explicit idea
<ff meeting the Judge, with which a Christian contem-
plates his approaching end. Their expressions of intre-
pidity and exultation have no analogy with the language
of an incomparable saint and hero, " O death, where is
thy sting? O grave, whore is thy victory? Thanks
be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ." The kind of self-authorized confidence
of taking possession of some other state of being, as
monarchs would talk of a distant part of their empire
which they were going to enter ; the proud apostrophe:
to the immortals, to prepare for the great and rival
spirit that is coming ; their manner of consigning to its
fate a good but failing cause, which will sink when they
are gone, there not being virtue enough on earth to
support, or in heaven to vindicate it; their welcoming
the approach of death in an exultation of lofty and
bitter scorn of a hated world and a despicable race
are not the humility, nor the benevolence, nor the reve-
rential submission to the Supreme Governor, with which
it is in the proper character of a Christian to die. If
a Christian will partly unite with these high spirits in
308 ON 7 THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTH.
being weary of a world of dust and trifles, in defying
the pains of death, in panting for an unbounded liberty
it will be at the same time with a most solemn com-
mitment of himself to the divine mercy, which they
forget, or were never instructed, to implore. And a*
to the vision of the other world, you will observe a
great difference between the language of sublime poetry
and that of revelation, in respect to the nature of the
sentiments and triumphs of that world, and still more
perhaps in respect to the associates with whom the
departing spirit expects soon to mingle. The dying
magnanimity of poetry anticipates high converse with
the souls of heroes, and patriots, and perhaps philo-
sophers ; a Christian feels himself going, (I may accom-
modate the passage,) to "an innumerable company of
angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-
born, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just
men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the
new covenant."
In defence of those who have thus given attractions
to the image of death by means foreign and opposite
to the evangelical principles, it may be said, that many
of the personages whom their scenes exhioit in the
contemplation of death, or in the approach to it, verp
necessarily, from the age or country in which they lived
or are feigned to have lived, unacquainted with Chris-
tianity ; and that therefore it would have been absurd
to represent them as animated by Christian sentiments
Certainly. But then I ask, on what ground men of
genius will justify themselves for choosing, with a view
to the improvement of the heart, as they will profess,
examples of which they cannot preserve the consis-
tency, without making them pernicious ? Where is the
conscience of that man, who is anxiously careful that
<very sentiment expressed by the historical or fictitious
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 309
personage, in the fatal season, should be harmonious
with every principle of the character, but feels not
the smallest concern about the consistency of selecting
or creating the character itself, with his conviction of
the absolute authority of the religion of Christ ? In
glancing forward, he knows that his favourite is to die
and that he cannot die as a Christian ; yet he is to
depart in a splendour of moral dignity. Would it not
therefore be a dictate of conscience to warn his readers,
that he expects to display the exit with a commanding
sublimity, of which the natural effect is to be, a com-
rtlacency, or an elation, in the idea of such a death as
a Christian cannot die. But how would he feel while
giving such a warning ? Might it not be said to him,
And are you then willing to die otherwise than as a
Christian ? If you are, you virtually pronounce Chris-
tianity an imposture, and, to be consistent, should avow
the rejection. If you are not, how can you endeavour
to seduce your readers into an enthusiastic admiration
of such a death as you wish may now be yours ? How
^an you endeavour to infect your reader with sentiments
which you could not hear him utter in his last hours
without alarm for the state of his mind ? Is it necessary
to the pathos and sublimity of poetry, to introduce
characters which cannot be justly represented without
falsifying our view of the most serious of all subjects ?
If this be necessary, it would be better that poetry with
all its charms were exploded, than that, the revelation
of God should be frustrated in the great object and
demand of fixing its own ideas of death, clearly and
alone, in the minds of beings whose manner of preparing
for it is of infinite consequence. But there is no such
dilemma ; since many examples could be found, and
an unlimited number may with rational probability be
imagined, of Christian Kreatness in deatli Are n jt then
310 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
the preference of examples adverse to christianity ; and
that temper of the poet's mind which is in sue! full
sympathy with them, empowering him to personate them
with such entireness and animation, and to express for
them all the appropriate feelings, a worse kind of in-
fidelity, as it is far more injurious, than that of the cold
dealer in cavils and quibble? against the gospel ? What
is the Christian belief of that poet worth, who would
not on reflection feel self-reproach for the affecting
scene, which m?y for a while have betrayed some of
his readers to regard it as a more dignified thing to
depart in the character of Socrates or Cato, than of
St. John or a Christian martyr ? What would have been
thought of the pupil of an apostle, who, after hearing
his master describe the spirit of a Christian's departure
from the world, in language which he believed to be
of conclusive authority, and which asserted or clearly
implied that this alone was greatness in death, should
have taken the first occasion to expatiate with enthu-
siasm on the closing scene of a philosopher, or on the
exit of a stern hero, that, acknowledging within the
visible creation no object for either confidence or fear,
departed with the aspect of a being who should be
going to summon his gods to judgment for the mis-
fortunes of his life ? And how will these careless men
of genius give their account to the Judge of the world,
for having virtually taught many aspiring minds that,
notwithstanding his first coming was to conquer for
man the king of terrors, there needs no recollection of
him, in order to look toward death with noble defiance
or sublime desire ?
Some of their dying personages are so consciously
uninformed of the realities of the invisible state, that
the majestic sentiments which they disclose on the verge
of life, can only throw a faint glimmering on unfathom-
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 311
able darkness ; but some anticipate the other world, as
I have already observed, in very defined images. I
recollect one of them, after some just reflections on the
vanity and wretchedness of life, thus expressing his
complacency in view of the great deliverer :
" Death joins us to tho great majority;
'Tis to be born to Platos and to Caesars ;
'Tis to be great for ever.
'Tis pleasure, 'tis ambition then, to die."
Another, an illustrious female, in a tragedy which I
lately read, welcomes death with the following senti-
ments :
" Oh 'tis wondrous well !
Ye gods of death, that rule the Stygian gloom !
Ye who have greatly died, I come ! I come !
The hand of Rome can never touch me more ;
Hail ! perfect freedom, hail !"
" My free spirit should ere now have join'd
That great assembly, those devoted shades,
Who scorn'd to live till liberty was lost '
But, ere their country fell, abhorr'd the light."
" Shift not thy colour at the sound of death ;
It is to me perfection, glory, triumph.
Nay, fondly would I choose it, though persuaded
It were a long dark night without a morning ;
To bondage far prefer it, since it is
Deliverance from a world where Romans rule."
" Then let us spread
A. bold exalted wing, and the last voice we hear,
Be that of wonder and applause."
" And is the sacred moment then so near ?
The moment when yon sun, those heavens, this earth,
Hateful to me, polluted by the Romans,
And all the busy slavish race of men,
Shall sink at once, and straight another state
Rise on a sudden round ?
Oh to be there !"
* This is not perhaps one of the best specimens : it is the last tna*
has come under my notice. I am certain of having read many, but
have not recollection enough to know where to find them
312 ON THE AVERSION' OF MEN OF TASTE
You will recollect to have read many equally im-
proper to engage a Christian's full sympathy, and
therefore, convicting the poetic genius which produced
them of treachery to the true faith, in such efforts to
seduce our feelings. It is a pernicious circumstance in
passages of this strain, that the special thoughts and
images which are alien from the spirit of Christianity,
are implicated with those general sentiments of antici-
pation, those emotions aspiring to greatness and felicity
in indefinite terms, which a dying Christian may ener-
getically express ; so that through the animated sym-
pathy with the general, and as it were elementary
sentiments, the reader's mind is beguiled into com-
placency in the more special ones of an antichristian
spirit.
Sometimes even very bad men are made to display
such dignity in death, as at once to impart an attraction
to their false sentiments, and to mitigate the horrcr of
their crimes. I recollect the interest with which I read,
many years since, in Dr. Young's Busiris, the proud
magnanimous speech at the end of which the tyrant
dies : these are some of the lines :
" I thank these wounds, these raging pains, which promise
An interview with equals soon elsewhere.
Great Jove, I come !"
Even the detestable Zanga, in the prosppct of death,
while assured by his conscience that " to receive him
hell blows all her fires," rises to a certain imposing
greatness, by heroic courage tempered to a kind of
moral dignity, through the relenting of revenge and the
ingenuous manifestation of sentiments of justice. To
create an occasion of thus compelling us to do homage
to the dying magnanimity of wicked men, is unfaith-
fulness to the religion which condemns such magna-
nimity as madness. It is no justification to sav that
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 313
such instances have been known, and therefore such re'
presentations are only vividly reflected images of reality;
for if the laws of criticism do not enjoin, in works oi
genius, a careful adaptation of all examples and senti-
ments to the purest moral purpose, as a far higher duty
than the study of resemblance to the actual world, the
laws of piety most certainly do. Let the men who have
so much literary conscience about this verisimilitude,
content themselves with the office of mere historians,
and then they may relate without guilt, provided the
relation be simple and unvarnished, all the facts, and
speeches of depraved greatness within the memory of
the world. But when they choose the higher office of
inventing and combining, they are accountable for the
consequences. They create a new person, and, in
sending him into society, they can choose whether his
example shall tend to improve or to pervert the minds
that will be compelled to admire him.
It is an immense transition from such instances as
those I have been remarking on, to Rousseau's cele-
brated description of the death of his Eloisa, which
would have been much more properly noticed in an
earlier page. It is long since I read that scene, one of
the most striking specimens probably of original con-
ception and interesting sentiment that ever appeared ;
but though the representation is so extended as to in-
clude every thing which the author thought needful to
make it perfect, there is no explicit reference to the
peculiarly evangelical causes of complacency in death.
Yet the representation is so admirable, that the serious
reader is tempted to suspect even his own mind of fana-
ticism, while he is expressing to his friends the wish
that they, and that himself, may be animated, in the
!ast day of life, by a class of ideas which that eloquent
writer would have been ashamed to introduce.
314- ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OS TASTE
LETTER IX.
DOES it not appear to you, my dear friend, that an
approving reader of the generality of our ingenious)
authors will acquire an opinion of the moral condition
of our species very different from that which is dictated
by the divine declarations ? The Governor of all intel-
ligent creatures has spoken of this nation or family of
them, as exceedingly remote from conformity to that
standard of perfection which alone can ever be his rule
of judgment. And this is pronounced not only of vicious
individuals, who are readily given up to condemnation
by those who entertain the most partial or the proudest
estimate of human nature, but of the constitutional
quality of that nature itself. The moral part of the
constitution of man is represented as placing him im-
mensely below that rank of dignity and happiness to
which, by his intellectual powers, and his privilege 01
being immortal, he would otherwise have seemed adapted
to belong. The descriptions of the human condition
are such as if the nature had, by a dreadful convulsion,
been separated off at each side from a pure and happy
system of the creation, and had fallen down an im-
measurable depth, into depravation and misery. In this
state man is represented as loving, and therefore practi-
cally choosing, the evils which subject him to the con-
demnation of God ; and it is affirmed that no expedient,
but that very extraordinary one which Christianity has
revealed, can change this condition, and avert this con-
demnation with its formidable consequences.
Every attempt to explain the wisdom and the exact
ultimate intention of the Supreme Being, in constituting
a nature subject in so fatal a degree to moral evil, will
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. S15
fai\ But even if a new revelation were given to turn this
dark inquiry into noonday, it would make no difference
in the actual state of things. An extension of knowledge
could not reverse the fact, that the human nature has dis-
played, through every age, the most aggravated proofs
of being in a deplorable and hateful condition, whatever
were the reasons for giving a moral agent a constitution
which it was foreseen would soon be found in this condi-
tion. Perhaps, if there were a mind expanded to a com-
prehension so far beyond all other created intelligences,
that it could survey the general order of a great portion
of the universe, and look into distant ages, it might
understand in what manner the melancholy fact could
operate to the perfection of the vast system ; and
according to what principles, and in reference to what
ends, all that has taken place within the empire of the
Eternal Monarch is right. But in this contemplation
of the whole, it would also take account of the separate
condition of each part ; it would perceive that this
human world, whatever are its relations to the universe,
has its own distinct economy of interests, and stands in
its own relation and accountableness to the righteous
Governor ; and that, regarded in this exclusive view, it
's an awful spectacle. Now, to this exclusive sphere of
our own condition and interests revelation confines our
attention ; and pours contempt, though not more than
experience pours, on all presumption to reason on those
grand unknown principles according to which the
Almighty disposes the universe ; all our estimates
therefore of the state and relations of man must take
the subject on this insulated ground. Considering man
in this view, the sacred oracles have represented him as
a more melancholy object than Nineveh or Babylon
in ruins; and an infinite aggregate of obvious facts
confirms the doctrine. This doctrine then is absolute
316 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
authority in our speculations on human nature. But
to this authority the writers in question seem to pay,
and to teach their readers to pay, but little respect.
And unless those readers are pre-occupied by the grave
convictions of religious truth, rendered still more grave
by painful reflection on themselves, and by observation
on mankind ; or unless they are capable of enjoying a
malicious or misanthropic pleasure, like Mandeville and
Swift, in detecting and exposing the degradation of our
nature, it is not wonderful that they should be prompt
to entertain the sentiments which insinuate a much
more flattering estimate. Our elegant and amusing
moralists no doubt copiously describe and censure the
follies and vices of mankind; but many of these, they
maintain, are accidental to the human character, rather
than a disclosure of intrinsic qualities. Others do
indeed spring radically from the nature ; but they are
only the wild weeds of a virtuous soil. Man is still a
very dignified and noble being, with strong dispositions
to all excellence, holding a proud eminence in the
ranks of existence, and (if such a Being is adverted to)
high in the favour of his Creator. The measure of virtue
in the world vastly exceeds that of depravity ; we should
not indulge a fanatical rigour in our judgments of man-
kind; nor be always reverting to an ideal perfection;
nor accustom ourselves to contemplate the Almighty
always in the dark majesty of justice. None of their
speculations seem to acknowledge the gloomy fact
which the New Testament so often asserts or implies,
that all men are " by nature children of wrath."
It is quite of course that among sentiments of this
order, the idea of the redemption by Jesus Christ (if
anv al'usion to it should occur,) can but appear with
equivocal import, and " shorn of the beams " which
nonstitute the peculiar light of his own revelation.
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION". 317
vv rule man is not considered as lost, the mind cannot
do justice to the expedient, or to " the only name under
heaven," by which he can be redeemed. Accordingly
the gift of Jesus Christ does not appear to be habitually
recollected as the most illustrious instance of the bene-
ticence of God that has come within human knowledge,
and as the fact -which has contributed more than all
others to relieve the oppressive awfulness of the mystery
n which our world is enveloped. No thankful joy
seems to awake at the thought of so mighty an inter-
position, and of him whose sublime appointment it was to
undertake and accomplish it. When it is difficult to avoid
making some allusion to him, he is acknowledged rather
in any of his subordinate characters, than as absolutely
a Redeemer ; or if the term Redeemer, or, our Saviour,
is introduced, it is done as with a certain inaptitude to
pronounce a foreign appellative ; as with a somewhat
irksome feeling at falling in momentary contact with
language so specifically of the Christian school. And
it is done in a manner which betrays, that the author
does not mean all that he feels some dubious intimation
that such a term should mean. Jesus Christ is regarded
rather as having added to our moral advantages, than
as having conferred that without which all the rest
were in vain; rather as having made the passage to a
happy futurity somewhat more commodious, than as
having formed the passage itself over what was else
an impassable gulf. Thus that comprehensive sum of
blessings, called in the New Testament Salvation, or
Redemption, is shrunk into a comparatively inconside-
rable favour, which a less glorious messenger might
have brought, which a less magnificent language than
that dictated by inspiration might have described, and
which a less costly sacrifice might have secured.
It is consistent with this delusive idea of human
318 OX i'HE AVERSION OF MKN OP TAS1E
nature, and these crude, and faint, and narrow con-
ceptions of the Christian economy, that these writers
commonly represent felicity hereafter as the pure reward
of merit. I believe you will find this, as far as any
allusions are made to the subject, the prevailing opinion
through the school of polite literature. You will perceive
it to be the real opinion of many writers who do some-
times advert, in some phrase employed by way of
respectful ceremony to our national creed, to the work
or sacrifice of Christ.
I might remark on the antichristian motives to action
which are sanctioned and inspirited by many of those
authors : I will only notice one, the love of glory ; that
is, the desire of being distinguished, admired, and praised.
No one will think of such a thing as bringing the
Christian laws in absolute prohibition of our desire to
possess the favourable opinion of our fellow men. In
the first place, a material portion of human happiness
depends on the attachment of relations and friends, and
it is right for a man to wish for the happiness resulting
from such attachment. And since the degree in which
he will obtain it, must depend very much on the higher
or lower estimate which these persons entertain of his
qualities and abilities, it is right for him to wish, while
he endeavours to deserve, that their estimate may be
high, in order that he may enjoy a large share of their
affection.
In the next place, it is too plain to be worth an
observation, that if it were possible for a man to desire
the respect and admiration of mankind purely as a mean
of giving a greater efficacy to his efforts for their welfare,
and for the promotion of the cause of heaven, while he
would be equally gratified that any other man, in whoso
bands this mean would have exactly the same effect,
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 319
snould obtain the admiration instead of himself, tlii*
would be something eminently more than innocent ; it
would be the apotheosis of a passion which in its ordi-
nary quality deserves no better denomination than vanity.
But where is the example ?
In the third place, as the Creator has included this
desire in the essential constitution of our nature, he
intended its gratification, in some limited degree, to be
a direct and immediate cause of pleasure. The good
opinion of mankind, expressed in praise, or indicated
by any other signs, pleases us by a law of the same
order as that which constitutes mutual affection a
pleasure, or that which is the cause that we are gratified
by music, or the beauties and gales of spring. The in-
dulgence of this desire is thus authorized, to a certain
extent, by its appointment to be a source of pleasure.
But to what extent ? It is notorious that this desire
has, if I may so express it, an immense voracity. It has
within itself no natural principle of limitation, since it
is incapable of being gratified to satiety. A whole con-
tinent applauding or admiring has not satisfied somo
men's avarice of what they called glory. To what extent,
I repeat, may the desire be indulged ? Evidently not
beyond that point where it begins to introduce its evil
accessories, envy, or ungenerous competition, or re-
sentful mortification, or disdainful comparison, or self-
idolatry. But I appeal to each man who has deeply
reflected on himself, or observed those around him,
whether this desire under even a considerably limited
degree of indulgence be not very apt to introduce some
of these accessories ; and whether, in order to preclude
them from his own mind, he have not at times felt it
necessary to impose on this desire a restraint almost as
unqualified as if he had been aiming to suppress it alto-
gether. In wishing to prohibit an eascess of its indulgence,
320 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
he has perceived that even what had seemed to him a
small degree has amounted, or powerfully tended, to
that excess except when the desire has been operating
under the kindly and approved modification, of seeking
to engage the affection of relations or a few friends.
The measure therefore of this passion, compatible with
the best condition of the mind, will be found to be
exceedingly limited.
Again, the desire cannot be cherished without be-
coming a motive of action exactly in the degree in
which it is cherished. Now if the most authoritative
among a good man's motives of action must be the
wish to please God, it is evident that the passion which
supplies another motive, ought not to be allowed in a
degree that will empower the motive thus put in force
to contest, in the mind, the supremacy of the pious
motive. But here, again, I appeal to the reflective man
of conscience, whether he have not found that the desire
of human applause, indulged in only such a degree as
he had not, for a while, suspected of being immoderate,
may be a motive strong enough not only to maintain a
rivalry with what should be the supreme motive, but
absolutely to prevail over it. In each pursuit or per-
formance in which he has excelled, or endeavoured to
excel, has he not sometimes been forced to observe,
with indignant grief, that his thoughts much more
promptly adverted to human praise, than to divine
approbation ? And when he has been able in some
measure to repress the passion, has he not found that
a slight stimulus was competent to restore its impious
ascendency ? Now what is it that should follow from
these observations ? What can it be, as a general
inference, but plainly this, that though the desire ol
human applause, if it could be a calm, closely limited,
ind subordinate feeling, would be consistent with chris-
fO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 321
tian virtue ; yet, since it so mightily tends to an excess,
destructive of the very essence of that virtue, it ought,
(excepting in the cases where human estimation is
sought as a mean toward some valuable end,) to be
opposed and repressed in a manner NOT MUCH LESS
general and unconditional than if it were purely evil ?
The special inference, available to the design of this
essay, is, that so much of our literature as, on the con-
trary, tends to animate the passion with new force, is>
most pernicious.
These assertions are certainly in the spirit of the
New Testament, which, not exacting a total extinction
of the love of human applause, yet alludes to most of
its operations with censure, exhibits, probably, no ap-
proved instance of its indulgence, and abounds with em-
phatically cogent representations, both of its pernicious
influence when it predominates, and of its powerful
tendency to acquire the predominance. The honest
disciple of that divine school, being at the same time a
self-observer, will be convinced that the degree beyond
which the passion is not tolerated by the Christian law,
is a degree which it will be sure to reach and to exceed
in his mind in suite of the most systematical opposition.
The most resolute and persevering repression will still
leave so much of this passion as Christianity will pro-
nounce a fault or a vice. He will be anxious to assemble,
in aid of the repressive discipline, all the arguments of
reason, all striking examples, and all the interdictions
of the Bible.
Now I think I cannot be mistaken in asserting, that
a great majority of our fine writers have gone directly
counter to any such doctrine and discipline. No advo-
cate will venture to deny, that they have commended
and instigated the love of applause, of fame, of glory,
or whatever it may be called, in a degree which, if the
T
322 ON THE AVFRSION OF MEN OF TASTE
preceding representation be just, places them in pointed
ho tility to the Christian religion. Sometimes, indeed,
when it was the planetary hour for high philosophy, or
when they were in a splenetic mood, occasioned perhaps
by some chagrin of disappointed vanity, they have ac-
knowledged, and even very rhetorically exposed, the
inanity of this same glory. Most of our ingenious
authors have, in one place or another, been moral or
satirical at the expense of what Pope so aptly deno-
minates the " fool to fame." They perceived the truth,
but as the truth did not make them free, they were
willing after all to dignify a passion to which they felt
themselves irretrievable slaves. And they have laboured
to do it by celebrating, with every splendid epithet, the
men who were impelled by this passion through the
career in which they were the idols of servile mankind
and their own; by describing glory as the best incentive
to noble actions, and their worthiest reward; by placing
the temple of Virtue (proud station of the goddess) in the
situation to be a mere introduction to that of Fame ; by
lamenting that so few, and th^ir unfortunate selves not
of the number, can " climb the steep where that proud
temple shines afar :" and by intimating a charge of
meanness of spirit against those, who have no generous
ardour to distinguish themselves from the crowd, by
Jeeds calculated and designed to pitch them aloft in
gazing admiration. If sometimes the ungracious recol-
lection strikes them, and seems likely to strike their
readers, that this admiration is provokingly capricious
and perverse, since men have gained it without rightful
claims, and lost it without demerit, and since all kinds
of fools have offered the incense to all kinds of villains,
they escape from the disgust and from the benefit of
this recollection by saying, that it is honourable fame
that noble spirits seek ; for they despise the ignoraut
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 323
multitude, and seek applause ty none but worthy
actions, and from none but worthy judges. Almost
every one of these writers will sometimes, perhaps,
advert to the approbation of the Supreme Being, as
what wise and good men will value most ; but such
an occasional acknowledgment feebly counteracts the
effect of many glowing sentiments and descriptions of
a contrary tendency. If this be a correct animad-
version on our popular fine writers, there can be no
question whether they be likely to animate their readers
with Christian motives of action.
I vrill remark only on one particular more, namely,
the culpable license, careless, if not sometimes malig-
nant, taken by the lighter order of these writers, and
by some even of the graver, in their manner of ridi-
culing the cant and extravagance by which hypocrisy,
fanaticism, or the peculiarities of a sect or a period,
may have disgraced or falsified Christian doctrines.
Sometimes, indeed, they have selected and burlesqued
modes of expression which were not cant, and which
ignorance and impiety alone would have dared to ridi-
cule. And often, in exposing to contempt the follies
of notion or language or manners, by which a Christian
of good taste deplores that the profession of the gospel
should ever have been deformed, they take not the
smallest care to preserve a clear separation between
vhat taste and sense have a right to explode, and what
piety bids to reverence. By this criminal carelessness,
(to give it no stronger denomination,) they have fixed
repulsive and irreverent associations on the evangelical
truth itself, for which many persons, when afterwards
they have yielded their faith and affection to that truth,
have had cause to wish that certain volumes had goi.e
into the fire, instead of coining into their hands. Many
if 2
34- ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
others, who have not thus become its converts, retain the
bad impression unabated, and cherish the disgust. Gay
writers ought to know that this is dangerous ground.
I am sorry that this extended censure on works of
genius and taste could not be prosecuted with a more
marked application, and with more discriminative re-
ferences than the continual repetition of the expressions,
" elegant literature," and " these writers." It might be
a service of some value to the evangelical cause, if a
work were written containing a faithful estimate, indi-
vidually, of the most popular writers of the last century
and a half, in respect to the important subject of these
comments ; with formal citations from some of their
works, and a candid statement of the general tendency
of others. In an essay like this it is impossible to
make an enumeration of names, or pass a judgment,
except in a very cursory manner, on any particular
author. Even the several classes of authors, which I
mentioned some time back, as coming under the accu-
sation, shall detain you but a short time.
The Moral Philosophers for -the most part seem
anxious to avoid every thing that might render them
liable to be mistaken for Christian Divines. They regard
their department as a science complete in itself; and
they investigate the foundation of morality, define its
laws, and affix its sanctions, in a manner generally so
much apart from Christianity, that the reader would
almost conclude that religion to be another science
complete in itself.* An entire separation, it is true,
When it happens sometimes, that a moral topic hardly can be dis-
posed of without some recognition of its involving, or being intimately
connected with, a theological doctrine, it is curious to notice, with what
an air of indifference, somewhat partaking of contempt, one of thest
writers will observe, that that view of the matter is the business of the
Jivines, with whose department he does not r *etend to interfere.
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 325
cannot well be preserved ; since Christianity has decided
some moral questions on which reason was dubious or
silent ; and since that final retribution, which the New
Testament has so luminously foreshown, brings evi-
dently the greatest of sanctions. To make no reference
in the course of inculcating moral principles, to a
judgment to come, if there be an understood admission
that it is actually revealed, would look like systematic
irreligion. But still it is striking to observe how small
a portion of the ideas, (relative to this and other points
of the greatest moral interest,) which distinguish the
New Testament from other books, many moral philo-
sophers have thought indispensable to a theory in which
they professed to include the sum of the duty and
interests of man. A serious reader is constrained to
feel that either there is too much in that book, or too
little in theirs. He will perceive that, in the inspired
book, the moral principles are intimately interwoven
with all those doctrines which could not have been
known but through revelation. He will find also in
this superior book, a vast number of ideas avowedly
designed to interest the affections in favour of all moral
principles and virtues. The " quickening spirit," thus
breathed among what might else be dry and lifeless, is
drawn from considerations of the divine mercy, the
compassion of the Redeemer, the assurance of aid from
heaven in the difficult strife to be what the best prin-
ciples prescribe, the relationship subsisting between
good men on earth and those who are departed ; and
other kindred topics, quite out of the range to which
the mere moral preceptors appear to hold themselves
limited. The system of morals, as placed in the tem-
perature of such considerations, has the character and
effect of a different zone. Thus, while any given virtue,
equally prescribed in the treatise of the moral philo-
326 ON THE AVE11SION OP MEN OF TASTE
sopher and the Christian code, would in mere definition
be the same in both, the manner in which it bears on
the heart and conscience must be greatly different.
It is another difference also of momentous conse-
quence, if it be found that the Christian doctrine declares
the virtues of a good man not to be the cause of his
acceptance with God, and that the philosophic moralists
disclaim any other On the whole it must be concluded,
that there cannot but be something very defective in
that theory of morality which makes so slight an ac-
knowledgment of the religion of Christ, and takes so
little of its peculiar character. The philosophers place
the religion in the relation of a diminutive satellite to
the sphere of moral interests ; useful as throwing a few
rays on that side of it on which the solar light of human
wisdom could not directly shine ; but that it can impart
a vital warmth, or claims to be acknowledged paramount
in dignity and influence, some of them seem not to have
a suspicion.
No doubt, innumerable reasonings and conclusions
may be advanced on moral subjects which shall be true
on a foundation of their own, equally in the presence
of the evangelical system and in its absence. Inde-
pendently of that system, it were easy to illustrate
the utility of virtue, the dignity which it confers on a
rational being, its accordance to the "reason and fitness
of things," its conformity and analogy to much of what
may be discerned in the order of the universe. It
would also have been easy to pass from virtue in the
abstract, into an illustration and enforcement of the
several distinct virtues, as arranged in a practical
system. And if it should be asked, Why may not some
writers employ their speculations on those parts and
views of moral truth which are thus independent of the
gospel, leaving it to other men to christianize the whole
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. S27
by the addition of the evangelical relations, motives,
and conditions ? I readily answer, that this may some-
times very properly be done. An author may render
good service by demonstrating, for instance, the utility
of virtue in general, or of any particular virtue, as
shown in its effect on the prosperity of states, of smaller
communities, and of individuals ; in its conduciveness
to health, mental tranquillity, social confidence, and the
like. In doing this, he would expressly take a marked
ground, and aim at a specific object. He would not
(or should not) let it be imagined for a moment that
such particular views embrace all that is of essential
interest in the reasons and relations of moral rectitude.
It would be plainly understood that other conside-
rations, of the highest importance, recognising, in all
our obligations to virtue, our relations with God, with
a spiritual economy, with a future life, are indispensable
to a complete moral theory. But the charge against
the moral philosophers is meant to be applied to those
who, not professing to have any such specific and
limited scope, but assuming the office of moralist in its
most comprehensive character, and making themselves
responsible as teachers of virtue in its whole extent,
have yet quite forgotten the vital implication of ethical
with evangelical truth.
When I mention our Historians, it will instantly
occur to you, that the very foremost names in this
department import every thing that is deadly to the
Christian religion itself, as a divine communication, and
therefore lie under a condemnation of a different kind.
But may not many others, who would have repelled the
imputation of being enemies to the Christian cause, be
arraigned of having forgotten what was due from its
friends ? The historian intends his work to have the
328 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
effect of a series of moral estimates of the persons whose
actions he records ; now, if he believes that a Judge
if the world will come at length, and pronounce on the
tery characters that his work adjudges, it is one of the
plainest dictates of good sense, that all the awards of the
historian should be faithfully coincident with the judg-
ments which may be expected ultimately from that
supreme authority. Those distinctions of character
which tho historian applauds as virtues, or censures
as vices, should be exactly the same qualities, which
the language already heard from that Judge certifies us
that he will approve or condemn. It is worse than
foolish to erect a literary court of morals and human
character, of which the maxims, the language, the
decisions, and the judges, will be equally the objects
of contempt before Him, whose intelligence will in-
stantly distinguish and place in light the right and the
wrong of all time. What a wretched abasement will
overwhelm on that day some of the pompous historians,
who were called by others, and accounted by themselves,
the high authoritative censors of an age, and whose
verdict was to fix on each name perpetual honour or
infamy, if they shall find many of the questions and the
decisions of that tribunal proceed on principles which
they would have been ashamed to apply, or never took
the trouble to understand ! How will they be con-
founded, if some of the men whom they had extolled,
are consigned to ignominy, and some that they had
despised, are applauded by the voice at which the world
will tremble and be silent ! But such a sad humiliation
may, I think, be apprehended for many of the historians,
by every serious Christian reader who shall take the hint
of this subject along with him through their works. He
will not seldom feel that the writers seem uninformed,
while they remark and decide on actions aurt characters
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 329
that a final Lawgiver has come from heaven, or that he
will come, or on what account he will come, yet once
more. Their very diction often abjures the plain Chris-
tian denominations of good and evil ; nor do I need to
recount the specious and fallacious terms which they
have employed in their place. How then can a mind
which learns to think in their manner, learn at the same
time to think in his from whom it will, however, be
found no light matter to have dissented, when his judg-
ment shall be declared for the last time in this world ?
The various interesting sets of short Essays, with the
Spectator and Rambler at their head, must have had a
very considerable influence, during a season at least,
and not yet entirely extinct, on the moral taste of the
public. Perhaps, however, it is too late in the day for
any interest to be taken in religious animadversions
which might with propriety have been ventured upon
the Spectator, when it was the general and familiar
favourite with the reading portion of the community.*
A work of such wide compass, and avowedly assuming
the office of guardian and teacher of all good principles,
gave fair opportunities for a Christian writer to in-
Within the thirty or forty years antecedent to the date of the
present edition, and even within the shorter interval since the slight
remarks in the text were written, there has been a surprising change
in the tone of our literature, and in the public taste which it both
consults and forms. The smooth elegance, the gentle graces, the
amusing, easy, and not deep current of sentiment, of which Addison
is our finest example, have come to be regarded as languid, and
almost insipid ; and the passion is for force, energy, bold develope-
ment of principles, and every kind of high stimulus. This has been
the inevitable accompaniment of the prodigious commotion in the
state of the world, the rousing of the general mind from its long
lethargy, to an activity and an exertion of power which nothing can
quell, which is destined to a continually augmenting operation till
the condition of the world be changed. This new spirit of our lite-
330 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
troduce, excepting what is strictly termed science, a
little of every subject affecting the condition and
happiness of men. Why then was it fated that the
stupendous circumstance of the redemption by the
Messiah, of which the importance is commensurate
with the whole interests of man, with the value of his
immortal spirit, with the government of his Creator in
this world, and with the happiness of eternity, should
not a few times, in the long course and extensive moral
jurisdiction of that work, be set forth in the most
explicit, uncompromising, and solemn manner, in the
full asnect and importance whic'h it bears in the chris-
tian revelation, with the directness and emphasis of
apostolic fidelity ? Why should not a few of the most pe-
culiar of the doctrines, comprehended in the primary one
of salvation by the Mediator, have been clothed with
the fascinating elegance of Addison, from whose pen
many persons would have received an occasional evan-
gelical lesson with incomparably more candour than
from any professed divine ? A pious and benevolent
man, such as the avowed advocate of Christianity ought to
be, should not have been contented that so many thou-
sands of minds as his writings were adapted to instruct
rature is a great advantage gained; but gained at a grievous cost:
for we have in its train an immense quantity of affectation : all sorts
and sizes of authors must be aiming at vigour, point, bold strokes,
originality. The consequence is, an ample exhibition of contortion,
tricks of surprise, paradox, headlong dash, factitious fulmination,
and turgid inanity. In some of the grossest instances, this ape of
mental force and freedom stares and swaggers, and spouts a half-
drunken rant. One wonders to see how much even some of the
ablest among the writers of the present times have gone into the bad
fashion, have discarded the masculine simplicity so graceful to in-
tellectual power, and spoiled compositions admirable for vigorous
thinking by a continual affectation, which carries them along in a
dashing capering sort of style, as if determined that the '' mnrrJ of
intellect'' shall be a dance to a fiddle.
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 33)
and to charm, should have been left, for any thing that he
very unequivocally attempted to the contrary in his most
popular works, to end a life which he had contributed to
refine, acquainted but slightly with the grand security
of happiness after death. Or if it could not be deemed
his duty to introduce in a formal manner any of the
most specifically evangelical subjects, it might at least
have been expected, that some of the many serious
essays scattered through the Spectator should have
more of a Christian strain, more recognition of the
great oracle, in the speculations concerning the Deity,
and the gravest moral subjects. There might, without
hazard of symbolizing with the dreaded fanaticism of
the preceding age, have been more assimilation of what
may be called, as it now stands, a literary fashion of
religion, to the spirit of the New Testament. From
him also," as a kind of dictator among the elegant
writers of the age, it might have been expected that he
would set himself, with the same decision and virtuous
indignation which he made his Cato display against the
betrayers of Roman liberty and laws, to denounce that
ridicule which has wounded religion by a careless or
by a crafty manner of holding up its abuses to scorn :
but of this impropriety (to use an accommodating term,)
the Spectator itself is not free from examples.
Addison wrote a book expressly in defence of the
religion of Christ ; but to be the dignified advocate of
a cause, and to be its humble disciple, may be very
different things. An advocate has a feeling of making
himself important; he seems to confer something on
the cause ; but as a disciple, he must surrender to feel
littleness, humility, and submission. Self-importance
might find more to gratify it in becoming the patron of a
beggar, than the servant of a potentate. Addison was,
moreover, very unfoitunate, for any thing like justice to
332 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
genuine Christianity, in the class of persons with whom
he associated, and among whom he did not hold his
pre-eminence by any such imperial tenure, as could make
him careless of the policy of pleasing them by a general
conformity of sentiment One can imagine with what
a perfect storm of ridicule he would have been greeted,
on entering one of his celebrated coffee-houses of wits
on the day after he should have published in the Spec-
tator a paper, for instance, on the necessity of being
devoted to the service of Jesus Christ. The friendship
of the world ought to be a " pearl of great price," for
its cost is very serious.
The powerful and lofty spirit of Johnson was far
more capable of scorning the ridicule, and defying the
opposition, of wits and worldlings. And yet his social
life must have been greatly unfavourable to a deep and
simple consideration of Christian truth, and the cul-
tivation of Christian sentiment. Might not even his
imposing and unchallenged ascendency itself betray
him to admit, insensibly, an injurious influence on his
mind ? He associated with men of whom many were
very learned, some extremely able, but comparatively
few made any decided profession of piety ; and perhaps
a considerable number were such as would in other
society have shown a strong propensity to irreligion.
This however dared not to appear undisguisedly in
Johnson's presence ; and it is impossible not to revere
the strength and noble severity that made it so cautious.
But this constrained abstinence from overt irreligion had
the effect of preventing the repugnance of his ju'lg-
ment and religious feelings to the frequent society of
men from whom he would have recoiled, if the real
temper of their minds, in regard to the most important
subjects, had been unreservedly forced on his view.
Decorum toward religion being preserved, he would
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 333
take no rigorously judicial account of the internal
character of those who brought so finely into play his
mental powers and resources, in conversations on lite-
rature, moral philosophy, and general intelligence ; and
who could enrich every matter of social argument
by their learning, their genius, or their knowledge of
mankind. But if, while every thing unequivocally
hostile to Christianity was kept silent in his company,
there was nevertheless a latent impiety in possession of
the heart, it would inevitably, however unobviously,
infuse something of its spirit into the communications
of such men. And, through the complacency which
he felt in the high intellectual intercourse, some in-
fection of the noxious element would insinuate its
way into his own ideas and feelings. For it is hardly
possible for the strongest and most vigilant mind, under
the genial influence of eloquence, fancy, novelty, and
bright intelligence, interchanged in amicable collision,
to avoid admitting some effluvia (if I may so express
it) breathing from the most interior quality of such
associates, and tending to produce an insensible assimi-
lation ; especially if there should happen to be, in ad-
dition, a conciliating exterior of accomplishment, grace,
and liberal manners. Thus the very predominance by
which Johnson could repress the direct irreligion of
statesmen, scholars, wits, and accomplished men of
the world, might, by retaining him their intimate or
frequent associate, subject him to meet the influence of
that irreligion acting in a manner too indirect and
refined to excite either hostility or caution.
But indeed if his caution was excited, there might
still be a possibility of self-deception in the case. The
great achievement and conscious merit of upholding,
by his authority, a certain standard of good principles
among such men, and compelling an acquiescence a.
534 ON T THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
least, wherever he was present, might tend to make
himself feel satisfied with that order of sentiments,
though materially lower than the standard which his
conscientious judgment must have adopted, if he had
formed it under the advantage of long and thoughtful
retirement and exemption from the influence of such
associates. It would be difficult for him to confess to
himself that what was high enough for a repressive
domination over impiety, might yet be below the level
of true Christianity. It is hard for a man to suspect
himself deficient in that very thing in which he not
only excels other men, but mends them. Nothing can
well be more unfortunate for Christian attainments, evew
in point of right judgment, than to be habitually in
society where a man will feel as if he held a saintly
eminence of character in merely securing a decent
neutrality, or a semblance of slight partial assent, in
other words a forbearance of hostility, to that divine
law of faith and morals, which is set up over that society
and all mankind, as the grand distinguisher between
those who are in light and those who are in darkness,
those who are approved and those who are condemned ;
and which has been sent on eartli with a demand, not
of this worthless non-aggression, but of cordial entire
addiction and devoted zeal.
If there be any truth in the representations which
make so large a part of this essay, Johnson's continual
immersion in what is denominated polite literature, must
have subjected him to the utmost action and pervasion
of an influence of which the antichristian effect cannot
be neutralized, without a more careful study than we
have reason to believe he gave, or even had time to give,
to the doctrine of religion as a distinct independent
subject.
It must however be admitted that this illustrious
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 355
author, who, though here mentioned only in the class
of essayists, is to be ranked among the greatest moral
philosophers, is less at variance with the essentials of
the Christian economy, than the very great majority of
either of these classes of authors. His speculations
tend in a far less degree to beguile the approving and
admiring reader into a spirit, which feels repelled in
estrangement and disgust on turning to the instructions
of Christ and his apostles ; and he has more explicit
and solemn references to the grand purpose of human
life, to a future judgment, and to eternity, than almost
any other of our elegant moralists has had the piety
or the courage to make. There is so much that most
powerfully coincides and cooperates with Christian
truth, that the disciple of Christianity the more regrets
to meet occasionally a sentiment, respecting, perhaps,
the rule to judge by in the review of life, the con-
solations in death, the effect of repentance, or the terms
of acceptance with God, which he cannot reconcile with
the evangelical theory, nor with those principles of
Christian faith in which Johnson avowed his belief. In
such a writer he cannot but deem si'ch deviations a
matter of grave culpability.
Omission is his other fault. Though he did introduce
in his serious speculations more distinct allusions to
religious ideas, than most other moralists, yet he did
not introduce them so often as may be claimed from a
writer who frequently carries seriousness to the utmost
pitch of solemnity. There scarcely ever was an author,
not formally theological, in whose works a large pro-
portion of explicit Christian sentiment was more re-
quisite for a consistent entireness of character, than in
the moral writings of Johnson. No writer ever more
completely exposed and blasted the folly and vanity of
the greatest number of human pursuits. The visage
33t) ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
of Medusa could not have darted a more fatal glance
against the tribe of gay tritters, the competitors of
ambition, the proud exhibitors in the parade of wealth,
the rhapsodists on the sufficiency of what they call phi-
losophy for happiness, the grave consumers of life in
useless speculations, and every other order of " walkers
in a vain show." His judicial sentence is directed, as
with a keen and mephitic blast, on almost all the most
favourite pursuits of mankind. But it was so much
the more peculiarly his duty to insist, with fulness and
emphasis, on that one model of character, that one
grand employment of life, which is enjoined by heaven,
and will stand the test of that unshrinking severity of
judgment, which should be exercised by every one who
looks forward to the test which he is finally to abide.
No author has more impressively displayed the misery
of human life ; he laid himself under so much the
stronger obligation to unfold most explicitly the only
effectual consolations, the true scheme of felicity as far
as it is attainable on earth, and that delightful prospect
of a better region, which has so often inspired exultation
in the most melancholy situations. No writer has more
expressively illustrated the rapidity of time, and the
shortness of life ; he ought so much the more fully to
have dwelt on the views of that great futurity at which
his readers are admonished by the illustration that they
will speedily arrive. No writer can make more poignant
reflections on the pains of guilt ; was it not indispen-
sable that he should oftener have directed the mind
suffering this bitterest kind of distress to that great
sacrifice once offered for sin ? No writer represents
with more striking, mortifying, humiliating truth the
failure of human resolutions, and the feebleness of
human efforts, in the contest with corrupt propensity,
evil habit, and adapted temptation ; why did not this
TO EVANGELICAL RELiGIOtf. 33
melancholy observation a*id experience prompt a very
frequent recollection, and emphatical expression of the
importance of that assistance from on high, without
which the divine word has so often repeated the warning
that our labours will fail ?
In extending the censure to the Poets, it is gratifying
to meet an exception in the most elevated of all their
tribe. Milton's consecrated genius might harmoniously
have mingled with the angels that announced the
Messiah to be come, or that, on the spot and at the
moment of his departure, predicted his coming again ;
might have shamed to silence the muses of paganism ;
or softened the pains of a Christian martyr. Part of
the poetical works of Young, those of Watts, and of
Cowper, have placed them among the permanent bene-
factors of mankind ; as owing to them there is a
popular poetry in the true spirit of Christianity ; a
poetry which has imparted, and is destined to impart,
the best sentiments to innumerable minds. Works of
great poetical genius u*at should be thus faithful to true
religion, might be regarded as trees by the side of that
" river of the water of life," having in their fruit ana.
foliage a virtue to contribute to " the healing of the
nations." But on the supposition that there were a
man sufficiently discerning, impartial, and indefatigable
for a research throughout the general body of our
poetical literature, it would be curious to see what kiud
of religious system, and what account of the state of
man, as viewed under moral estimate, and in relation
to the future destiny, would be afforded by a digested
assemblage of all the most marked sentiments, supplied
by the vast majority of the poets, for such a scheme of
moral and religious doctrine. But if it would bfl
exceedingly amusing to observe the process aiid the
z
838 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE
fantastic result, it would in the next place be very ui
to consider, that these fallacies have been insinuated by
the charms of poetry into countless thousands of minds,
with a beguilement that has, first, diverted them from
a serious attention to the gospel, then confirmed them
Jn a habitual dislike of it, and finally operated to betray
some of them to the doom which, beyond the grave,
awaits the neglect or rejection of the religion of Christ.
You have probably seen Pope cited as a Christian
poet, by some pious authors, whose anxiety to impress
reluctant genius into an appearance of favouring Chris-
tianity, has credulously seized on any occasional verse,
which seemed an echo of the sacred doctrines. No
reader can exceed me in admiring the discriminative
thought, the shrewd moral observation, the finished
and felicitous execution, and the galaxy of poetical
beauties, which combine to give a peculiar lustre to the
writings of Pope. But I cannot refuse to perceive,
that almost every allusion in his lighter works to the
names, the facts, and the topics, that specially belong
to the religion of Christ, is in a style and spirit of
profane banter ; and that, in most of his graver ones,
where he meant to be dignified, he took the utmost
care to divest his thoughts of all the mean vulgarity
of Christian associations. " Off, ye profane I " might
seem to have been his signal to all evangelical ideas,
when he began his Essay on Man ; and they were
obedient, and fled ; for if you detach the detail and
illustrations, so as to lay bare the outline and general
principles of the work, it will stand confest an elaborate
attempt to redeem the whole theory of the condition
and interests of man, both in life and death, from all
the explanations imposed on it by an unphilosophical
revelation from heaven. And in the happy riddance
of this despised though celestial light, it exhibits a sort
TO EVANGELICAL RZLIGIOW. 339
of moon-light vision, of thin impalpable abstraction,
at which a speculatist may gaze, with a dubious wonder
whether they be realities or phantoms ; but which a
practical man will in vain try to seize and turn to
account ; and which an evangelical man will disdain to
accept in exchange for those forms of truth which his
religion brings to him as real living friends, instructors,
and consolers ; which present themselves to him, at his
return from a profitless adventure in that shadowy
dreary region, with an effect like that of meeting the
countenances of his affectionate domestic associates,
on his awaking from the fantastic succession of vain
efforts and perplexities, among strange objects, incidents,
and people, in a bewildering dream. But what defe-
rence to Christianity was to be expected, when such a
man as Bolingbroke was the genius whose imparted
splendour was to illuminate, and the demigod* whose
approbation was to crown, the labours which, accord-
ing to the wish and presentiment of the poet, were to
conjoin these two venerable names in endless fame ?
I it be said for some parts of these dim speculations,
that though Christianity comes forward as the practical
dispensation of truth, yet there must be, in remote
abstraction behind, some grand, ultimate, elementary
truths, which this dispensation does not recognise, but
even intercepts from our view by a system of less re-
fined elements, in which doctrines of a more contracted,
palpable, and popular form, of comparatively local
purport and relation, are imposed in substitution for
the higher and more general and abstracted truths I
answer, And what did the poet, or " the master of the
poet and the song," know about those truths, and how
did they come by their information.
* He is so named somewhere in Pope's Works.
340 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE.
A serious observer must acknowledge with regiet,
tht.t such a class of productions as novels, in which
fo ly has tried to please in a greater number of shapes
that the poet enumerates in the Paradise of Fools, is
capable of producing a very considerable effect on the
moral taste of the community. A large proportion of
them however are j robably of too slight and \nsipid a
consistence to have any more specific counteraction to
Christian principles than that of mere folly in general ;
excepting indeed that the most flimsy of them will occa-
sionally contribute their mite of mischief, by alluding
to a Christian profession, in a manner that identifies it
with the cant by which hypocrites have aped it, or the
extravagance with which fanatics have inflated or dis-
torted it. But a great and direct force of counterf.cting
influence is emitted from those, which eloquently display
characters of eminent vigour and virtue, when it is a
virtue having no basis in religion ; a factitious thing
resulting from the mixture of dignified pride with
generous feeling ; or constituted of those philosophical
principles which are too often accompanied, in these
works, by an avowed or strongly intimated contempt
of the interference of any religion, especially the Chris-
tian. If the case is mended in some of these productions
into which an awkward religion has found its way, it is
rather because the characters excite less interest of any
kind, than because any which they do excite is favour-
able to religion. No reader is likely to be impressed
with the dignity of being a Christian by seeing, in one
of these works, an attempt to combine that character
with the fine gentleman, by means of a most ludicrous
apparatus of amusements and sacraments, churches and
theatres, morning-prayers and evening-balls. Nor will
it perhaps be of any great service to the Christian
cause, that some others of them profess to exemplify
TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 341
aud defend, against the cavils and scorn of infidels, a
religion of which it does not appear that the writers
would have discovered the merits, had it not been
established by law. One may doubt whether any one
will be more than amused by the venerable priest, who
is introduced probably among libertine lords and giddy
girls, to maintain the sanctity of terms, and attempt
the illustration of doctrines, which these well-meaning
writers do not perceive thai the worthy gentleman's
college, diocesan, and library, have but very imperfectly
enabled him to understand. If the reader even wished
to be more than amused, it is easy to imagine how much
he would be likely to be instructed and affected, by
such an illustration or defence of the Christian religion,
as the writer of a fashionable novel would deem a
graceful or admissible expedient for filling up his plot.
One cannot close such a review of our fine writers
without melancholy reflections. That cause which will
raise all its zealous friends to a sublime eminence on
the last and most solemn day the world has to behold,
and will make them great for ever, presented its claims
full in sight of each of these authors in his time. The
very lowest of those claims could not be less than a
conscientious solicitude to beware of every thing that
could in any point injure the sacred cause. This claim
has been slighted by so many as have lent attraction to
an order of moral sentiments greatly discordant with
its principles. And so many are gone into eternity
under the charge of having employed their genius, as
the magicians their enchantments against Moses, to
counteract the Saviour of the world.
Under what restrictions, then, ought the study of
polite literature to be conducted ? I cannot but have
foreseen that this question must return at the end of
these observations ; and I am sorry to have no better
I ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTJ?, &C.
answer to give than before, when the question came in
the way, inconveniently enough, to perplex the con
elusion to be drawn from the considerations on the
tendency of the classical literature. Polite literature
will necessarily continue to be a large department of
the grand school of intellectual and moral cultivation.
The evils therefore which it may contain, will as cer-
tainly affect in some degree the minds of the successive
pupils, and teachers also, as the hurtful influence of the
climate, or of the seasons, will affect their bodies. To
be thus affected, is a part of the destiny under which
they are born, in a civilized country. It is indispensable
to acquire the advantage ; it is inevitable to incur the
evil. The means of counteraction will amount, it is
to be feared, to no more than palliatives. Nor can
these be proposed in any specific method. All that I
can do, is, to urge on the reader of taste the very
serious duij of continually recalling to his mind, and
if he be a parent or preceptor, of cogently representing
to those he instructs, the real character of religion as
exhibited in the Christian revelation, and the reasons
which command on inviolable adherence to it.
LOWDOH : PRINTKD DT WILLIAM CLOWCS iNI> SONS, L1MI7KD,
DUIK STREET. ST.IXFOKD STBKKT. S^., ARD QKEAT W1XUUIIJ, STItKET, W.
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