THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 'S DUE on the last 
 
 J^- ^-? 
 
 STATE HORMM SGHQQU
 
 DECISION OF CHARACTER 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER ESSAYS 
 
 IN A 
 
 
 By JOHN FOSTER, 
 
 ATTTIIOR OP KSSATB ON " POPITLAR IGNORANCE" AND "THE IJEPROVE- 
 
 2IENT OP TIME." 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 
 
 B30 BROADWAY. 
 
 1882.
 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 Perhais it will be thought that pieces written 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 mtention to put 
 them in print, if, when they were finished, the writer 
 could persuade himself that they deserved it; and 
 the temper of even the most inconsiderable pictenders 
 to literature in these times is too well known for any 
 9ne 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 vol- 
 ume. But he soon found that so narrow a space 
 would exclude many illustrations not less appropriate 
 or useful than any which would be introduced. 
 
 It will not seem a very natural manner of com- 
 mencins a course of letters to a friend, to enter for- 
 mally 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
 
 nr ArVERTISEMENT. 
 
 would be treated in the compass of a moderat<» number 
 of letters, it is omitted, as not being adapted to precede 
 what is executed in a manner so different from the 
 desisfn. 
 
 When writing which has occupied a considerable 
 length, and has been interrupted by (;onsiderable in 
 tervals, of time, which is also on very different sub 
 jects, and was perhaps meditated under the influence 
 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 sepa- 
 rate stages of the progress. On thus bringing the fol- 
 lowing 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 scarcely 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 asserts their ineffi- 
 cacy ; and that therefore there is no 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,) an enlightened and resolute hu- 
 man spirit has great power, this greatness being rela- 
 tive to the measures of things within a small sphere ; 
 while it is equally obvious that this enlightened and
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. ? 
 
 resolute spirit, if disregarding these conditions, and at- 
 tempting to extend its agency over a mucli 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 be- 
 ing forcibly and largely insisted on at one time, and 
 its impotence beyond that limit, at anothe.^ the assem- 
 blage of sentiments and exemplifications mosi adapted 
 to illustrate, (and without real or considerable exagge- 
 ration,) that power alone, will form apparently so 
 strong a contrast with the assemblage of thoughts and 
 facts proper for illustrating that imbecility alone, that 
 on a superficial view the two representations may ap- 
 pear contradictory. The author appeals to the expe- 
 rience of such thinking men as are accustomed to 
 commit their thoughts to writing, whether sometimes, 
 on comparing the pages in which they had endeav 
 cured to place one truth in the strongest light, with 
 those in which they have endeavoured 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 moral subject neces- 
 sarily includes two views which may be considered as 
 its extremes ; and if these ^re strongly stated quite 
 apart from their relations to each other, both the rep- 
 resentations may be perfectly true, and yet may re- 
 quire, in order to the reader's perceiving their con- 
 sistency, a recollection of many intermediate ideas. 
 
 In the fourth essay^ it was not intended to take a 
 comprehensive or systematic view of the causes con- 
 
 !•
 
 Vl ADVERTISEMENT 70 THE NINTH BDITION. 
 
 tributing to prevent the candid attention and the cor 
 dial admission due to evangelical religion, but sim-ply 
 to select a few which had particularly attracted the 
 writer's observation. One or two more would have 
 been specified and slightly illustrated, if the essay had 
 not been already too long. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 TO THE NINTH EDITION. 
 
 As 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 
 Ijind 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 recommenda- 
 tion 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 ca-'eful in- 
 spoctiofi throughout with a view to such an abatement 
 ol' the imperfections of the book, as might make him
 
 ADVERTISEMENT TO THE NINTH EDITION, VU 
 
 decidedly content to let it go without any future re. 
 vision. 
 
 In this operation there has been no attempt at nov- 
 elty beyond such slight changes and diminutive ad- 
 ditions as appeared necessary in order to give a rr,ore 
 exact or full expression of the sense. There is not, 
 probably, more 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 at- 
 tempted to be reformed. In some instances a sentence 
 has been abbreviated, in others a little extended by 
 the insertion of en 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 ob- 
 jected 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 raste, or less stimulated feelings, of 
 advanced life, and given place to a somewhat mode- 
 rated language. The general course of thought is 
 not affected by these minute alteiations: except that,
 
 mi ADVERTISEMENT TO THE NnVTH EDITION. 
 
 (as the writer would persuade himself,) it is 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 them- 
 selves in as defined a form as the writer could give to 
 any of them which had seemed obscure, and ineffec- 
 tive to their object, from the 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 con- 
 ventional 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 
 instruction, 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 I. 
 
 ON A man's writing MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Affectionate interest with which we revert to oar past life— It deserves 
 a brief record for our own use — Very few things to be told of the mul- 
 titude that have occurred — Direction and use of guch a review as 
 would be required for writing a memoir — Importance of our past life 
 considered as the beginning of an endless juration of existence^ 
 General deficiency of self-observation— Oblivion of the greatest num- 
 ber of our past feelings— Occasional glimpses of vivid recollection — 
 Associations with things and places — The different and unknown as- 
 sociations of different persons with the same places. Page 17 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Ail. past life an education — Discipline and influence from — direct instruo 
 tion— companionship — books — scenes oi' nature — and the state of so- 
 ciety . . • . . . . . p. 20 
 
 LETTER IIL 
 
 ery powerful impressions sometimes from particular facts, tending to form 
 discriminated characters — Yet very few strongly discriminated and indi- 
 vidual characters found — Most persons l)elong to general classes of char- 
 acter^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, 
 nevertheless, acquired and maintained, is owing to some one leading 
 determination, given by whatever means, to the mind, generally in early, 
 lite — Common self-deceptive belief that we have maintained moral recti- 
 tude, and the exercise of sound reason, under the impressions that have 
 lieen forming our characters . . . . p.'M 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Host of the influences under which the characters of men are forming un- 
 lavourable to wisdom, virtue, and happiness — Proof of this if a number 
 oi' persons, suppose a hundred, were to give a clear account of the «ii" 
 cumstances that have most effected the state of tlieir minds — A few ex 
 aniples — a misanthropist— a lazy prejudiced thinker — a man fancying him- 
 self a genms — a prwjcctor — an antiquary in excess — a petty tyrant, p. 44 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Ad Atnelst- -Slight sketch of the process by which a man in the humbler 
 order of abilities and attaimnents may become one . . P- M
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER Vr. 
 
 The Influence of Religion counteracted by almost all other influences-* 
 Pensive reflections on the imperfect manifestation of the Supreme Being— 
 on the ineflicacy of the belief of such a being — on the strangeness of 
 that inetficacy — and on the debasement and infelicity consequent on it— 
 Ilapplness-of a derout man . . . . . p. 57 
 
 LETTER VU 
 
 Self-knowledge being supposed the principal object ic 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 read- 
 ers — of a man, for example, of a speculative disposition, who has passed 
 throush many changes of opinion — Influences that warp opinion — Effects 
 of tinre 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" — Rotxsseau . . p. 66 
 
 ESSAY II. 
 
 ON DECISION OP CHARACTER. 
 
 LETTER L 
 
 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. 82 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Brief inquiry into the constituents of this 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 ob- 
 stinacy—Partly founded on experience — Takes a high tone of indepen- 
 dence in devising schemes — Distressing dilemmas . . p. 92 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Biiergy of feeling as necessary as confidence of opinion— Conduct that 
 results from their combination— Effect and value of a ruling nassion— 
 Great decision of character invests even wicked beings with something 
 waich we are tempted to admire— Satan- Zanga— A Spanish aBsassin—
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 Remarkable example of this quality in a man who was a prodigal and 
 became poor, but turned miser and became rich — Howard — Wliitelieid— 
 Christian missionaries ..... p. 100 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 W*arage a chief constitutent of the character — Effect of this in encounter- 
 ing censure and ridicule — Almagro, I'izarro, and Do Luques — nelianceof 
 danger — Luther— Daniel — Another indispensable requisite to decision is 
 the full agreement of all the powers of the mind— Lady Macbeth— 
 
 . Uichard IIL— Cromwell — A father who had the opportunity of saving 
 one of two sons from death . . p. 109 
 
 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. 113 
 
 LETTER VL 
 
 Circumstances tending to consolidate this Character — Opposition — Desertion 
 — Marius — Satan — Charles de Moor — Success has the same tendency — 
 CiEsar — 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 melancholy to consider how many of the most distinguished posses- 
 sors of the quality have been wicked .... p. 123 
 
 ESSAY III. 
 
 ON THE APPLICATION OP THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Cre?^ convenience of having a number of words that will answer the pur- 
 poses of ridicule or roprobation without having any pr(;cise meaning — 
 Puritan — Methodist — .lacobin— The word Romantic of ttii; greatest ser- 
 vice to persons, who. wanting to show their scorn, have not wherewithal 
 in the way of sense or wit— Whenever this epithet is applied, let the 
 exact meaning lie demanded— Does it attribute, to what it is applied to, 
 the kind of absurdity prevalent in the works called Romances I— Thai 
 absurdity was from tlie predominance, in variou; modes, of imagi- 
 nation over judgMKint— Mental character of the early Romance wri- 
 ters — (3ppo«ite character of Cervantes — Delightful, delusive, and mi»
 
 XU CONTENTS. 
 
 ehievous operation of a predominant imagination — Yet desirab.e fa 
 several reasons, that the imagination should have this ascendency ii 
 aarlv life . ... n i^u 
 
 rot 
 
 •arly life . ' . " . . . . "p.'lW 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 One of the modes of this ascendency justly called Romantic, Is, the nn- 
 fuunded persuasion of something peculiar and extraordinary in a person's 
 destiny — This vain expectation may be 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 con- 
 dition of maa 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 extravagant and exclusive passion for what is grand, p. 153 
 
 LETTER IH. 
 
 The epithet applicable to hopes and projects inconsistent with the known 
 relations between ends and means — Reckoning on happy casualties — Mu- 
 sing 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 smallest 
 means into an apparent competence to the greatest ends — This delusive 
 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 about the onmi- 
 potence of truth — Our expectations ought to be limited by what we ac- 
 tually see and know of human nature — Estimate of that nature — Preva- 
 lence of passion and appetite against conviction . . il. 163 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Christianity the grand appointed mean of refonning the world — Buttnongh 
 thje religion itself be a communication from heaven, the administration of 
 it by human agents is to be considered as a merely human mean, except- 
 ing so far as a special divine energy is made to accompany it — Its com- 
 paratively 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 opera- 
 tions, till we see some signs of a great change in the Divine Government 
 of the world — Folly of projects to reform mankind which disclaim Re- 
 ligion — Nothing in human nature to meet and give elfect to the schemes 
 and expedients of the moral revolutionist — Wretched state of that nature 
 — Sample of the absurd estimates of its condition by the irreligious 
 menders of society ...... p. 179 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Melancholy reflections — 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 moi il projectors are so- 
 licitous 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 dependence on subordinate powers and agents — The representa- 
 tions 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 hum!" a thing to be a man 
 —Inculcation of devout su imission, and diligCACe, and prayer — Sublima
 
 CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 quality and indefinite efficacy of this last, as a mean — Conclusion ; 
 briefly jiarlring out a lew general characters of sentiment and action te 
 which, though very uncommon, the epithet Romantic is unjustly ap- 
 plied . . . • • . . . p. 188 
 
 ESSAY IV. 
 
 ON SOME OF THE CAUSES BY WHICH EVANGELICAL RELIGION HIS 
 BEEN RENDERED UNAOrEPTABLE TO PERSONS OF CULTIVATED 
 TASTE. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Nature of the displacency with which some of the mo t peculiar features 
 of Christianity are regarded by many cultivated men, who do not deny 
 or doubt the divine authority of the religion — Brief notice of the term 
 Evangelical ..... .p. 2U0 
 
 LETTER n 
 
 One of the causes of the displacency is, that Christianity, being the relig'i.in 
 of a great number of persons of weak and uncultivated minds, presents 
 its doctrines to the view of men of taste associated with the characteris- 
 tics of those minds ; and though some parts of the religion instantane- 
 ously redeem themselves from that association by their philosophic dig- 
 nity, other parts may require a considerable effort to detach them from it 
 — This easily 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 qnestion 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 fiivonrite 
 notions, and continually 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 lite- 
 rary sense utterly bad — Their complacency in their deficiencies — Their 
 injudicious habits and ceremonies — Their unfortunate metaphors and 
 similes — Suggestion to religious teachers, that they should nol run to its 
 last possible extent the parallel between the pleasures of piety, and those 
 of eating and drinking — Mischief of such practices — Effect of the un- 
 gracious 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 im|ircssion 
 of evangeliciil religion from any thing which he knows to bo inferior to 
 that religion itself as exhibited by the New Testament, and by th; most 
 elevated of its disciples ... . . p. 2U7 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Another cause, th« Peculiarity of Language adopted In religious discourse 
 and writing— (Classical standard of language— The theological devialion 
 from it barbarous — Surprise and perplexity of a sensible heathen forelgnel 
 
 2
 
 AlV CONTENTS. 
 
 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 eniployi»g it- 
 Competence of our language to express all religious ideas without the aid 
 of this uncouth peculiarity— Advantages that would attend the use of 
 'iie language of mere general intelligence, with the addition of an ex- 
 tremely small number of words that may be considered as necessary 
 technical terras in theology .... p. 23C 
 
 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 compo- 
 sition, set in our own com|tosition as something distinct from it and 
 foreign to it— But the biblical phraseology in the Theological Dialect, in- 
 stead of thus appearing in distinct bright points and gems, is modified and 
 mixed up througl out the whole consistence of the diction, so as at once 
 to lose its own v nerable character, and to give a pervading uncouthness, 
 without digni-ty 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 in- 
 struction in some kind of resemblance to that of the Bible, it would not 
 follow that it should be constructed in imitation of the phraseology of an 
 antique version — License to very old theologians to retain in a great de- 
 gree this peculiar dialect — Young ones reconunended to learn to employ 
 in religion the language in which cultivated men talk and write on gen- 
 eral subjects — The vast mass of writing in a comprehensive literary 
 sense bad, on the subjects of evangelical theology, one great cause of the 
 distaste felt by men of intellectual refinement — Several kinds of this bad 
 writing specified ....... p. 250 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 A grand cause of displacency 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 religion — Modern literature intended principally 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. 365 
 
 LETTER VL 
 
 Lucan — 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 aliena- 
 tion of affection and admiration from the former . . p. 280 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 When a communication, declaring the true theory of both religion and 
 morals, was admitted as coming from heaven, it was reasonable to ex 
 pect that, from the time of this revelation to the end of the world, all by 
 whom it was so admitted would be religiouslv careful to maintain, Ui
 
 CONTENTS. XW 
 
 whatever they taught on subjects within its cognizance, a systeaiatic and 
 punctilious conformity to its principles — Absurdity, impiety, and pemi- 
 cions eflect, of disregarding this sovereign claim to conformity— The 
 greatest number of our fine writers have incurred this guilt, and done 
 this misciiief — They arc 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. 291 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 More specific forms of their contrariety to the principles of Revelation— 
 Their o-ood man not a Christian— Contrasted with St. Paul — Their theory 
 of happiness essentially dilferent from the evangelical— Short statement 
 of both— In moralizing on life, they do not habitnally consider, and they 
 prevent their readers from considering, the present state as introduc- 
 tory to another — ^Their consolations for distress, old age, and death, 
 widely dilferent, on the whole, from those which constitute so much of 
 the value of the Gospel — The grandeur and heroism in death, which they 
 have represented with irresistible eloquence, emphatically and perni- 
 ciously opposite to the Christian doctrine and examples of subUmily and 
 happiness in death — Examples from tragedy ... p. 3ffiJ 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 The estimate of the depraved moral condition of human nature is quite 
 ditferent in revelation and polite literature — Consequently, the Redemp- 
 tion by Jesus Christ, which appears with such momentous importance in 
 the one. is, in comparison, a trifle 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 
 to be a duty — Some of the lighter order of our popular writers have aided 
 the counteraction of literature to evangelical religion by careless or ma- 
 lignant ridicule of things associated with it — Brief notice of the several 
 classes of fine writers, as lying under the charge of contributing to alien- 
 ate men of taste fl-om the doctrines and moral spirit of the New Testa- 
 Kent — Moral philosophers — Historians — Essayists — Addison — Johnson— 
 The Poets— Exception in favour of Milton, &c. — Pope — .Antichristian 
 Quality of his Essay on Man — Novels — Melancholy refleclioos on the 
 Bevi«vr— Couclosioc ..... p. 3U4
 
 ESSAY I. 
 
 ON A MAN'S WRITING MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 
 
 LETTER.!. 
 
 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 connex- 
 ion 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 
 so 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 chief impor- 
 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 
 
 •2*
 
 18 ON A man's writing 
 
 affections and passions, we have all accounted our life 
 an inestimable possession which it deserved incessant 
 cares 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 o*" 
 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 can 
 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 
 judge more than one in ten thousand of all his thoughts, 
 sayings, and actions, worthy to be mentioned, if mem- 
 ory were capable of recalling them.* Necessarily a 
 very large portion of what has occupied the successive 
 years of life was of a kind to be utterly useless for a 
 history of it ; 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 be performed, which it would be ridiculous 
 to record. They are a kind of material for the com- 
 mon expenditure and waste of the day. Yet it is often 
 by a derail of this subordinate economy of life, that the 
 
 * An exception may be adn itted for the few individuals whose 
 daily deliberations, discourses and proceedings, affect the interest! 
 of mankijid on a grand scale.
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 19 
 
 worts of fiction, the narratives of age, the journals of 
 travellers, and even grave biographical accounts, are 
 made so unreasonably long. As well might a chron- 
 icle of the coats that a man has worn, with the colour 
 and«date of each, be walled his life, for any important 
 uses of relating 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 cer- 
 tain proportion which may with the most propriety be 
 regarded as the history of the man. What I am rec- 
 ommending is, to follow the order of time, and reduce 
 your recollections, from the earliest period to the pres- 
 ent, 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 prob- 
 ably 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 
 to remain unaltered. With respect to any friend who 
 greatly interests us, we have a curiosity to obtain an 
 • accurate account of the past train of his life and feel- 
 ings : and whatever other reasons there may be for 
 such a wish, it par^ y springs from a consciousness how
 
 'iU ON A man's writing 
 
 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 smalles'. 
 thing rises into consequence when regarded as the 
 commencement of what has advanced, or is advancing 
 into magnificence. The first rude settlement of Rom- 
 ulus 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 kw 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 mo- 
 ments, and I see them assuming the dignity of a com- 
 mencing eternity. In them I have begun, to be that 
 con.«cious existence which I am to be through endless 
 duration ; and I feel a strange emotion of curiosity 
 about this little life, in which I am setting out on such 
 a progress ; I cannot be content without an accurate 
 sketch of the 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 ; and wish if it wei'e possible to retain, 
 as I advance, some clear trace of the whole course of 
 my e.\istence 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
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. SSJ 
 
 learn the influence which this first part of tLe progress 
 will have on the happiness or misery of the next. 
 
 One of the greatest difRcuhies in the way of execu. 
 ting 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 Avhat they feel in the exercise of 
 their faculties on extraneous objects. The vital being, 
 with all its agency and emotions, is so blended and ab- 
 sorbed in these its exterior interests, that it is very rare- 
 ly collected and concentrated in the consciousness of it? 
 own absolute self, so as to be recognised as a thing in- 
 ternal, apart and alone, for its own inspection and 
 knowledge. Men carry their minds as for the most 
 part they carry their watches, content to be ignorant 
 of the con.stitution and action within, and attentive only 
 to the little exterior circle of things, to which the pas- 
 sions, Hke indexes, are pointing. It is surprising to see 
 how little self-knowledge a person not watchfully ob- 
 servant 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 conti- 
 nent, minutely examining its curiosities, and interpret- 
 ing the half-obliterated characters on its monuments, 
 unconscious the while of a process operating on his 
 own mind, to impress or to e^ase characteristics of much 
 more importance to him than all the figured brass or 
 marble that Europe contains. After having explored 
 many a cavern or dark ruinous avenue, he 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, ha\ing neglected 
 those conversations with himself by which his whole 
 mora' being should have been kept continually dis-
 
 22 ON A man's writing 
 
 closed to his view, ho is better qualified perhaps to de« 
 scribe 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 hiid 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 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 discriminately observing us, 
 would speedily, have formed a decided estimate. But 
 unfortunately the mind is generally too much occupiec" 
 by the feeling or the incident itself, to have the slight- 
 est care or consciousness that any thing could be learnt 
 or is disclosed. In very earlj'- youth it is almost in- 
 evitable for it to be thus lost to itself even amidst its 
 own feelings, and the external objects of attention ; hut 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 indi;aied, but have also in a very great degree 
 ceased to remember what they were. We may wonder 
 how 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 
 impression, that we have now nothing distmctly to tell 
 about what once excited our utmost emotion. As to 
 my own mind, I perceive that it is becoming uncertain 
 of the exa;t nature of many feelings of considei-able
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 23 
 
 interest, even of comparatively 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 ac- 
 tive 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 impelled me ; but the feelings them- 
 selves, in their own pure juvenility, cannot be revived 
 so a§ 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 propen- 
 sities 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 in- 
 cident, or heard the conversation, or saw the spectacle, 
 or felt the emotion, which were the first causes or oc- 
 casions of some of the chief permanent tendencies of 
 future life, how little could we think that long after- 
 guards we might be curiously and in vain desirous to 
 investigate those tendencies back to their origin. 
 
 In some occasional states of the mind, we can look 
 back much more clearly, and much further, than at 
 other times. I would advise to seize those short in*
 
 24 ON A man's vvritino 
 
 tervals of illumination which sometimes occur withoui 
 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 circunnstance came suddenly to my 
 mind with a clearness of representation which I was 
 not able to retain to the end of an hour, and which I 
 could not at this instant renew by the strongest effort. 
 I 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 momen- 
 tary 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 very early life shall 
 be so powerfully recalled, as to contract the wide 
 intervening space, by banishing from the view, a little 
 »vhile, all the series of intermediate remembrances ; 
 but when this one object of memory retires again to its 
 remoteness and indifference, and all the others resume 
 their proper places and distances, the retrospect appears 
 'ong. 
 
 Places and things which have an association with 
 anjr of the events or feelings of past life, will greatly 
 assist the recollection of them. A man of strong a»
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 25 
 
 oociations finis memorias 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 Lmguid, 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 haa 
 died, 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 
 if in the evening or the night. No local associations 
 are so impressive, as those of guilt. It may here be ob- 
 served, that as each one has his own separate remem- 
 brances, giving to some places an aspect and a signifi- 
 cance which he alone can perceive, there must be an 
 unknown number of pleasing, or mournful, or dread- 
 ful associations, spread over the scenes inhabited or 
 visited by men. We pass without any awakened con- 
 sciousness 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 
 
 3
 
 26 ON A man's WKITINS 
 
 way, or it may be in the companion who walks along 
 with us. How much there is in a thousand sjois of 
 the earth, that is invisible and silent to all but the coa- 
 scious individual ! 
 
 I hear a voice you cannot hear; 
 I see a hand you cannot see. 
 
 LETTER 11. 
 
 We may regard our past life as, a continued though 
 irregular course of education, through an order, ov 
 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 unthijiLing of 
 any process it was about to undergo, came forward It 
 meet the operation of some or all of the^o pla?tic cir- 
 cumstances. It would be worth while to examiiie in 
 what manner and measure they have n.'fpec'.iyely had 
 their influence on us. 
 
 Few persons can look back to the eail/ period when 
 they were most directly the subjectb of instruction, 
 without a regret for themselves, (which may be ex- 
 tended to the human race.) that the resaJt of instruction, 
 excepting that which leads to evil, Lonrs so small a 
 proportion to its compass and repetifion. Yet so7ne 
 good consequence must follow the dilJ2;ent inculcation 
 of truth and precept on the youthful mind ; and our 
 consciousness of possessing certain adiantages derived 
 from it will be a partial consolation, in the review which 
 will comprise so many proofs of its comparative ineffi- 
 cacy. You can recollect, perhaps, the instructions to 
 which you feel yourself permanently the most indebted, 
 uud some of those which produced the greatest efTect
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 27 
 
 at the time, those which surprised, delighted, or mor- 
 tified you. You can partitilly remember the facility oi 
 difficuhy of understandirg-, the facility or difficulty of 
 believing, and the practical influences 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 be derived from 
 your early experience of the manner of those persons 
 with whose opinions j'ou felt it the most easy and de- 
 lightful 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 be- 
 came, as to your own conduct, an internal authority oi 
 reason and conscience, when you were not under the 
 inspection of tho.se who inculcated them ; and what 
 classes of persons or things around you they contrib- 
 uted to make you di.slike or approve. And you can 
 perhaps imperfectly trace the manner and the particu- 
 lars in which they sometimes aided, or sometimes 
 counteracted, 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 scan^ly 
 tell why, that they have been thousands of times re-
 
 28 ON A man's writing 
 
 called, while innumeralle others have been forgotten ; 
 or they can revert to some striking- incident, coming in 
 aid of instruction, or being of itself a forcible instruc- 
 tion, which they seem even now to see as plainly as 
 when it happened, and of which they will retain a per- 
 fect idea to the end of life. The most remarkable cii- 
 cumstances 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 per- 
 sons vvho 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 oc- 
 cupation of the pensive hour, to recount the advantages 
 which we have 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 
 had a great influence on our characters. A creature 
 so prone to conformity as man, and at the same time 
 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 num.berless 
 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 bee/i too little 
 peculiar to be perceptible during the progress. We 
 were not sensible of it, till we came to some of those
 
 MEMOrUS OF HIMSELF. 29 
 
 Circumstances and changes in life, which make U3 
 aware of the state of our minds by the manner in 
 which new objects are acceptable or repulsive to them. 
 On removing into a new circle of society, for instance, 
 we could perceive by the number of things in which 
 we found ourselves uncomplacent and unconformablo 
 with the new acquaintance, the modification jvhich our 
 sentiments had received in the preceding social inter- 
 course. 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 susceptible mind happens to become familiarly 
 acquainted with a person in whom a strongly individual 
 character is sustained and dignified by uncommon 
 mental resources ; and it may be found that, generally, 
 the greatest measure of efTect has been produced by the 
 influence of a very small number of persons; often of 
 one only, whose master-spirit had more power to sur- 
 round and assimilate a young ingenuous being, than 
 the co' ective influence of a multitude of the persons, 
 whose characters were moulded in the manufactory of 
 custom, and sent forth like images of clay of kindred 
 shape and varnish from a pottery. — I am supposing 
 all along, that the person who writes memoirs of him- 
 self, is conscious of a 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 
 lo 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 ^ulgar 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. 
 
 3*
 
 30 ON A man's writino 
 
 It is obvious, in what I have suggested respecting 
 the research through past life, that all the persons who 
 are reca.lcd to the mind, as having had an influence on 
 us, m":ist stand before it in judgment. It is impossible 
 to e.xamine 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 judg- 
 ment be duped into delusive estimates, amidst the ex- 
 amination, 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 of justice in favour of others, self-love, 
 a still more indulgent and partial feeling, will not fail 
 to practise the same beguilement in favour of ourselves. 
 But indeed it would seem impossible, besides being ab- 
 surd, to apply one set of principles to judge of our- 
 selves, and another to judge of those with whom we 
 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 
 nower to absorb his passions, make him retire into a
 
 MEMOIRS OP HIMSELF. 31 
 
 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 
 lo recollect the books that have been read with the 
 greatest interest, the periods when they were leud, the 
 partiality which any of them inspired to a particular 
 mode of life, to a study, to a system of opinions, or to 
 a class 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 pccson 
 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 memo- 
 ry will promptly recur to six or ten that have contribu- 
 ted more to your present habits of feeling and thoXight 
 than all the rest together. — It may be observed here, 
 vhat when a few books of the same kind have pleased 
 us emphatically, it is a possible ill consequence that 
 they may create an almost exclusive taste, which is car- 
 ried through all future reading, and is pleased only 
 with books of that kind. 
 
 It might be supposed that the scenes of nature, an 
 amazing assemblage of phenomena if their effect were 
 not lost through familiarity, would have a powerful in- 
 fluence on opening minds, and transfuse into the inter- 
 nal economy of ideas and sentiment something of a 
 character and a colour correspondent to the beauty, 
 vicissitude,. and grandeur, which press on the senses. 
 They have this effect on minds of genius ; and Beattie's 
 Minstrel may be as just as it is a captivating description 
 of the pcrcrptions -ind emotions of such a spirit. But 
 on the greatest number this influence operates feebly;
 
 J2 ON A man's WKITINO 
 
 you wiL not see the process in children, nor the result 
 in mature persons. That significance is unfelt, v/hich 
 belonpfs to the beauties of nature as sornethino- more 
 than their being merely objects of the senses. And in 
 many instances even the senses themselves are so de- 
 ficient in attention, so idly passive, and therefore appre- 
 hend these objects so slightly, undefinedly, and tran- 
 siently, 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 imagi- 
 native action, and form in it an order of feelings and 
 ideas congenial with what is fair and great in external 
 nature. This defect of sensibility and fancy is unfor- 
 tunate 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 come as by an emanation from 
 a spirit dwelling in those objects. It is unfortunate 1 
 have thought within these few minutes^ — while looking 
 out on one of the most enchanting nights of the most 
 interesting season of the year, and hearing the voices 
 of a company of persons, to whom I can perceive that 
 iiiis soft and solemn shade over the earth, the calm 
 «jky, the beautiful stripes of cloud, the' stars, the wa- 
 nmg moon just risen, are things not in the least more 
 interesting than the walls, ceiling, and candle-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 af- 
 fected by the phenomena of the earth and heavens. 
 they are however all subject to be powerfully iafiu- 
 «nced by the appearanc3S and character of the human 
 world. I suppose a child in Switzerland, growing up
 
 MEMOIRS OF mMSELF. 33 
 
 to a man, would have acquired incomparably more of 
 the cast of his mind from the events, manners, and 
 actions of the next village, though its inhabitants wero 
 but his occasional companions, than from all the moun 
 tain scenes, the cataracts, and every circunxstance ot 
 beauty or sublimity in nature around him. We are 
 all true to our species, and very soon feel its im- 
 portance to us, (though benevolence be not the basia 
 of the interest,) for beyond the importance of any 
 thing that we see besides. Beginning your observa- 
 tion with children, you may have noted how instantly 
 they will turn their attention away from any of the 
 aspects of nature, however rare or striking, if human 
 objects present themselves to view in any active man- 
 ner. This " leaning to our kind" brings each indi- 
 vidual not only under the influence attending immedi- 
 ate 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 com- 
 plicated though insensible tyranny, of which every 
 fashion, folly, and vice, may exercise its part. 
 
 Some persons would 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 oJ 
 the community began with impressions of extraordi. 
 nary 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 kepi 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
 
 34 ON A man's writing 
 
 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 un- 
 derstanding, and yield to be a mere subject for judg- 
 ments 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 ob- 
 served in himself this 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 new-modelling the habit of the mind, 
 Recollect your own experience. After witnessing 
 some remarkable transaction, or some new and strange 
 department of life and manners, or some striking dis- 
 closure of character, or after listening to some extra- 
 ordinary 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 
 jhat which has made the 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 afliected ; 
 yet the newly acquired impulse might be so different 
 from the former action of your mind, and at the same 
 nmd so strong-, as to give you the consciousness of a
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 35 
 
 greatlj altered moral being. In the state thus sud- 
 denly formed, some of the previously existing disposi- 
 tions had sunk subordinate, while others, which had 
 been hitherto inert, were grown into ai. imperious 
 prevalence : or even a new one appeared to have been 
 originated.* While this state continues, a man is ia 
 character another man ; and if the moral tendency 
 thus excited or created, could be prolonged into the se 
 quel of his life, the difference might be such, that it 
 would be by means only of his person that he would 
 be recognized for the same ; while an observer igno- 
 rant of the cause would be perplexed and surprised 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 succes- 
 sion of impressions of the same tendency, without any 
 powerfully opposite ones intervening to break the pro- 
 cess. 
 
 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 repeatedly to witness similar instances, with- 
 out diminution of the abhorrence by familiarity with 
 them ; the consequence might be that you would ac- 
 quire 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 
 
 • So great an e(Tect, however, as this last, is perhaps rarely ex- 
 perienced from even the ino.st powerful causes, except in early 
 life.
 
 86 ON A man's WRITxNG 
 
 humane horror of cruelty into the vindictive fanaiicisi. 
 of Montbar, the Buccaneer.* A person of gentlei 
 sensibility, by accidentally witnessing a scene of dis> 
 tress, of which none of the circumstances caused dis- 
 gust 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 
 excess 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 offen- 
 sive effect did not run into the vestiges of the first in- 
 delible impression, may produce a cynic or a miser, a 
 recluse or a philosopher. Numberless other illustra- 
 tions might be brought to shew how much the charac- 
 ters of human beings, entering on life with unwarned 
 carelessness of heart, are at the mercy of the incalcu- 
 lable influences which may strike them from any 
 point of the surrounding 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 perrons 
 whose dispositions and pursuits are substantially alike, 
 we cannot doubt that several of them have met with 
 circumstances, of which the natural tendency must 
 have been to give them a determination of mmd tx- 
 Iremely dissimilar to the character of those whom thej 
 ♦ Abbe Raynal's History of the Indies.
 
 MEMOIRS OF IIIMSLi. 37 
 
 now SO much resemble. And why does the influence 
 of such circumstances i'ail to produce such a resuU 1 
 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 to confirm. The 
 mind of the greater proportion of human beings, if 
 attempted to be wrought into anj'- boldly specific form, 
 proves like a half fluid substance, in which angles or 
 circles, or any other figures may be cut, but which re- 
 covers, while you are looking, it? former state, and 
 closes them up ; or like a quantity of dust which may 
 be raised into momentary reluctant shapes, but which 
 is relapsing, amidst the operation, towards 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 ob.scrvable 
 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 tliose wliich 
 constitute a bad individual peculiarity, are attained 
 with far the greatest frequency and facility. While, 
 
 4
 
 38 - ON A man's writing 
 
 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 principles, which are to be unfolded by the 
 progress of time into intellectual powers and moral 
 dispositions ; I yet cannot but perceive that the i?rt- 
 medi-ale 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 pos- 
 sible 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 repassed it, exactly that which he took from it, when 
 he was there before, it would be most curious to see the 
 fragments and exuvicB 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 and 
 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 dif- 
 ference than that which would in any case be made by 
 the different 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
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 39 
 
 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 the universe to extinguish, 
 absorb, or transmute it, you will find it has come out 
 with disjiositions and habits which will shew where it 
 has been, and what it has undergone. You may 
 descry on it the marks and colours of many of the 
 things by which it has, in passing, been touched or 
 arrested. 
 
 Consider the number of meetings with acquaintance, 
 friends, or strangers ; the number of 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 contemplated the town, the rural cot- 
 tage, or verdant fields; the number of volumes you 
 have read ; the times that you have looked over the 
 present state of the world, or gone by means of history 
 mto past ages ; the number of comparisons of yourself 
 with other persons, alive or dead, and comparisons of 
 ihem with one another ; the number of solitary mu- 
 sings, of solemn contemplations of night, of the suc' 
 cessive subjects' of thought, and of animated senti 
 racnls that have been kindled and extinguished. Add 
 all the hours and causes of sorrow which you have 
 known. Through this lengthened, and, it the num- 
 Dor could be told, stupendous multiplicity of things, 
 you have advanced, while all their heterogeneous myr-
 
 40 ON A MAN S WRITING 
 
 iadg ftave darted influences upon you, each one oi 
 them having some definable tendency. A travellei 
 round tlie globe would not meet a greater variety of 
 seasons, prospects, and winds, than you might have 
 recorded of the circumstance 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 re- 
 gions. The formation of the character from so many 
 materials reminds one of that mighty appropriating at 
 traction, which, on the fanciful hypothesis that the 
 resurrection should reassemble the same particles 
 which composed the body before, must draw them from 
 dust, and trees, and animals, from ocean, and winds. 
 
 It 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 
 Avould be, cither 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 sc 
 simple ? How has it happened that the collective effec 
 af thesfi numerous and jarring^ operations on you: miod
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. it 
 
 is that which only a few of these operations would have 
 seemed adapted to produce, and 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 it* 
 power 1 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 im- 
 pression of extreme force 1 What was it, and whence 
 did it come? 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 
 •naturity of that form of character, which this tendency 
 promotes or creates, is substantially over. Because, 
 when a determined principle has become ascendant, it 
 not only produces a partial insensibility to all im- 
 pressions that would counteract it, but also continually 
 augments its own ascendency, by means of a faculty or 
 fatality 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 of 
 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 how many more events 
 will happen, than any one could have imagined, of a 
 nature to reinforce it. And sometimes even circuoi 
 
 4»
 
 42 ON A man's wrttino 
 
 stances which seemed of an entirely counteractive 
 order, are strangely seduced by this predominant 
 principle into an operation that confirms it; just in the 
 same 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 
 ihat he has been, if it were possible for him to make a 
 complete examination. He may be disposed to think 
 that this reason has been an independent power, has 
 kept a strict watch, and passed a right judgment on 
 his moral progress, has met the circumstances of the 
 external world on terms of examination and authority 
 and has fermilted onlji-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 maybe 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. Ana again, it is 
 unfortunately true, that even should attention be awake, 
 and opinions be formed, the faculty which forms 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
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 43 
 
 demon of Socrates, it might then be a dignifitd 
 resfuJator of the influences which are acting on hia 
 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 passions easily beguile this majestic 
 reason, or judgment, into neglect, or bribe it into 
 acquiescence, or repress it into silence, while they 
 receive the impressions, and while ihei/ 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 ol 
 the judgment, it be called upon to perform its part in 
 estimating the quality and actual efTect 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 '^racles, dictated for the imaginary god by 
 beings of a very terrestrial sort, though the sly inter- 
 vcntion could ^lot be perceived. It is quite a vulgar 
 observation, how pleased a man may be with the for- 
 mation of his own character, though i/ou smile at the 
 gravity of his persuasion, that his tastes, preferences, 
 and qualities, have on the whole grown up under the
 
 44 ON A man's writing 
 
 sacrcil and faithful guardianship of judg-ment, while.ih 
 fact, his judgment has accepted every bribe that hfW 
 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, but little cause to felicitate our species. Make 
 the supposition that any assortment of persons, of suf- 
 ficient number to comprise the most remarkable dis- 
 tinctions of character, should write memoirs of them- 
 selves, so exactly and honestly telling the story, and ex- 
 hibiting so clearly the most effective circumstances, a» 
 to explain, to your discernment at least, if not to their 
 own consciousness, 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 exer- 
 cise, and your rules for estimating lost nothing of their 
 determinate principle in their application to such a con- 
 fusion of subjects, you would often, during the disclo- 
 sure, regret to observe how many things may be the 
 causes of irretrievable 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 accompany, or others of which may suddenly 
 cross, the unfortunate wanderer ? And you would re- 
 gret to obrerve 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 him- 
 selfj your observation would be, I perceive with com-
 
 MEMOIRS OF HI.MSKLF. 45 
 
 passion the process under which you have become 
 a misanthropist. If your juvenile ingenuous ardour 
 had not been chilled by your entrance into society, 
 where your most favourite sentiments were not at ail 
 comprehended by some, and by others deemed wise and 
 proper enough — perhaps for the people of the millen- 
 nuim ; if you had not felt the mortification of relations 
 being uncongenial, of persons whom you were anxious 
 to render happy being indifferent to your kindness, or 
 of apparent friendships proving treacherous or trans- 
 itory ; if you had not met with snch striking instance-^ 
 of hopeless stupidity in the vulgar, or of vain sell- 
 importance in the learned, or of the coarse or super- 
 cilious arrogance of the persons whose manners were 
 always regulated by the consideration of the proportion 
 f f gold and silver by which they were better than you ; 
 .f 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 viight 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 wafers of N)ah or the fires of Sodom to return:
 
 46 ON A man's \\^EITINa 
 
 and that Greater than Moses, who endured from men 
 such a matchless excess of injustice, while for their 
 sake alone he sojourned and suffered on earth, was not 
 alienated to misanthropy, in his life, or at his death, 
 
 A second sketch might exhibit external circumstan 
 ces not producing any effect more serious than an in 
 tellectual stagnation. When it was concluded, youl 
 reflection might be, if I did not know that mental 
 fi*eedom is a dangerous thing, peculiarly in situations 
 where the possessor would feel it a singular attainment ; 
 and if I did not prefer even the quiescence of unex- 
 amining belief, when tolerably right in the most ma 
 terial 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 in 
 novation, without even knowing what points are threat 
 ened 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 fi^ie thinga 
 in an hour than their biographers will be able, even with
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 47 
 
 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 j'our nativity into the hands of ignorant foster-parents, 
 who had endeavoured to degrade and confine you to 
 the sphere of regular employments and sober satisfac- 
 tions. But, you would " tower up to the region of 
 your sire." You saw what wonderful things might be 
 found to be said on all subjects ; you found 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 ob 
 servations and maxims current in society. You awa 
 kenad 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 : 
 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 hap- 
 py to have discovered, yet so anxious that the acknow- 
 ledgment of others should confirm. Your own persua- 
 sion, 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
 
 t8 ON A M Aim's WRirNU 
 
 indignan„ that gejiius should be reproached for the dis- 
 regard of these ordinary duties and employments to 
 which it ought never to have been subjected. 
 
 During a projeclors story of life and misfortunes, 
 you might regret tha^ he should ever have heard of 
 Harrison's time-piece, the perpetual motion, or the Greek 
 file. 
 
 After an antiquary' s history, you might be allowed 
 to congratulate yourself on not having fallen under the 
 spell which confines a human soul to inhabit, like a 
 spider in one of the corners, a dusty room, consecrated 
 with religious solemnity to old coins, rusty knives, il- 
 luminated mass books, swords and spurs of 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 im- 
 perially over the relics of kings and queens and the 
 whole museum, as the eagle was once in " proud emi- 
 nence" over subjugated kingdom.^. 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 
 Cluixote, 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 re- 
 fractoriness to the influence of evil, the proces.'S that
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 49 
 
 you have undergone couli not fail of being efficacious. 
 If your parents idolized their own importance in their 
 son so much, that they never themselves opposed your 
 inclinations, 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 gar- 
 den of some harmless dependent neighbour of the care- 
 fully reared flowers,.and torment his little dog 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 conde- 
 scension, and pushed their grandchildren away from 
 around the fire for your sake, if you happened, though 
 with the strut of supercilious pertness, and your hat on 
 your head, to enter one of their cottages, perhaps to 
 express your contempt of the honiely dwelling, furni- 
 ture, 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 if you had not become, in due time, the mis- 
 creant, who may thank the power of the laws in civil- 
 ized society, that he is not assaulted with clubs and 
 stones ; to whom one could cordially Avish the oppor- 
 tunity and the consequences 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 for* 
 given when they shall one day rejoice at his funeral 
 
 5
 
 60 ON A man's WRITINa 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 I WILL ima!;ine only one case more, on which yon 
 would emphatically express your compassion, though 
 for one of the most daring beings in the creation, a 
 contemner of God, who explodes his laws by denying 
 his existence. 
 
 If you were so unacquainted with mankind, tha 
 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 mionths and years, would not seem enough to 
 have matured such a portentous heroism. Surely the 
 creature that thus lifts his voice, and defies all invi.si- 
 ble power' within the possibilities of infinity, challeng- 
 ing wliatever unknown being may hear him, and may 
 appropriate that title of Almighty which is pronounced 
 in scorn, to evince his existence, if he will, by his ven- 
 geance, was not as yesterday a little child that would 
 tremble and cry at the approach of a diminutive rep- 
 tile. 
 
 But indeed it is heroism no lono-er, if he know that 
 Ihere is no God. The wonder then turns on the great 
 process, by which a man could grow to the immense 
 intelligence which can know tliat there is no God. 
 What ages and what lighis are requisite for this 
 st^aininent! This intelligence involves the very attri- 
 butes of Divmitjr, while a God is denied. For unless 
 this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment io
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 51 
 
 every place in the univfrse, he cannot know but there 
 may be in some place manifestations of a Deity, by 
 which even he would be overpowered. If he does no 
 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 
 that constitute universal truth, the one which he wants 
 may be, that there is a God. If he cannot with cer- 
 tainty assign the cause of all that he perceives to exist, 
 that cause may be a God. If he does not know every 
 thinij that has been done in the immeasurable ao-es 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 re- 
 jects, does not exist. But he must know that he does 
 not exist, else he deserves equal contempt and compas- 
 sion for the temerity with which he firmly avows his 
 rejection and acts accordingly. And yet a man of or- 
 dinary age and intelligence may present himself to 
 jou 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 occasiuiml that ages may pass 
 away before it return among men ; some peculiar cou 
 junction of disastrous influences must have lighted on 
 your selected soul; you have been struck by that 
 energy of evil which acted upon the spirits of Pharaoh 
 and Epiphanes. But give your own description of
 
 52 . ON A man's writing 
 
 what you have met with, in a world which has been 
 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, like meteors passing over the solitary 
 wanderer, gave you the first glimpses of truth while 
 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 carry forward to the great experiment of 
 futurity 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 ex- 
 ercised enough to feel interested about holding any 
 system of opinions at all ; whose pride had been grat- 
 ified in the consciousness of having the liberty of se- 
 lecting 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 afTection.* Such a person had only, in 
 
 * 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 great, 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 undoubted- 
 ly is much more systematic and deliberate, and accompanied often 
 by a laborious speculation, which, though in ever so perverted a 
 fcrain, the mind is easily persuaded to identify, because it is labori- 
 ous, with the search after truth and the love of it. While, how- 
 ever, it is in a persevering train of thought, and not by the hasty' 
 movements of a more vulgar mind, that they pursue their de riatitHi
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. Sn) 
 
 the first pla:e. to come into intimate acquaintance with 
 a man, who had the art of alluring to a sacred subject 
 in a manner which, without appearing like intentional 
 contempt, divested it of its solemnity : and who had 
 possessed himself of a few acute observations or plau- 
 sible maxims, not expHcilly hostile to revealed religion, 
 but which, when opportunely brought into view in 
 connexion with some points of it, tended 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 
 
 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 prog- 
 ress are all of a sublime order; and if they could be fully revealed 
 to their own view, they might perhaps be severely mortified to find 
 what vulgar 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 ex- 
 ults to find that there is a possibihty of controvcrtins whether 
 any dictates come from a greater than mortal source ; repugnance 
 as well to the severe and comprehensive morality of the laws re- 
 puted of divine appointment, as to the feeling of accountableness 
 to an all-powerful .Vuthorlty, that will not leave moral laws to be 
 enforced solely by their own sanctions; contempt of inferior men ; 
 the attraction of a few briUiant examples; the fashion of a class; 
 the ambition of showing wliat ability can do, and what boldness 
 can dare — if such tilings as these, after all, have excited and di- 
 rectcd the efforts of a philosophic spirit, the unbelieving philosophei 
 must bcfontent to acknowledge plenty of companions and rivals 
 among little men, who are quite as capable of being actuated by 
 •uch elevated princip'es as himself 
 
 5*
 
 54 ON A man's writing 
 
 system might in some points be invalidated, and the. 
 involuntary 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 of enlightened reason would successfully ap- 
 peal 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 mag- 
 nificence of revelation was annihilated. Its illumina- 
 tions respecting the Divinity, its miracles, its Messiah, 
 its authority of moral legislation, its regions of immor- 
 tality and retribution, tha 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 thi-ckest 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 Phil- 
 istines, 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 haa 
 overcome. And many examples would seem to in-
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 55 
 
 dicate, that the first proud triumphs over religious 
 faith, involve some fatality of advancing, however for- 
 midahle the mass of arguments which may obstruct 
 the progress, to further victories. But perhaps the in- 
 tellectual difficulty ot the progress might be less than 
 a zealous believer would be apt to imagine. As the 
 ideas which give the greatest distinctness to our con- 
 ception of a Divine Being are imparted by revelation, 
 and rest on its authority, the rejection of that revelation 
 would in a great measure banish those ideas, and de- 
 stroy that distinctness. We have but to advert to pure 
 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 De- 
 ity would immediately become, as they were with the 
 heathens, subjects of doubtful conjecture and hopeless 
 speculation. But from this state of thought it is per- 
 haps no vast transition to that, in which his being also 
 shall begin to appear a siibject-of doubt ; since the real- 
 ity of a being is with difficulty apprehended, in propor- 
 tion as its attributes are undeflnable. And when the 
 mind is brought into doubt, we know it easily advan- 
 ces to disbelief, if to the smallest plausibility of argu- 
 ments 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 1 have just noticed. The progress in guilt, 
 which generally follows a rejection of revelation, 
 makes it still more and more desirable that no object 
 should remain to be feared. It was not strange, there- 
 fore, 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 attempt- 
 ed the last achievement of presumptuous man. Aftei
 
 56 ON A man's writing 
 
 inspecting these pages awhile, he raised his eyes, and 
 the Great Spirit was gone. Mighty ti'ansformation of 
 all things ! The luminaries of heaven no longer shone 
 with his splendour ; the adorned earth no longer .ooked 
 fair Avith his beauty ; the darkness of night had ceased 
 to be rendered solemn by his majesty; life and thought 
 were not an effect of his all-pervading energy ; it was 
 not his providence that supported an infinite charge of 
 dependent beings; his empire of justice no longei 
 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 sio-nal con- 
 elusion, 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 mig-ht be curious to know what kind of 
 argument and eloquence could so quickly finish the 
 work. You would examine those jwges with the ex- 
 pectation probably of something more powerful than 
 subtlety attenuated into inanity, and, in that invisible 
 and impalpable state, mistaken by the writer, and will- 
 ingly 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 7iature^ al- 
 ternately exalts almost into the properties of a god, and 
 reduces far below those of a man, some imaginary and 
 undefinable agent or agency, which performs the most 
 amazing works without power, and displays the most 
 amazing wisdom without intelligence ; than a zealoua 
 preference of that part of every great dilemma wh'ch
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 57 
 
 merely confounds and sinks the mind to that which 
 elevates while it overwhelms it ; than a constant en- 
 deavour to degrade as far as possible every thing that 
 is sublime in our 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 ot 
 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 pre- 
 vent this disciple of darkness from accepting the invi- 
 tation to pledge himself to the cause in some associated 
 band, where profaneness and vice would consolidate 
 impious opinions without the aid of augmented convic- 
 tion ; and where the fraternity, having been elated by 
 the spirit of social daring to say, What is the Almighty 
 that ice should serve him 1 the individuals might ac- 
 quire 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 influences 
 Avhich 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 fill the measure of his iniquity, till the divine wratl: 
 come upon him to the uttermost. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 In recounting so many influences that o,' .te *l 
 man, it is grievous to observe that the inc/ ..iparab,' / 
 loblest of all, religion, is counteracted with a fatal 8U^
 
 58 ON A man's writing 
 
 cess by a perpetual conspiracy of almost all the rest, 
 aided by the intrinsic predisposition of this our per 
 Terted 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 i«to 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 
 exc&llent 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 oi 
 whose continual presence they feel the importance ? 
 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 presi 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
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF-. 59 
 
 without an emotion of religious awe ? And why, in 
 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 creatm'es 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, which 
 should be inseparable from the knowledge that the 
 beams of all-searching intelligence are continually 
 darting on us, and pervading us ; that we are 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 iri infinite energy 
 through the universe, why have the few particles of 
 dust which enclose 07ir spirits the power to intercept all 
 sensible communication with him, and to place them 
 ns in a vacuity, where the sovereign Essence had been 
 precluded or extinguished ? 
 
 The reverential submission, with which you con- 
 .emplate the mystery of omnipotent benevolence for- 
 jearing to ex(!rt the agency, which could assune an
 
 60 ON A man's writing 
 
 instantaneous ascendancy in every mind over the causes 
 of 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 ^nd depth of disaster contained in this ex 
 Illusion, (an exclusion under which a human being 
 havins" 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 
 msipidity and lost in despair,) you would feel a dis- 
 tressing emotion at each recital of a life in wJiich 
 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 
 of this one mortal, and this one more, to protest, in 
 sentences of lightning and thunder, against the infatua- 
 tion 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 satisfac- 
 tion 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 per- 
 rions Avho, with reason sound to think, and hearts not 
 strangers to feeling, have advanced far into life, per- 
 haps near to its close, without having felt the influence 
 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 
 as strange as it is melancholy ; especially to a persou
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 6. 
 
 who has been pious from his youth. He would be 
 inclined to say to a person who has nearly finisliec! an 
 irreligious life, What would have been justly tiiought 
 of you. if you could have been habitually in the soci- 
 ety of the wisest and best men on earth, and have ac- 
 quired no degree of conformity ; much more, if you 
 could all the while have acquired progressively the 
 meanness, prejudices, follies, and vices, of the lowest 
 society, with which you might have been at intervals 
 thrown in unavoidable contact? You mi'jht 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 im- 
 pression as if the Deity were but a poetical fiction, or 
 an idol in some temple of Asia ?-r-Evident]y, as the 
 immediate cause, through want of thought concern- 
 ing him. 
 
 And why did you not think of him ? Did a most 
 solemn thought of him never ojice penetrate your soul, 
 while admitting it true that there is such a Being? If 
 it never did, what is reason, what 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 
 frequently 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, 
 a? 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 am- 
 bition of going on to the greatest Object? How, 
 while called to the contemplations which absorb the 
 
 6
 
 62 ON A man's WRITINCf 
 
 spirits of Heaven, could yoii be so patient of the task 
 of counting tlie flies of a summer's day ? 
 
 Why did you not think of him ? You knew yourself 
 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 alarm- 
 ed to have felt yourself in the power of a mysterious 
 stranger, of your own feeble species ; but let the 
 stranger be omnipotent, and you cared 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 sugo-est 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 under- 
 stands it; the thought of that ever-moving activity 
 which prevails in the system of the universe, of a su- 
 preme 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 
 preserver ; and the thought of death, of an uncontrol- 
 lable disposer. By what dexterity, therefore, of irre- 
 ligious caution, did you avoid precisely every track 
 vvhere the idea of him would have met you, or eluda 
 that idea if it came ? And what must sound reason 
 pronounce of a mind which, in the train of millions 
 of thoiififhts, has wandered to all thinsfs under the sun, 
 to all the perrnanent objects or vanishing appearances 
 in the creation, but never fixed its thought on the Su-
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 63 
 
 preme Reality ; never approached, like Moses, " to see 
 this great sight?" 
 
 If it were a thing which we mig-ht be allowed to 
 imagine, that the Divine Being were to manifest him- 
 self in some striking manner to the senses, as by some 
 resplendent appearance at the midnight hour, or by 
 rekindlinof on an elevated mountain the Ions: 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- 
 sentation 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 consider- 
 ably tend to restrict you in your contemplation to a de- 
 fined image, and therefore a most inadequate and sub- 
 ordinate idea of the divine Being ? while the idea ad- 
 mitted by faith, though less immediately striking, is 
 capable of an illimitable expansion, by the addition of 
 all that progressive 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 benev
 
 64 ON A man's writing 
 
 olence would "be, — I regard you as an objecV of great 
 compassion, unless there can be no felicity in liiend- 
 ship with the Almighty, unless there be no glory in 
 being 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 fgaj. 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 \yould neither have been dis- 
 sipated in the frivolity which, in the morning of the 
 short day of life, fairly and formally sets aside all se^ 
 rious business for that day, nor would have sprung for 
 ward into the emulation of vice, or the bravery of pro- 
 faneness. If religion had been there, that one despi- 
 cable 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 se- 
 quel of existence, as will inspire exultation in the ret- 
 rospect 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 o.f a character which has receiv- 
 ed its form, and reached its maturity, under the strong- 
 est 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 se-
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 65 
 
 nous reflection, subdues him under persuasive convic- 
 tion, elevates him to devotion, and matures him in pro- 
 gressive virtue, in order to his passing finally to a no- 
 bler state of existence. When he has long been com- 
 manded 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 me- 
 morable circumstance which was apparently the in- 
 strumental 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 char- 
 acter. In the great majority of things, habit is a great- 
 er plague than ever afflicted Egypt ; in religious char- 
 acter, it is eminently a felicity. The devout man ex- 
 ults 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 confirm- 
 ed habit as the grasp of the hand of God, which will 
 never let him o-o. From this advanced state he looks 
 with confidence on futurity and says, I carry the in- 
 delible mark upon me that I belong to God ; by being 
 devoted to him I am free 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 ol 
 depth, he will acknowledge me for ever. 
 
 6*
 
 fia ON A man's writing 
 
 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 kw miscella- 
 neous observations will conclude the essay. 
 
 You will have observed that I have said compara^ 
 lively 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 aa 
 adventurer or a soldier writes memoirs of himself for 
 the information 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 investioratino:, and he mJQ-ht 
 occasionally feel it a convenience to be excused from 
 disclosing, if he had investigated, the history and mer- 
 its of his internal principles. Nor can this ingenuous- 
 ness 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 
 that probabl}'- 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 his ga- 
 zettes of marches, stratagems and skirmishes, and there
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 67 
 
 IS no obligation for hitn to turn either penitent or phi- 
 losopher on our hands. — But I am supposing a man to 
 retrace himself through his past life, in order tu ac- 
 quire a deep self-knowledge, and to record the investi- 
 gation for his own instruction. Through such- a ret- 
 rospective examination, the exterior life will hold but 
 the second place in attention, as being the imperfect 
 ofispring 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 judg- 
 ment upon them regarded merely as exterior facts. No 
 doubt that sometimes also, in a contrary process, the 
 judgment will be directed upon the dispositions and 
 principles within by a consideration of the actions with- 
 out, which will serve as a partial explication of the in- 
 terior character. Still it is that interior character, 
 whether displayed in actions or not, which forms the 
 leading object of inquiry. The chief circumstances 
 of his practical life will, however, require to be noted, 
 both for the purpose of so much illustration 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 neces- 
 sary, yet there are some men whose mental history 
 alone might be very interesting to reflective readers ; 
 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 
 a curious phenomenon the man whose mind has been 
 a kind of caravansera of opinions, entertained awhilCj
 
 68 ON A man's writino 
 
 and then sent on pilgrimage ; a man who has admired 
 and dismissed systems wiih 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 specula- 
 tive forms which the soul has awhile inhabited, you 
 are extremely amused by the number of transmigra- 
 tions, 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 
 iio has- terminated his course of believing every thing, 
 in ultimately 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 
 be-fore. You will observe, that no respect is attached 
 to this Proteus of opinion, after his changes have been 
 multiplied ; as no party expect him to remain with 
 them, or account him much of an acquisition if he 
 should. One, or perhaps two, considerable chi\nges, 
 will be regarged as signs of a liberal inquirer, and there- 
 fore the party to which his first or his second intellectual 
 conversion may assign him, will receive him gladly. 
 But he will be deemed to have abdicated the dignity of 
 reason, when it is found that he can adopt no principles 
 but to betray them ; and it will be perhaps justly sus- 
 pected that there is something extremely infirm in the
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 09 
 
 Structure of that mind, whatever vigour may mark some 
 of its operations, to which a series of very diflbrent and 
 sometimes contrasted theories, can appear in succession 
 demonstratively true, 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 hiiti 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 oj 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 
 favourite, 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 
 the Sadducees. It would be cu)ious to sec. how a
 
 70 ON A MAN'S AVKITING 
 
 res])ectful estimate of a man's character and tale: its 
 might be changed in consequence of some perfonal 
 inattention experienced from him, into depreciating 
 mvective 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 
 the patronage of power could elevate miserable pre- 
 judices into revered wisdom, while poor old Experience 
 was mocked with thanks for her instruction ; and* how 
 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," wjth 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 suppose most reflecting men look back with a kind 
 of compassionate conteiTipt, though it maybe often with 
 a mingling wish that some of its enthusiasm of feeling 
 could be recovered, I mean the period between child- 
 hood and maturity. They are prompted to exclaim. 
 
 ♦ I remember several remarkable instances of this.
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 7. 
 
 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 com 
 plaints against their fate were uttered on account of 
 disappointments which they have since recollected with 
 gaiety or self-congratulation ;• what happiness of Ely- 
 sium 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 be was 
 young, simply and vividly describing his whole heart 
 and pursuits, and reciting verbatim many recent pas- 
 sages of the language sincerely uttered 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 
 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 feeling.s, I can hold no converse with your un- 
 derstanding. Thus you see that in the course of a long 
 
 • I recollect a youth of some acquirements, who earnestly wishetl 
 the time might one day arrive, when his name should be adorned 
 with the addition of D.D., which he deemed one of the subliinest 
 of human diirUnctions.
 
 72 ON A man's writing 
 
 life a man may be several moral persons so dissim^'ar 
 that if you could find a real individual that shouic! 
 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 
 lepresentation 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 as 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* 
 
 If this sketch of life were not written till a very 
 mature or an advanced period of it, a somewhat inter- 
 esting point would be, to distinguish the periods during 
 
 * 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 lite so 
 much of the chief characteristic quality of the dispositions developed 
 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 elfected by time and events ; so that, in a general 
 account of men, the mental diiference between the two extremes o* 
 life may be less than the physical,
 
 MEMOIRS OF HJMSELF. 7S 
 
 which tlie mind made its greatest progress in the en- 
 largement of its lacuhies,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 subse- 
 quent 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 cir 
 cumstances ; for he could not reflect, w^ithout 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 ceased 
 to become abler or better. Pope, at the age of fiftj\ 
 would have been incomparably more mortified than, as 
 Johnson says, his readers are, at the fact, if he ha J 
 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 j^ears without 
 any moral and religious progress, ought to be not merely 
 the regret for an infelicity, but the remorse of guilt ; 
 since, tbousjh natural causes must somewhere have cir- 
 curascribed and fixed the extent of 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 
 estimate of what has been effected or not in this capital 
 concern, is the chief advantage to be derived 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 
 
 r
 
 74 ON A man's WKiTIISO 
 
 wiL be inevitable to recollect, with severe mcflificationj 
 the sanguine calculations of improvement of the best 
 kind, which at various perioJs the mind delighted itself 
 in making for other given future periods, should life 
 be protracted till then, and promised itself most cer- 
 tainly to realizs by tbe 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 favourable 
 omens, which partly justified while they raised, in our- 
 selves and others, anticipations that have mournfully 
 failed. My dear friend, it is very melanchol}'- 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 reccrded 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 him- 
 self,) but at certain considerable intprvals, as at the end 
 of each year, or any other measure of time that is am- 
 ple enough for some definable alteration to have taken 
 place in the character or attfiinmcnts. 
 
 It is need'less to say that the iti/le should be as simple 
 as possible — unless indeed tbd writer accounts the theme 
 worthy of being bedecked with brilliants and flowers. 
 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 \^hat degree of explicitness ought 
 to prevail thniugh this review, in reference to those 
 farticulars on which conscience has fixed the most 
 condemning mark ; I answer, that if a man whites it 
 exclusively for his own use, he ought to signify the 
 quality and measure of the delinquency, so far expli- 
 citly, as to secure to his mind a defined recollection of
 
 , MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 75 
 
 the verdict pronounced by conscience before its emo- 
 tions were quelled by time ; and so far as, m default 
 of an adequate sentence then^ to constrain him to pro- 
 nounce it now. Such honest distinctness is necessary, 
 because this will be the most useful part of his rei'ord 
 for reflection to dwell upon ; because this is the part 
 which self-love is most willing to diminish and memo- 
 xy to dismiss ; because mere general terms or allusions 
 of censure will but little aid the cultivation of his hu- 
 mility ; and because this license of saying so much 
 about himself in the character of a biographer may be- 
 come 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 con- 
 fessional, 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 his conduct, which 
 he cannot persuade himself to present to such mspection. 
 Such a difficulty of being quite ingenuous, when it is 
 actually guilt, and not merely some propriety of dis- 
 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 char- 
 acter. I* has several times, in writing this essay, oc- 
 curred to me what strangers men may be to one anoth- 
 er, whether as to the influences which have determined 
 their characters, or as to the less obvi(jus parts of their
 
 76 ON A man's writing . 
 
 conduct, What strangers too we may be, with per- 
 sons who have the art of concealment, to the principles 
 which are at this moment prevailing in the heart. 
 Each 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 mvaded 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 scat- 
 tered, 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 splendour 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 supposition of being seen by any other 
 person, the substance of the secrets of this apartment be 
 brought forth, he 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, 
 Avho 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, suppo- 
 sing it pretend to afford a full and faithful estimate ; 
 and what ingenuous man could bear to give a delu- 
 sive assurance of his being, or having been, so much 
 more worthy of applause or affection than conscience 
 ill the while pronounces I It is obvious then that a
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 77 
 
 man whose sentiments and designs, or the undisclosed 
 parts of whose conduct liave been deeply criminal, 
 must keeo 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 con- 
 tent 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 tiie 
 delineation for solitary use, or limit themselves in wri- 
 ting it, to a deliberate and strong expression of the 
 measure of conscious culpabilities, and their effect ia 
 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 ingen- 
 uous acknowledgment. In this confidential commu- 
 nication, each will learn to behold the other's trans- 
 gressions fully as much in that light in which they cer- 
 tainly are infelicities to be commiserated, as in that in 
 v/hich they are also faults or vices to be condemned ; 
 while both earnestly endeavour to improve by their re* 
 membered errors. 
 
 But I shall find myself in danger of becoming ridic- 
 ulous, amidst these scruples about an entire ingenu- 
 ousness to a confidential friend or two, while I glance 
 into the literary world, and observe the number of his- 
 torians 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 oi profligate adventures a much finer 
 
 7*
 
 78 ON A man's writing 
 
 thing than the stupidity of vulgar virtues, and who 
 seom to claim the sentiments with which we regard an 
 unfortunate hero for the disasters into which these ad 
 ventures led them ; venal partisans whose talents 
 would hardly have been bought, if their venom had 
 not made up the deficiency ; profane travelling cox- 
 combs ; 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 
 themselves 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 generoua 
 mducement, 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 vvhich sentiment without principle apes 
 and mocks mourning virtue,) the whole nauseous de- 
 tail of their transitions from proprietor to proprietor. 
 They can tell of the precautions for meeting some " il- 
 lustrious personage," accomplished in depravity even 
 in his early youth, with the proper adjustment of fime 
 and circumstances to save him the scandal of such a 
 meeting; the hour when they crossed the river in a 
 boat; the arrangements about money; the kindness of 
 the " personage" at one time, his contemptuous neglect 
 at another ; and every thing else that can turn the 
 conipassion with which we deplore their first misfor- 
 tunes and errors, into detestation of the efTrontery 
 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 Avho 
 thus think the publication of their vices necessary to 
 crown their fame, one should wish there were some 
 oublic special mark and brand of emphatic reprobation.
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 79 
 
 to reward this tribute to public morals. Men that 
 court the pillory for the pleasure of it, ought to receive 
 the honour of it loo, 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 
 Confessions, sometimes adopted by these exhibilers 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 onty 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 
 m 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 con- 
 tempt of them as its example 1 No, this title of Confes- 
 sions is only a nominal deference to morality, neces- 
 sary indeed to be paid, because mankind never forget 
 to insist, that 'the 7U77ne of virtue shall be respected, 
 even while vice obtains from them that practical fa- 
 vour 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 meeJ
 
 BC ' ON A man's writing 
 
 ■Jie kind of condemnation, and thej' 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 thei/ 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 literary suicides will be heard of no more. 
 
 Rousseau has given a memorable example of this 
 voluntary humiliation. And he has very honestly 
 assigned the degree of contrition which accompanied 
 the self-inflicted penance, in the declaration that this 
 document with all its dishonoui-s, 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 
 of a mind so wonderfully singular as his.* We are 
 
 * There is indeed one case in which this kind of honesty would 
 De 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 pullished after they are gone, each a 
 frank exposition of motives, intrigues, cabals, and manoeuvres, 
 the worship which mankind have rendered to power and rank 
 would cease to be what it has always been, a mere blind supersH- 
 tion, 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
 
 MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 81 
 
 almost willing V) have such a being preserved to all 
 the uniightly nri nuliaB and anomalies of its form, to be 
 placed, as an unique in the moral museum of the world. 
 Rousseau's impious reference to *he Divine Judge, 
 leads me to sugge.;t, as I conclude, the consideration, 
 that the history of each man's life, though it should 
 not be written by himself or by any morial 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 e.xpression, or the mo- 
 mentous import, of the sentence in which that final 
 estimate will be declared ? 
 
 give an altered and less delusive character to history. Great ser- 
 vice 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 pubheation, 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 deco- 
 rum, r need not revert to works now C3m[aratively ancient, Buch 
 as Lord Blelbourn's Diary. 
 
 8»
 
 ESSAY II. 
 
 0]\ DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 We. have several times talked of this bold quality^ 
 nnd acknowleged its great importance. Without it, a 
 human being, with powers at best but feeble and sur 
 rounded 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 to 
 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 qual- 
 ification. You will often see a person anxiously hesi- 
 tating a long time between diflferent, or opposite deter- 
 minations, though impatient of the pain of such a 
 ?late, 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 
 from envying even the decisive instinct of brutes. It 
 wishes that any circumstance might happen, or any 
 person might appear, that could deliver it from the 
 miserable suspense.
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 83 
 
 In many instances, when a determination is adopted, 
 h is frustrated by this temperament. A man, for ex- 
 ample, 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 
 does not think it possible he can hesitate in the mcrn- 
 ing. 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 anticipa- 
 tion ; and he lingers, uncertain, till an advanced hour 
 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, disadvantao-es and uncertainties of a new 
 situation ; awakening the natural reluctance to quit 
 a place to which habit has accommodated his feel 
 ings, and which has grown tvann to him, (if 1 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 life ; perhaps in the arrangements of his 
 family, or in the mode of his intercourse with society, 
 — Would it be a good thinof ? He thinks it would be 
 a good thing. It certainly would be a very good thing 
 He wishes it were done. He will attempt it almost
 
 84 ON DECISION OF CllAKACTER. 
 
 immediately. The following day, he doubts whether 
 it would be quite prudent. Many things are to be 
 considered. May there not be in the change some evii 
 of which he is not aware 1 Is this a proper time r 
 \\^hat will people say ? — And thus, though he does not 
 formally renounce his purpose, he 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 of the wis- 
 dom and advantage of such a reform comes again with 
 great force. Then, Is it so practicable as I was at first 
 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';* 
 opinion? It shall be done. — He makes the first at- 
 tempt. But some unexpected obstacle presents itself; 
 he feels the awkwardness of attempting an unaccus- 
 tomed 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 re- 
 sumed when the same feelings return, and to be in the 
 same manner again relinquished. 
 
 While animated by some magnanimous sentimenta 
 which he has heard or read, or while musing on some 
 great example, a man may conceive the design, and 
 partly sketch the plan, of a generous enterprise ; and 
 fiis imagination revels in the felicity, to others and 
 aimself, that w'ould follow from its accomplishment 
 The splendid representation always centres in himself 
 as the hero who is to realize it.
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 85 
 
 In a moment of remitted excitement, a faint whisper 
 from within may doubtfully ask, Is this more than o 
 dream ; or am I really destined to achieve such an en- 
 terprise ? Destmed! — and why are not this conviction 
 of its excellence, this conscious duty of performing tlie 
 noblest things that are possible, and this passionate ar- 
 dour, enough to constitute a destiny ? He feels indig- 
 nant that there should be a foiling 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, that he will un- 
 dertake 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 his 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 en- 
 tertain a visionary project, which therefore, like a re- 
 jected friend, desists from intruding on him or follow- 
 ing him, except at lingering distance ; and he subsides, 
 at last, into what he labours to believe a man too ra- 
 tional for the schemes of ill-calculating enthusiasm. 
 And it were strange if the effort to make out this fa 
 vourable estimate of himself did not succeed, while it is 
 so much more pleasant to attribute one's defect of enter- 
 prise to wisdom, which on maturer thought disapproves 
 it, than to imbecility, which shrinks from it. 
 
 A person of undecisive character wonders how all 
 the embarrassments in the world happened to meet 
 exactly in his way, to place him just in that one situa- 
 tion for which he is peculiarly unadapted, but in which 
 he is also willin'T^ to think no other man coukl havt 
 acted with facility or confidence. Incapable of setting 
 
 8
 
 86 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 up a firm purpose on the basis of things as they are, 
 ne is often employed in vain speculations on soma 
 (lifierent suppo.eable state of things, which would have 
 saved him from all this perplexity and irresolution. 
 He thinks what a determined course he could have 
 pursued, if his talents, his health, his age, had been 
 difTerent ; if he had been acquainted with some one 
 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 
 he is occupied — instead of marking with a vigilant 
 eye, and seizing with a strong hand, all the possibili- 
 ties 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 
 tvould have supposed, as a spider, may make a seizure 
 of the hapless boaster the very next moment, and con- 
 temptuously exhibit the futility of the determinations 
 by which he was to have proved the independence of 
 his understandina: and his will. He belongs to what- 
 ever can make capture of him ; and one thing after 
 anothef vindicates its right to him, by arresting him 
 while he is trying to go on ; as twigs and chips, float- 
 ing near the edge of a river, are intercepted by every 
 weed, and whirled in every little eddy. Having con- 
 cluded on a design, he may pledge himself to accom- 
 plish it — if the hundred diversities of feeling Avhich 
 may come within the week, will let him. His charac- 
 cer precluding all foresight of his conduct, he may sit 
 and wonder what form and direction his views and 
 actiors are destined to take to-morrow ; as a farinef
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 87 
 
 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 de- 
 pend very much on other human beings ; and what 
 chance for consistency and stability, while the persona 
 with whom he may converse, or transact, are so vari- 
 ous ? 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 per- 
 sons whose faculties were strong-er than his own. miffht, 
 in spite of his irresolute re-action, take him and dispose 
 of him as they pleased. Such infirmity of spirit prac- 
 tically confesses 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 soma 
 one stronger mind, 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 mast greatly 
 depend on the course of events, which come in an or- 
 der not to be foreseen or prevented. But in accommo- 
 dating the plans of conduct to the train of events, the 
 difference between two men may be no less than that, 
 in the one instance, the man is subservient to the 
 events, and in the other, the events are made subservi- 
 ent to the man. Some men seem to have been taken 
 along by a succession of events, and, as it were, handed 
 forward in helpless passivcness from one to another; 
 having no determined principle in their own charac- 
 ters, by which they could constrain those events to 
 serve a design firmed antecedently to them, or appa*
 
 88 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER, 
 
 rently in defiance of them. The events seized tliem 
 as a neutral material, not they the events. Others, ad- 
 vancing through life with an internal invincible deter- 
 mination, have seemed to make the train of circum- 
 stances, whatever they were, conduce as much to their 
 chief design as if they had, by some directing interpo- 
 sition, been brought about on purpose. It is wonderful 
 how even the casualties of life seem to bow to a spirit 
 that will not bow to them, and yield to subserve a de- 
 sign 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 you 
 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 fluctuation 
 of one whose second thinking only upsets the first, and 
 whose third confounds both. To know hoio to obtain 
 a determination, is one of the first requisites and indi- 
 cations of a rationally decisive character. 
 
 When the decision was arrived at, and a plan of 
 action approved, you would feel an assurance thai 
 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 g-'ves an 
 additional impulse to the frrce with which it is carried 
 into action. The man will not re-examine his con- 
 clusions wifh endless repetition, and he will not be de
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 8S 
 
 layed 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 Avill is like a river, which, in whatever man- 
 ner it is obstructed, will make its ^«ray somewhere I 
 must have cost Caesar many anxious hours of delibera 
 lion, before he decided to pass the Rubicon ; but it i* 
 probable he suffered but few to elapse between the de- 
 cision and the execution. And any one of his friends, 
 who should have been apprised of his determination, 
 and understood his character, would have smiled con- 
 temptuously 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 
 ' than enough to supply interest and energy for the re- 
 quired practical exertions ; the therefore as little as 
 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 oi 
 feeling. The heart is fretted and eyhausted by being 
 
 8*
 
 9U ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 subjected to a-n alternation of contrary «xciterjents 
 with the iiUimate 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 ol 
 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 amongf dubious musing-s and abor- 
 tive resolutions, their utmost value and use can be se- 
 cured by throwing all their animating force into effec- 
 tive 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 he understands and that he 
 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 b)' degrees the comci- 
 dence of those in whose company he is to transact the
 
 ox DECISION OF CHAUACIER. 91 
 
 business oi' life. If the manners of such a man be 
 free from arrogance, and he can qualify his firmness 
 wilh a moderate deo^ree of insinuation ; and if hia 
 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 several parents, both fathers and mothers, whose 
 management of their families has answered this de- 
 scription ; and has displayed a striking example of the 
 facile complacencj'' with which a number of persons, 
 of difl^erent ages and dispositions, will yield to the de- 
 cisions of a firm mind, acting on an equitable and en- 
 lightened system. 
 
 The last resource of this character, is, hard inflexible 
 pertinacity, on which it may be allowed to rest its 
 streno-th after findinaf it can be effectual in none of its 
 milder forms. 1 remember admiring an instance of 
 this kind, in a firm, sagacious, and estimable old man, 
 whom I well knew, and who has long been dead. Being 
 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 exhauslin"- the .strength which it was ne- 
 .pessary to reserve for another mode of operation. He 
 then calmly told them that it should now be a trial
 
 92 ON LECJSION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 who could endure confinement and famine the longest, 
 and that they might be quite assured he Avould soonei 
 d'e 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 ac- 
 quittal. 
 
 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 Avhat are the elements of that 
 mental constitution v>rhich is displayed in the character 
 in qaestion. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Perhaps 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 apj ear to produce, or to 
 constitute, this commanding distinction. You will 
 easily pursue this investigation yourself I lately made 
 a partial attempt, and shall offer you a number of sug- 
 gestions. 
 
 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 no*
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 98 
 
 create, both the stability of theii 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 com.presses 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, 
 jielding, treacherous debility. The action of strong 
 character seems to demand sorjiething firm in its mate- 
 lial basis, as massive engines require, for their weight 
 *nd for their working, to be fi.xed 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. This 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, has sustained the energ'y that could never 
 remit. 
 
 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 vith the common beasts of 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 whai we may call mere
 
 94 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 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 oi 
 decision has probably more of the physical quality of a 
 Uo7i 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 
 the 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 pow 
 crfuUy 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- 
 adopted constitution. And on the other hand, no con 
 stitutional hardness will form the true character, without 
 those superior properties ; though it may produce that 
 false and contemptible kind of decision which we term 
 obstinacy ; a stubbornness of temper, which can assign 
 no reasons but mere will, for a constancy which acts in 
 the nature of dead weight rather than of strength ; re- 
 sembling 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
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 95 
 
 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 A'acuity, 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 conse- 
 quences, of serious or unknown good or evil, are de- 
 pending 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 wrong. It is like the case of a 
 rustic walking in London, who, having no certain 
 direction throuo-h the vast confusion of streets to the 
 place where he wishes to be, advances, and hesitates, 
 and turns, and inquires, and becomes, at each corner, 
 still more inextricably perplexed.* A man in this 
 situation feels he shall be very unfortunate if he cannot 
 accomplish more than he can understand. Is not this 
 frequently, when brought to the practical test, the state 
 
 • " Why docs not the man call a hackney-coach T' a gay reader, 
 1 am aware, will say of the person ro hemazcd in the great town. 
 So he miglit, certiinly ; (that is, if he knew whereto find one;) and 
 the gay reader and I have only to deplore that there is no parallel 
 convenience for the assistance of perplex .'d undorstandinga.
 
 96 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 of a mind not disposed in general tc undervalue ita 
 own judgment ? 
 
 In cases where judgment is not so completely bewil- 
 dered, 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 dis- 
 tance from it, till necessity, with a stronger hand than 
 conviction, impels him upon it. He cannot see the- 
 whole length of the question, and suspects the part be- 
 yond his sight to be the most important, for the most 
 essential point and stress of it may be there. He fears 
 Uiat certain possible consequences, if they should follow, 
 would cause him to reproach himself for his present 
 determination. He wonders how this or the other per- 
 son would have acted in the same circumstances ; ea- 
 gerly catches at any thing like a respectable precedent; 
 would be perfectly willing to forego the pride of set- 
 ting 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 lo which he listens, perhaps onlj'' serve to con- 
 found his perception of the track of thought by which 
 he had hoped to reach his conclusion. Even \vhen 
 that conclusion is obtained, there are not many minds 
 that miflfht not be brought a few degfrees back into du- 
 bious hesitation, by a man of respected understanding 
 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 sucn 
 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 Strafford, in confidence in his own iudg^
 
 STAT; "mi 
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 9? 
 
 ment 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 mentioned before ; 
 for he considered his measures, and did not want for 
 reisons 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 differ- 
 ent 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 
 are presented to his mind with an exceedingly distinct 
 and perspicuous aspect, not like the shapes of moon- 
 light, or like Ossian's ghosts, dim- forms of uncircum- 
 scribed shade ; that he sees the different parts of the 
 subject in an arranged order, not in unconnected frag- 
 ments ; 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 dif- 
 ferent points, lead him to he same conclusion ; 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 char- 
 acter 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, 
 

 
 98 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 however, may not be indispensable for this discipline. 
 An extreme vigilance in the exercise of observation, 
 and a strong and strongly exerted power of general- 
 izing on experience, may have made a comparatively 
 short time enough to supply a large share of the wis- 
 dom derivable from these sources ; so that a man may 
 long before he is old be rich in the benefits of experi- 
 ence, and therefore may have all the decision of judg- 
 ment legitimately founded on that accomplishment. 
 This knowledge from experience he will be able to apply 
 in a direct and immediate manner, and without refining 
 it into general principles, to some situations of aflfairs, 
 so as to anticipate the consequences of certain actions 
 in those situations by as plain a reason, and as con- 
 fidently, 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 Avill be able to apply this knowledge, now 
 converted into general principles, to a multitude of 
 cases bearing but a partial resemblance to any thing lie 
 has actually witnessed. And then, in looking forward 
 to the possible occurrence of altogether new combina- 
 tions of circumstances, he can trust to the resources 
 which he is persuaded his intellect will open to him, or 
 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 
 contmgencies. 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 
 Bad principles of that design, but to foreign causes ; it 
 wiJ be charactiiristic of a strong mind to attribute these
 
 ON DECISXJN OF CHARACTER. 99 
 
 events discriminatively to their own causes, and not to 
 the plan^ which, therefore, instead o^ being disliked 
 and relinquished, will be still as muck approved as be- 
 fore, and the man will proceed calmly to the sequel of 
 it without any change of arrangement ; — unless in- 
 deed these sinister events should be of such conse 
 qucnce as to ■alter the whole state of things to which 
 he plan was correctly adapted, and so create a neces- 
 sity to form an entirely new one, adapted to that alter 
 ed 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 communica 
 ted to him shall bring sufficient reaso.!. And as m 
 one is so sensible of the importance ol a complete ac 
 quaintance with a subject as the man who is always 
 endeavouring to think conclusively, he will listen with 
 the utmost attention to the information^ which maj 
 sometimes be received from persons for whose judgmem 
 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 eminent 
 wisdom ; but he may hear it with more candour and 
 good temper, from being cc nscious of th'j independence 
 of his judgment, than the man who is afraid lest the
 
 100 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 first person that begins to persuade him, should baffle 
 his determination. He feels it entirely a work of hu 
 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 gratu- 
 itous to consult with any one, e.xcepting merely to re- 
 ceive statements of facts. This appears to be exem- 
 plified 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 the solitary 
 workinijs of an individual mind. 
 
 The strongest trial of this determination of judgment 
 is in those cases of urgency where something must 
 immediately be done, and the alternative of right or 
 wrong is of important consequence ; as in the duty of 
 a medical man, treating a patient whose situation at 
 once requires a daring practice, and puts it in painful 
 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 be- 
 tween the French and Mamelukes, as having for a 
 while held in the most distressing hesitation General 
 Desaix, though a prompt and intrepid commander. 
 
 LETTER in, 
 
 This indispensable basis, confidence of opinion, is 
 However not enough to constitute the character ill
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 101 
 
 queetion. 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 con- 
 trast and a disgrace to the operations of their understand- 
 ings. For want of some cogent feeling impelling them 
 to carry every internal decision into action, they have 
 been still left where they were ; and a dignified judg- 
 ment has been seen in the hapless plight of having no 
 effective forces to execute its decrees. ' 
 
 It is evident then, (and I perceive I have partly an- 
 ticipated this article in the first letter,) that another es- 
 iiential principle of the character is, a total incapability 
 of surrendering to indifference or delay the serious de- 
 terminations of the mind. A strenuous will must ac- 
 company the conclusions of thought, and constantly in- 
 cite the utmost efforts to give them a practical result. 
 The intellect must be invested, if I may so describe it, 
 with a glowing atmosphere of passion, under the in 
 fluence of which, the cold dictates of reason take fire, 
 and 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 to 
 sit down delighted after the labour of successful think- 
 ing, as if they had completed some great thing, thoy 
 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 
 •>f 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 ad- 
 venturers anciently went to Delphi, to consult, but not 
 to reside. You will therefore find them almost uni- 
 
 9
 
 102 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 formly 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 tliink that I would not disdain 
 to adopt a purpose which I would not devote my ut- 
 most force to efiect ; or that having thus devoted my 
 exertions, I will intermit or withdraw them, through 
 indolence, debility, or caprice ; or that I will surrender 
 my object to any interference except the uncontrollable 
 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. 
 
 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, like 
 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 conduct as I have described. When therefore a 
 firm, self-confiding, and unaUering judgment fails to 
 mike a decisive character, it is evident either that the 
 passions in that mina are too languid to be capable of 
 a strong and unremitting excitement, which defect 
 makes an indolent or irresolute man ; or that they per- 
 versely sometin-.es coincide with judgment and some*
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 103 
 
 time.j clash with it, which makes an inconsistent or 
 versatile man. 
 
 There is no man so irresolute as not to act with de- 
 termination 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 display- 
 ed 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, which 
 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, in conversation, remarked to you 
 the effect of what has been called a Ruling Passion. 
 When its object is noble, and an enlightenod under- 
 standing regulates its movements, it appears to me a 
 great felicity ; but whether its object be noble or noi, 
 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 favour- 
 ite Cause by this passion, which sweeps away, as it ad- 
 vances, all the trivial objections and little opposing mo- 
 tives, and seems almost to open a way through impos- 
 sibilities. This spirit comes on him in the morning as 
 soon as he recovers his consciousness, and commands 
 and impels him through the day, with a power from 
 which he could not emancipate himself if he would.
 
 !04 ON DECISION OP CHARACTER. 
 
 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 morang 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 being this would 
 have been, if goodness had been his destiny ! The 
 partiality is evinced in the very selection of terms, 
 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 
 vo the Leader of the infernal spirits ; a proof, if such 
 were the fact, of some insinuation of evil into the mag- 
 nificent creation of the poet. In some of the high 
 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, su- 
 perior 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 tem- 
 pestuous sea in order to be at Rome on an important 
 occasion : " It is necessary for me to gri, it is not neces- 
 sary for me to live." 
 
 Revenge has produced wonderful examples of this 
 unremitting constancy to a purpose. Zanga is a well*
 
 ON UECISION OF CHARACTER. i05 
 
 supported illustration. And you may have read of a 
 real instance of a Spaniard, who, being injured by an- 
 other 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 perceived 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. 
 
 You may recollect the mention in one of our con- 
 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 hii 
 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, 
 which 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 des- 
 picable a trifle, and resolved absolutely not to spend, if 
 he could help it, a farthing of whatever he might obtaia 
 The first thing that drew his attention was a heap of
 
 106 ON PECiSION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 coals shot out of carts on the pavement before a house. 
 He offered himself to shovel or wheel them into the 
 place where they Avere to he laid, and was employeo. 
 He received a few pence for the labour ; and then, in 
 pursuance of the saving part of his plan, requested 
 some small gratuity of meat and drink, which wa3 
 given him. He then looked out for the next thing 
 that might chance to offer ; and went, with indefati- 
 gable industry, through a succession of servile employ- 
 ments, in different places, of longer and shorter dura' 
 tion, still scrupulously avoiding, as far as possible, the 
 expense of a penny. He promptly seized every oppor- 
 tunity which could advance his design, without regard- 
 ing the meanness of occupation or appearance. By 
 this method he had gained, after a considerable time, 
 money enough to purchase, in order to sell 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 continu- 
 ed course of his life : but the final result was, that he 
 more than recovered his lost possessions, and died an 
 inveterate miser, worth 60,000/. I have always recol- 
 lected this as a signal instance, though in an unfortu- 
 nate 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 of 
 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 occasionSj it would have
 
 ON r*;cisiciv of character. 107 
 
 appeared a vehement impetuosity; but by being unin- 
 termuted,it had an equability of manner which scarce- 
 ly appeared to exceed the tone of a cahn 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 moderate one when swollen to a 
 torrent. 
 
 The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, 
 and commencing them in action, was the same. I 
 wonder what must have been the amount of that bribe, 
 in emolument or 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 impor- 
 tance of this object held his faculties in a state of deter- 
 mination 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 thcrr 
 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 fulfd their com- 
 mission of philanthropy among mortals, do not care 
 about pictures, statues, and sumptuous buildings ; and
 
 108 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 no more did he, when the time in which he must ha\'* 
 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 scru- 
 pulous 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 sure of their revenge ; for no other 
 man will ever visit Rome under such a despotic ac- 
 knowledged rule of duty, as to refuse himself time for 
 surveying the magnificence of its ruins. Such a sin 
 ?.gainst taste is verj'' far beyond the reach of cotnmon 
 saintship to commit. It implied an inconceivable se- 
 verity of conviction, that he had one thing to do, and 
 that he who would do some great thing in this .^^hort 
 life, must apply himself to the work witii such a con- 
 centration of his forces, as, to idle 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 nio-h, 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 appro.xi- 
 mation. As his method referred every thing he did 
 find 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 migl.t conclude to be 
 placed beyond the sphere of mortal activity, and calmly 
 leave to the immediate disposal of Providence.
 
 ON DECISIO } OF CHARACTER. ) 09 
 
 Unless the elernal hippine.-s 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 char- 
 acter, 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 unmitigable urgency. 
 
 Many of the christian missionaries among the 
 heathens, such as Brainerd, Elliot, and Schwartz, have 
 displayed memorable examples of this dedication of 
 their whole being to their office, thi.s 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 I 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 admiring it, and himself as it^^ 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 glances a mortified thought of inquiry round 
 to recollect persons who would venture what he dares 
 
 10
 
 »10 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 not, and almost hopes not to find them. Or if by eX' 
 treme effort he has brought himself to a resolution of 
 bravi'iff the difficulty, he is compelled to execrate the 
 cimid iingerings that still keep him back from the trial. 
 A m.-'O endowed with the complete character, migh 
 say, with a sober consciousness as remote from th® 
 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 
 mena'^.ing glare and ominous tones will be lost on me ; 
 "Id ire do all that may become a man." I trust I 
 shall firmly confront every thing that threatens me 
 while prosecuting my purpose, and I am prepared to 
 meet the consequences 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 impossible that I may 
 meet, or the assassin who may lurk in a thicket of 
 yonder wood. And I disdain to compromi.se the in- 
 terests that rouse me to action, for the privilege of an 
 ignoble security. 
 
 As the conduct of a man of decision is always indi- 
 vidual, and often singular, he may expect some serious 
 trials of coui'age. 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 .sara? undis-
 
 ON DECISION Of CHARACTER. Ill 
 
 (urbed manner as he would meet some ordinary in 
 c.pmcncy of the weiither ; that can, without harshness 
 or violence, continue to eflect 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 would please me to have 
 your approbation and concurrence, and I think I should 
 have them if you would seriously consider my reasons ; 
 but meanwhile, I am superior to opinion, I am not to 
 be 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 can 
 approve myself, it is enough that I appeal to the last 
 authority in the creation. Amuse yourselves as you 
 may, by continuing to censure or to rail ; / 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 deprav- 
 ity, to sustain for a considerable time, or in numerous 
 instances, the looks of scorn, or an unrestrained 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 invincibility 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 H^ spond in 
 vain than their scorn. Till, however, a man shall be- 
 come a veteran, he must reckon on sometimes meet- 
 ing this trial in the course of virtuous enti'rprise. And 
 if, at the suggestion of some meritorious but unprece- 
 iented proceeding, I hear him ask, with a look and
 
 112 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 one of shrinking alarm, But will they not laujh al 
 nie ? — I know that he is not the person whom this es- 
 say attempts to describe. A man of the right kind 
 would saj', They will smile, they will laugh, will they ? 
 Much good may it do them. I have something else to 
 do than to trouble m3^self about their mirth. I do no 
 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 enough to 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 di- 
 verted at it and at me. What should I think of my 
 pursuits, if every trivial thoughtless being could com- 
 prehend 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 th^ pro- 
 ject for conquering Peru, formed by Almagro, Pizarro, 
 and De Luques, while abhorring the actuating princi- 
 ple of the men, I could not help admiring the hardi- 
 hood 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 of 
 the 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 deem- 
 ed a monstrous project. They, however, proceeded 
 through the service, and afterwards to their respective 
 departments of preparation, with an apparently entire 
 insensibility to all this triumphant contempt ; and thus 
 gave the first proof of possessing that invincible firm- 
 ness with which they afterwards prosecuted their design, 
 till they attained a success, the destructive process and
 
 ON DECISION OF CH/OIACTER. I 1 3 
 
 many of the results of which humanity has evei de- 
 plored. 
 
 Milton's Abdiel is a noble illustration of the courao-e 
 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 char 
 acter will be broug-ht to trial against evils of a darkei 
 aspect than disapprobation or contempt. There may 
 be the threatening of serious sufferings ; and very of- 
 ten, to dare as far as conscience or a great cause requi 
 red, 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-de- 
 voted 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 enter- 
 prise, 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, ana warned him by the exarrrple cf /uhn Huss, 
 ■whom, in a similar situation, the same pledge of pro- 
 teci'.on had not saved from the fire, " I am called 
 
 10*
 
 114 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 lu 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 
 to answer thee in this matter," when the " burning 
 fiery" furnace was in sight. 
 
 The combination of these several essential principles 
 constitutes that state of mind which is a grand requi- 
 site to decision of character, and perhaps its most stri- 
 king distinction — the full agreement of the mind with 
 itself, the consenting co-operation of all its powers and 
 all its dispositions. 
 
 What an unfortunate task it would be for a char- 
 ioteer, 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 res- 
 tiff, another struggled backward, another started aside. 
 If even one of the four were unmanageably perverse, 
 while the three were tractable, an a^ed besfo-ar with 
 his crutch might leave Phaeton behind. So in a hu- 
 man being, unless the chief forces act consentaneously, 
 there can be no inflexible vigour, either of will or ex- 
 ecution. 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 hap- 
 pen to be highly stimulated. If there is an opposition 
 between judgment and habit, though the man will 
 probably continue to act mainly under the sway of
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. IIS 
 
 habit in spite of his opinions, yet some imes the in- 
 trusion of those opinions will have for the nicment 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 
 debility. If two principal passions are opposed to each 
 other, they will utterly distract any mind, whatever 
 miifht be the force of its faculties if acting without em- 
 barrassment. The one passion may be somewhat 
 stronger than the other, and therefore just prevail bare* 
 ly 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 conse- 
 quence 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 predominance of the one and subjec- 
 tion 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, for 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 »fl[ 
 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 
 to inflict so much mischief as it might cost to subdue 
 them; we may anticipate the irrosolMte contradictory 
 tenour of his actions. Especially if conscience, that 
 great troubler of the human breast, loudly declares 
 against a man's wishes or project?, it will be a fatal
 
 116 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 enemy to decision, till it either reclaim the delmquen 
 passions, or be debauched or laid dead by them. 
 
 Lady Macbeth may be cited as a harmonious char 
 acter, though the epithet seem strangely applied. She 
 "had capacity, ambition, and courage ; and she willed 
 the death of the king. JVlacbeth had still more ca- 
 pacity, ambition, and courage ; and he also willed the 
 murder of the king. But he had besides humanity, 
 generosity, conscience, and some measure of what forms 
 the poioer of conscience, the fear of a Superior Being. 
 Consequently, when the dreadful moment approached, 
 he felt 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 pros- 
 trate under the power of the better ; the angel of good- 
 ness arrested the demon that grasped the dagger ; and 
 would have taken that dagger away, if the pure de- 
 moniac firmness of his wife, who had none of these 
 counteracting principles, had not shamed and hardened 
 him to the deed. 
 
 The poet's delineation of Richard III. offers a dread- 
 ful specimen of this indivisibility of mental impulse. 
 'After 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 with 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 vig- 
 our,) lost his mental consistency in the latter end of a 
 career which had displayed a superlative example of 
 decision. It appears (hat the wish to be a king, at las*
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER, 117 
 
 arose in a mind which had contemned royalty, ana 
 battled it from the land. As far as he really had any 
 republican principles and partialities, thit new desire 
 must have been a very untoward associate for them, 
 and must have produced a schism in the breast where 
 nil the strong forces of thought and passion had acted 
 till then in concord. The new form of ambition be- 
 came just predoninant enough to carry him, by slow 
 degrees, through the embarrassment and the shame of 
 this incongruity, into an irresolute determination to as- 
 sume 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, 
 v/hich 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 relinquishiag 
 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 desira- 
 ble, but of which the one must be sacrificed, may an- 
 nihilate 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 one 
 only, because they should be accountable for the ex- 
 ecution of two persons ; he might therefore choose 
 which he vvouhj icdccm Anxious to save even one
 
 118 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 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 dilem- 
 ma so long that they were both irreversibly ordered for 
 execution. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 It were absurd to suppose that any human being 
 can attain a state of mind rapable of acting in all in- 
 stances invariably with the full power of determina- 
 tion ; but it is obvious that many have possessed a 
 habitual and very commanding measure of it ; and I 
 think the preceding remarks have taken account of its 
 chief characteristics 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 
 conspirator?, 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 pre- 
 vent its becoming unamiable. As it involves much 
 practical assertion of superiority over other human be- 
 ings, it should be as temperate and concili^Wig as pos- 
 sible in manner ; else pride will feel provoked, affcc 
 tion hurt, and weakness oppressed. But this is no> 
 the manner which will be most natural to such a man,
 
 ON DECISION OF CHAKACTKR. 1 19 
 
 rather it will be high-toned, laconic, and careless of 
 pleasing. He will have the appearance of keeping 
 himself alwaj^s at a distance from social equality ; and 
 his friends will feel as if their friendship were contin- 
 aally sliding info subserviency; while his intimate 
 connexions will think he does not attach the due im- 
 portance either to their opinions or to their regard. 
 His manner, when they differ from him, or com^ilain, 
 will be too much like the expression of slight estima 
 tion, and sometimes of disdain. 
 
 "When he can accomplish a design by his own per- 
 sonal 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 beino- 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 re- 
 pellent effect on the friends who wished to feel them- 
 selves of some importance, in some way or other, to a 
 person whom they are constrained to respect. When 
 assistance is indispensable to his undertakings, his 
 mode of signifying 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 
 anj' opinions that shall correct his own ; but is sat- 
 isfied that either his present conception of the subject 
 is the just one, or that his own mind must originate 
 that which .sSpU be so. This difference will be appa- 
 rent between him and his associates, that their manner 
 of receiving his opinions is that of agreement or dis- 
 sent; his manner of receiving theirs is judicial — that
 
 120 ON ZECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 of sanction or rejection. He has the tone of authori- 
 tatively deciding on what they say, but never of submit- 
 ting to decision what himself says. Their coincidence 
 with his views does not give him a firmer assurance of 
 his being right, nor their dissent any other impression 
 t.han 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, 
 anl 1 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, 
 just as one of the speakers against him concluded his 
 speecli 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 de- 
 cided 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, 
 ind timidity, of those with whom he has to act. He 
 will say to himself, I wish there were anything like
 
 ON DECISION OF CI.ARACTER. 12^ 
 
 manhood among the beings called men ; and thai they 
 could have the sense and spirit not to let themselves be 
 hampered by so many silly notions and childish fears ! 
 Why cannot they either determine with some promp- 
 titude, or let me, that can, do it for them? Am I to 
 wait till debility become strong, and folly wise 1 — 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 consciousness of 
 the rio^ht intention, and the assurance of the wise con- 
 trivance, of his designs, he will hold himself justified 
 in being regardless of every thing but the accomplish- 
 ment of them. He will forget all respect for the feel 
 ings 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 his command- 
 ing spirit. 
 
 1 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 se- 
 cure 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 prosecution of de^ 
 signs 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 
 tyndcrness ; and it is easy to imagine, that the laws of 
 our nature will, with great difhculty, allow the com- 
 bination of the refined sensibilities with a hard, never- 
 phrinking, 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, 
 
 11
 
 i22 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 weak through susceptibility, to relax or waver ; just as 
 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 iirmness 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 re- 
 quires 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 cfTort, 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 w'hole being appears too much arrogated and oc- 
 cupied by the spirit of severe, design, urging them to- 
 ward 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 rigorou.sly intent 
 still on his own affairs, as he walks, or regales, or min- 
 gles with domestic society ; and appears to despise ail 
 the feelings that will not take rank with the grave la- 
 bours and decisions of intellect, or coalesce with the un- 
 remitting 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 
 'brce of his being, and fix him in a tone, compared 
 with which, the gentle affections, if he had felt them,
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 123 
 
 would be accounted lameness, and their exciting causes 
 insipidity. 
 
 Yet we cannot \; dlingly admit that those gentle 
 aflections 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 in 
 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 could 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- 
 thing like softness, and where they have been left to 
 the trial of what they might feel of the sympathies of 
 humanity in their simplicity, no rock on earth could 
 be harder. 
 
 The celebrated King of Prussia occurs to me, as a 
 capital instance of the decisive character ; and there 
 occurs to me, at the same time, one of the anecdotes
 
 124 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 related of him.* Intending' to make, in the niglit, 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 Ihe time was passed, he 
 walked out himself to see wtiether 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 writinsT ; 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 
 high responsibility, must be resolute to act in a manner 
 
 * The authenticity of this anecdote, which I read in some trifling 
 fugitive publication many years since, has been questioned. Pos- 
 sibly 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 
 anecdote would charge on him, the want of means to prove this 
 one fact does not seeir. to impose any necessity for omitting the illu8« 
 tration.
 
 ON lEClSION OF CHARACTER. 125 
 
 which may make him appear to want the finer feelings. 
 He may be placed under the necessity of doing what 
 he knows will cause pain to persons of a character to 
 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 adapted 
 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 
 posture of a gladiator, when there appears no con- 
 fronting combatant. When these passions are provoked 
 
 11*
 
 126 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 in such a person as I describe, it is jtrobable that each 
 excitement is followed h" a greater increase of thii 
 principle of re-action than ni 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 genera! 
 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 
 high 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. 
 I latf ly happened to notice, with some surprise, an 
 ivy vvhich, finding nothing to cling to beyond a
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER, 127 
 
 certain point, 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 socia 
 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 reso- 
 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 principle, 
 he 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 worthy to reward, if it should at last become in- 
 clined. No, he will say, give your rewards to another ; 
 as it has been no part of my object to gain them, they
 
 128 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 are not necessary to my satisfaction. I have done gaodj 
 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. Wlien 
 I ought to have been an object of your compassion, 1 
 might have perished ; now when you find I can serve 
 your interests, you will afTect 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 
 compelled to do without assistance, will spurn inter- 
 ference. 
 
 Common life would supply illustrations of the efTect 
 of desertion, in examples of some of the most resolute 
 men having become such partly from being left friend- 
 less in early life. The ease has also sometimes hap- 
 pened, that a wife and mother, remarkable perhaps for 
 gentleness and acquiescence before, has been compel- 
 led, after the death of her husband on whom she de- 
 pended, and when she has met with nothing but ne- 
 glect or unkindness from relations and those virho had 
 been accounted friends, to adopt a plan of her own, and 
 has executed it with a resolution which has astonish- 
 ed 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 myself 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 
 aggravated or lis finding himself thus an outcast from 
 all human society ; and he would proudly shake off 
 every sentiment that had ever for an instant checked
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 129 
 
 his desig-ns in the way of reminding- him of social ob- 
 ligations. The lonely individual was placed in the 
 alternative of becoming the victim or the antagonist 
 of the power of the empire. While, with a spirit ca- 
 pable of confronting that power, he resolved, amidst 
 those ruins, on a great experiment, he would enjoy » 
 kind of sullen luxury in surveying the dreary situa 
 tion into which he was driven, and recollectinof the cir 
 cumstances of his expulsion ; since they would seem 
 to him to sanction an unlimited vengeance j to present 
 what had been his country as the pure legitimate 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 condition 
 rendered but the more complete the proof of his pos- 
 sessing 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 sad- 
 ness for some moments, but he soon resumes his in- 
 vincible spirit, and utters the impious but sublime sen- 
 timent, 
 
 " What matter where, if / be still the same." 
 
 You remember how this effect of desertion is repre- 
 sented in Charles de Moor.* His father's supposed 
 
 • A wililly exlr.ava<;aiit, certainly, but most imposing and gigon* 
 tic character in SchiiUr's tragedy, The Robbers,
 
 130 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 cruel rejection consigned hiin irretrievably to the careet 
 of atrocious enterprise, in which, notwitlistanding the 
 most interesting emotions of humanity and tenderness, 
 he persisted with heroic determination till he consider- 
 ed Iris 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 ad- 
 monishing his prudence, and enlarging his understand- 
 ing. But as schemes and measures of action rightly 
 adjusted to their proposed ends will generally attain 
 them, continual failure would show something essen- 
 tially wrong in a man's system, and destroy his confi- 
 dence, or else expose it as mere absurdity or obstinacy. 
 On the contrary, when a man has ascertained by ex- 
 periment the justness of his calculations and the extent 
 of his powers, when he has measured his fDrce with 
 various persons, when he has braved and vanquished 
 difficulty, and partly seized the prize, he will carry for- 
 ward 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 confi- 
 dence beyond its rational effect, by inspiring a presump- 
 tion that the common laws of human affairs were, in 
 their case, superseded by the decrees of a peculiar des- 
 tiny, securing them from almost the possibility of dis- 
 aster ; and this superstitious feeling, though it has dis- 
 placed the unconquerable resolution fr^m its rational
 
 CN DECISION OF CHAUACTEX 131 
 
 "oasis, has often produced the most wonderful efTects. 
 This dictated Caesar's expression to the naariner who 
 was terrified at the storm and billows, " What art thou 
 afraid of? — thy vessel carries Cessar." The brave 
 msEi 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, 
 as 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 op- 
 jiosed, 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 predictions. 
 
 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 
 superaddition of Justice of the Peace. 
 
 In viewing the characters and actions of the men 
 who have possessed in imperial eminence the quality 
 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 in which 
 they were placed ; but it is inevitable to believe that 
 there was some vast intrinsic difierence 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 it if he had resolv- 
 ed, I was distinctly struck with the idea of the dis- 
 tance between him and Marius, of whom I happened
 
 132 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER, 
 
 to Lave been reailing ; 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 full- 
 est influence from his childhood, any resemblance (un- 
 less 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 
 Btamina of this character, can, by any process, acquire 
 it. Indeed such a person cannot have sufficient force 
 of will to make the complete experiment. If there 
 were the unconquerable will that would persist to seize 
 all possible means, and apply them in order to attain, 
 if I may so express it, this stronger mode of active exist- 
 ence, 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 possi- 
 ble ? 
 
 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 of 
 it, when partially existing in those degrees, cannot be 
 supposed subject to definite and ultimate limitation, 
 like the dimension of the bodily stature, it might be 
 possible to apply a discipline which should advance a 
 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 cost 
 more in the eflbrts for making the attainment, than 
 he judges likely to be 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. 
 
 In the first place, the indispensable necessity ot a
 
 ON OECiSION OF CHARACTER. 135 
 
 cleai and comprehensive knowledge of the concerns be- 
 fore 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 eflbrts, 
 to obtain the needful information and understanding. 
 The pain of having brought things to an unfortunaie 
 issue, is hardly greater tlian 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 information 
 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 tliat time that 
 such instruction could ever come to be of importance 
 to him ; and is distressed to find his best recollection so 
 indistinct as to be useless. He would give a consider- 
 able sum, if some particular book could be brought to 
 him at the instant ; or a certain document which he 
 believes to be in existence ; or the detail of a process, 
 the terms of a prescription, or the model of an imple- 
 ment. He thinks how many people know, witliout its 
 being of any present use to them, exactly what could 
 be of such important service to him, if he could know 
 it. In some cases, a line, a 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 knowledge, not concerning one 
 particular matter only, but c'ivers others, in provision 
 against possible emergencies, rather than be so involv- 
 ed and harassed again. It might really be of service 
 to have been occasionally forced to act under the di» 
 
 12
 
 134 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 advantage 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 decision either of plan or exe- 
 cution. I^ must indeed be an extreme case that will 
 compel a considerate man to act in the absence of know- 
 ledge ; yet he may sometimes be necessitated to pro- 
 ceed 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 ter- 
 minates ; unless he be conscious of possessing an ex- 
 ceedingly 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 slock of pro- 
 vision, 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 less than complete 
 knowledge, in any question of practical interest, will 
 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 
 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 ac- 
 quainted with the intricate paths of a woodland district, 
 takes the right one without a moment's hesitation ; 
 v/hile a stranger, who has only some very vague infor- 
 mation, is lost in perplexit3^ It is easy to imagine what 
 a number of circumstances may occur in the course of 
 a life or even of a y iar, in which a man cannot thus read- 
 ily determine, and thus confidently proceed without a
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 135 
 
 compass and an exactness of knowledge \\Aich 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 ! 
 
 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 
 of 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 properly have taken place at an earlier point of the 
 train, or have been deferred till that train had been 
 extended much further. Instead of having been busily 
 employed in this kind of thinking, for perhaps many 
 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 ;ts place at the end, and 
 to make an end, of this long scries. 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
 
 136 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 as this crude uncombined assemblag-e of ideas. Indeed 
 it is difficult to form a determination at all on buel. 
 slight ground. A man delays, and waits for some more 
 satisfactory thought to occur to him ; and perhaps he 
 has not waited lonsf, before an idea arises in his m'.nd 
 of a quite contrary tendency to the last. As this addi- 
 tional idea is not, more than that which 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 consid- 
 erable 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 hkely 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 '?urface on the lake Serbonis, which broke away 
 undt-T the unfortunate army which had begun to ad- 
 vance on it, mistaking it for solid ground. — These re- 
 marks may seem to refer only to a single instance of 
 deliberation ; but they are equally applicable to all the 
 deliberations and undertakings of a man's life ; the 
 same connected manner of thinking, which is so ne- 
 cessary to give firmness of determination and of con 
 duct 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
 
 ?N DECISION OF CHARjlCfER. 137 
 
 to a full conclusion. It should be held as a law gen- 
 erally in force, that the question must be disposed of 
 before it is let alone. The mind may carry on thij 
 accurate process to some length, and then stop through 
 indolence, or start away through levity ; but it car, 
 never possess that rational confidence in its opinions 
 which is requisite to the character in question, till it ia 
 conscious of acquii"ing them from an exercise of thought 
 continued on to its result. The habit of thinking 
 thus completely is indispensable to the general charac- 
 ter of decision ; and in any particular instance, it is 
 found that short pieces of courses of reasoning, though 
 correct as far as they go, are inadequate to make a 
 man master of the immediate concern. They are be- 
 sides of little value for aid to future thinking ; because 
 from being left thus incomplete 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 ob- 
 serve, that a vigorous exercise of thought may some- 
 times for a while seem to increase the difficulty of de- 
 cision, by discovering a great number of unthought-of 
 reasons for a measure and against it, so that the most 
 discriminating mind may, during a short space, find 
 itself in 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 ascer- 
 tain, though the difference is small, which side of the 
 quei5tion 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 r,haTacter. is for a man to 
 
 12*
 
 138 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 place himself in a situation analogous to that in which 
 CiEsar placed his soldiers, when he burnt the ships 
 which brought them to land. If his judgment ia 
 really decided, let him commit himself irretrievably, 
 by doing something which shall oblige him to dc 
 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 
 ^lan 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 camp. If a man is desirous 
 of a travelling adventure through distant countries, 
 and deliberately 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 equipments, or the carriage, or the vessel, 
 in which he is to go. Ledyard surprised the official 
 person who asked him how soon he could be ready to 
 set off for the interior 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 suf- 
 fer 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 
 of 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
 
 ON DECISION OF :iIARACTER. 13*1 
 
 as its meanness is betrayed by failure of the delusio 3 
 which invests it. 
 
 And finally, I would repeat that one should think a 
 man's own conscientious approbation of his condi c 
 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, dc 
 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 seriour. 
 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 vicef> 
 of a nation or an age — to contemplate such beings as 
 becoming themselves the mighty exemplars, giants, 
 and champions of those vices ; and it is fearful to fol- 
 low them in thought, from this region, of which not 
 all the powers and difficulties and inhabitants together 
 could have subdued their adamantine resolution, to the 
 Supreme Tribunal where '.hat esolution must tremble 
 and melt away.
 
 ESSAY III 
 
 ON THE APPLICATION OF THE EPITHET 
 ROMANTIC. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 A THOUGHTFUL judge of Sentiments, books, and men, 
 will often find reason to regret thai the language of 
 censure is so easy and so undefined. It costs no la- 
 bour, and needs no intellect, to pronounce the words, 
 foolish, 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 per' 
 haps result in applause. Thus excellent performances, 
 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 tLem. A man who wishes some decency 
 and sense to prevail in the circulation of opinions, will 
 do well, when he hears these decisions of ignorant ar- 
 '•ogance, to call for a precise explication of the manner 
 in which the terms of the verd'ct apply to the subject. 
 
 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 sagac.ty in the confident
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 141 
 
 readiness to cDndemn, even with this impotence ol lan- 
 guage, he maj' however have an iiksoine 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 fret- 
 ted feeling of this their inefficiency; and can perceive 
 that censure or contempt has the smartest effect, when 
 its expressions have a special cast which fits them more 
 peculiarly to the present subject than to another ; and 
 he is therefore secretly dissatisfied in uttering the ex- 
 pressions which say "about it and about it," but do 
 not say the thing itself; which showing his 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 spite- 
 ful force, and seem to have more particularity of mean- 
 ing, than plain common words, while yet needing no 
 shrewdness for their application. Each. of these is sup- 
 posed to denominate some one class or character of 
 scorned or reprobated things, but so little defines it,
 
 142 ON THE APPLICATION OI 
 
 .hat duil 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, re- 
 ceived a promiscuous crowd of reputed criminals, of 
 unexamined and dubious similarity, and were then 
 sunk in the flood. You cannot wonder that such 
 compendious words of decision, which can give quick 
 vent to crude impatient censure, emit plenty of antipa- 
 thy in a few syllables, and save the condemner the 
 difficuky of telling exactly what he wants to mean, 
 should have had an extensive circulation. 
 
 Puritan was, doubtless, welcomed as a term most 
 luckily invented or revived, when it began to be appli- 
 ed in contempt to a class of men of whom the world 
 w^as 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 ex- 
 tinct, and left it to become a grave and almost vener- 
 able term in history ; but some word of a similar cast 
 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 Milton 
 describes the wicked one in Paradise) for some con- 
 venient form in which it miofht ag-ain come forth to hiss 
 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
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 143 
 
 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 opera- 
 tions of religion on the passions, by which he has never 
 been disturbed, he' has only to call them methodistical ; 
 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 
 lo a profligate, or a coxcomb, whose propriety of char- 
 acter is to .be supported by laughing indiscriminately 
 at religion in every foi^ ; 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 pleas- 
 ant facility of throwing away the matter in question to 
 scorn, without any trouble of making a definite intelli- 
 gible charge of extravagance or delusion, and attempt- 
 ing to prove it. 
 
 In politics, Jacob'mism 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 
 ascendent 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 tc 
 enforce the substitution of statements and definitions 
 for this vulgar, senseless, but most efiicacious term of 
 reproach ! What a number of persons have vented the
 
 144 ON THE APPLICATION OF 
 
 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 had 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 j"?//^/(?(r/ 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 the 
 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 ol 
 those who despise, while they cajole, their duped aux- 
 iliaries. The popular passions are the imps and de- 
 mons of the political conjuror, and he can raise them, 
 as other conjurors affect to do theirs, by terms of gib- 
 berish.* 
 
 The epithet romantic has obviously no similarity to 
 these words in its coinage, but it is considerably like 
 
 * It is curious that, within no long time after this was first 
 printed, the terms jacobin a.nd jacobinism became completely worn 
 out and obsolete. It is not worth a guess how long the term radi- 
 cal, to which the duty of the defunct ones was transferred, maj 
 continue of any service against the doctrines and persons af reforr 
 mists.
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC 145 
 
 them in the 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 see7ns,0T 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 accountable; 
 it has the license of a parrot to call names without be- 
 ing taxed with insolence. And when any sentiments 
 are decisively stigmatised with this denomination, it 
 would require considerable courage to attempt their 
 rescue and defence ; since the imputation which the epi- 
 thet fixes on them will pass upon the advocate ; and he 
 may expect to be himself enrolled among the heroes of 
 whom Don Quixote is from time immemorial the com- 
 mander-in-chief. At least he may be assigned to that 
 class which occupies a dubious frontier space between , 
 the rational and the insane. 
 
 If, however, the suggestions and sketches which I 
 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
 
 146 ON J HE ^iPPLICATION OF 
 
 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 1 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 {j.n 
 tastic images of Romance ; and that you cannot help 
 thinking of enchanted castles, encounters with giants, 
 solemn exorcisms, fortunate surprises, knights and wiz- 
 ards. You cannot exactly distinguish what the ab- 
 surdity 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 absurdiljr stands notorious and unquestioned :. for 
 evidently the epithet should signify a resemblance 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 areneral characteristic of those works has 
 been the ascendency of imagination over judgment. 
 And the description is correct as applied to the books, 
 however well endowed with intellect the authors of 
 them might be. If they chose, lor 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
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 147 
 
 thing as if produced by a mind in which sound judg' 
 ment had no place ; it would exhibit imaginati( n ac- 
 tually 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 thijse 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 a continual consciousness in what 
 degree they icere extravagant ; or of men designing to 
 give effect to truth or malice under the disguise of a 
 fantastic 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 
 Avonderfully little sensible of the enormous extrava- 
 gance of their fictions. They could drive on their ca- 
 reer through monstrous absurdities of description and 
 narration, without, apparently, any check from a sense 
 of inconsistency, improbability, or impossibility ; and 
 with an air as if they really reckoned on being taken 
 for the veritable describero of something that could ex- 
 ist or happen within the mundane system. And the 
 general state of intellect of the ago 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 preva- 
 lence of imagination over reason, drawn in a ludicroua
 
 148 ON THE ArrHCATION OF 
 
 form, by which he rendered the folly palpable even tf 
 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 bibliomaniacs ; 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, tharx 
 the plain realities of life; as a kind of mental balloon, 
 for mounting into the air from the ground of ordinary 
 experience. To afford this extra-rational kind of lux- 
 ury, it was requisite that the fictions should still par- 
 take, in a limited degree, of the quality of the earlier ro- 
 mance. The writers were not to be the dupes of wild 
 fancy ; they were not to feign marvels in such a man- 
 ner as if they knew no better ; they were not wholly 
 to lose sight of the actual system of things, but to keep 
 within so7ne measures of relation and proportion to it ; 
 and yet they were required to disregard the strict laws 
 of verisimilitude in shaping their inventions, and to 
 magnify and diversify them with an indulgence of fancy 
 very considerably beyonfi 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 employed 
 for description and censure of character, sentiments, 
 and schemes, is to be understood as expressive of the 
 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 particu- 
 lars, such errors as naturally result from that excess.— 
 It may be worth while to look for some of the practi- 
 cal exemplifications of this unfortunate disproportion 
 between these t\vo powers of the mind. 
 
 It should first be noted that a defective judgment is
 
 THE EriTIIET ROMANTIC. 149 
 
 not necessarily accoinpanied by any thing in the least 
 romantic in disposition, since tine imagination may be 
 as inert as the judgment is weak ; and this douHe and 
 equal deficiency produces mere dulness. Bat it is ob- 
 vious 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 debiUty 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 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 rleduce 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 
 
 13*
 
 150 ON TITE APrLICATION 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 it 
 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, 
 till .some imperious circumstance of real life call 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 enjoyed, the great actions that have 
 beer, performed, the beneficent institutions that have 
 been established, and the beautiful objects that have 
 been seen, in that happy region, could have been im- 
 ported into this terrestrial place — what a delightful
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 151 
 
 th'ngf, 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 
 oltain 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 
 tbem 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 wath them through 
 the medium of those ideal forms in which imagination 
 present's them, and in which only a strong imagination 
 can present them impressively.* And I should deem 
 it the indication of a character not destined to excel in 
 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, Avi*h 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, 
 
 • The Divine Bcins is the only one of these objects which a 
 Christian would wisli it possible to contemplate without the aid of 
 imagination; and every reflective man haa felt howdilficult it Is to 
 apprehend even this Object without the intervention of an imaf^e. 
 In tliinking 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 
 «casion to wish his imagination much more vivid.
 
 152 ON THE APPLICATION Of 
 
 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 
 what he thought of it, gravely reply, " What does it 
 prove ?" 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.
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 153 
 
 LETTER TI. 
 
 The ascendency of imagination operates in varioua 
 modes ; I will endeavour to distinguish those which 
 may justly be called rorjiantic. 
 
 The extravagance of imaofination 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 extraordi- 
 nary indications in the person or his circumstances. 
 There was something rational in the early presenti- 
 ment which some distinguished men have entertained 
 of their future career. When a celebrated general of 
 the present times exclaimed, after performing the com- 
 mon military exercise, as one of a company of juvenile 
 volunteers, " I shall be a commander-in-chief,''* a sa- 
 gacious observer of the signs of talents yet but par- 
 tially developed, might have thought it indeed a rather 
 sanguine but probably not a quite absurd anticipation 
 An elder and intelligent associate of Milton's youth 
 might without much difficulty have believed himself 
 listening to an oracle, when a spirit which was sha- 
 ping in such gigantic proportions avowed to him a 
 confidence, of being destined to produce a work which 
 should distinguish tne nation and the age. The open- 
 ing of uncommon faculties may be sometimes inspirited 
 by such anticipations; which the young genius may 
 be allowed to express, perhaps as a stimulus encour- 
 aged to inc'ulge, But in most instances these magnifi* 
 • Related of Moreau.
 
 154 ON THE APPLICATION OP 
 
 cent presumptions form, in the observer's eye, a ludi' 
 crous contrast with the situation and apparent abilities 
 of the person who entertains them. And in the event, 
 how iew such anticipations have been proved the gen- 
 uine promptings of an extraordinary mind. 
 . Tlie visionary presumption of a peculiar destiny is 
 entertained in more forms than that which implies a 
 confidence of possessing uncommon talent. It is oftea 
 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 situa- 
 tion, or of any principles in the constitution of his 
 mind which are perhaps very exactly calculated to 
 frustrate the acticipation and the scheme of happiness. 
 If this excessive imagination is combined with ten- 
 dencies to aflfection, it makes a person sentimentally 
 romantic. With a great, and what might, in a mind 
 of finer elements, be a just contempt of the ordinary 
 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 
 tliat he adores, or in the nature of his devotion, to 
 promise an elevation or permanence of felicity beyond 
 the destiny of common mortals.
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 155 
 
 ^ a passion for variety and novelty accompanies 
 tl»-S 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 atn 
 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, 
 failing health, and the shortness of life, are very possi- 
 bly 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- 
 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- 
 Tious enough that the generality of instances would 
 not soem to tell of more than a mediocrity of happiness
 
 556 ON THE APPLICATION OF 
 
 m this relation ; but a visionary person does not live 
 ■w.thin 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 hirr 
 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 sig- 
 nal man, than there having been a million to one sig- 
 nal man, infers a probability of his remaining one of 
 the multitude. 
 
 You will generally observe, that persons thus self- 
 appointed, of either sex, to be exceptions to the usua 
 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 
 something extraordinary. They will perhaps disdain 
 regular hours, punctuality to engagements, usual dress- 
 es, 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 
 tliose presumptions (if entertained after the childish ot
 
 THE EPITHET UOTMANTIC. 157 
 
 verj' youthful age) of a peculiarly happy or impurtur.t 
 destmy in life, which are not clearly founded on certain 
 palpable distinctions of character or situation, or which 
 greatly exceed the sober prognostics afforded by they 
 distinctions. — It should be observed here that wisht 
 merely do not constitute a character romantic. A pel 
 son may sometimes let his mind wander into vain wish 
 es for all the fine things on earth, and yet be too sobei 
 to expect any of them. In thi.s case however he will 
 often check and reproach himself for the folly of uidul- 
 ging 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 time ? Even taking it in a civil- 
 ized state, what relation is there between such a form 
 of human nature as that displayed at Sparta, and, for 
 instance, the modern society denominated Uuakers, 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, pass- 
 ing 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 form- 
 ing, for itself, or fur other?, such schemes as could have 
 Bprung only from an imagination become wayward 
 through its uncontrolled power, and its victory over so- 
 
 U
 
 '58 ON THE APPLICATION OF 
 
 her 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 transform- 
 ed into a genuine superstitious ascetic ; — questionable 
 whether even then.* 
 
 Contrary to human nature, is the proper description 
 of those theories of education, and those flatteries of 
 parental hope, which presume that young people in 
 general maybe matured to eminent wisdom, and adorn- 
 ed 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 there- 
 fore only needs a proper system of education to make 
 other young people, (at least those of mi/ family, the 
 parent thinks,) be no longer what nature has always 
 
 * Lopez indeed was often visited by pious persons who sought 
 his instructions ; this was a great modification of the loneUness, 
 and of the trial involved in enduring it; but my hermit was fond 
 of the idea of an uninhabited i.sland, or of a wilderness so deep that 
 these good people would not have been able to come al him, with- 
 out a more formidable pilgrimage than was ever yet made for the 
 sake of obtaining instruction.
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC 159 
 
 made youth to be. Let this be adopted, and we shall 
 Bee multitudes at that age possessing the judgment of 
 sages, or the diversified acquirements and graces of 
 all-accomplished gentlemen and ladies. And what, 
 pray, are the beings which are to become, by the dis- 
 cipline 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 philosophers 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 socie- 
 ty. Those who really anticipated or projected tire prac- 
 tical 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 ambition 
 of one part of the inhabitants, the craft or audacity of an- 
 other, the avarice of another, the stupidity 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 off at the approach of 
 better institutions, which shall prove, to the confusion 
 of all the calumniators of human nature, that nothing 
 is so congenial to it as industry, moderation, and disin- 
 terestedness. It is at the same time but just to acknow- 
 ledge, 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 meit shall 
 tome from Utopia, the system and polity may very 
 properly come along with them ; or the.se sketches of
 
 160 ON THE APrLICATION OF 
 
 It, prepared for them by us, may be carefully preservea 
 here, in volumes more precious than those of the Sib- 
 yls, against their arrival. Till then, the sober observers 
 of the human character will read these beautiful theo- 
 ries as romances, offering the fairest game for sarcasm 
 in their splenetic hours when they are disgusted with 
 human nature, and infusing melancholy in their benev- 
 olent 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 >ts most prominent 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 access to the 
 object whose society, it told him, would make him 
 happy ; and if in a great measure debarred from that 
 society, he would surrender himself to the melting 
 mood of the passion, in the musings of pensive retire- 
 ment. But this was not the way. He must exile 
 himself for successive years from her society and vi- 
 cinity, 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 court- 
 ship 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 
 th-ow his trophies and himself at her imperial feet, it 
 was very possible she might be affronted at his having 
 uresumed to be still alive. It is unnecessary to refer
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. IGl 
 
 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 commu 
 nity of creatures appointed to live by cultivating the 
 soil, anxious to avoid pain and trouble, seeking the re- 
 ciprocation of affection on the easiest terms, and near- 
 est 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 or^ 
 der of life and manners conceived in the wildest devia- 
 tion from all plain sense and native instinct, could be 
 practically 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 na- 
 ture have survived the strange but transient sophistica- 
 tions of time, and remain the same after the age of 
 chivalry is gone far toward that oblivion, to which you 
 will not fail to wish that many other institutions might 
 speedily follow it. Forgive the prolixity of these illus- 
 trations intended to show, that schemes and specula- 
 tions respecting 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 rea- 
 sonable 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 con- 
 templating the system of things as the Creator has or- 
 dered it, a combination of great and litrle, in which the 
 great is much more dependent on the little, than the 
 little on the great. They cut out the grtvA objects, to 
 
 14*
 
 IQZ ON THK ArPLICATlON OF 
 
 dispose them into a world of their own. All the 
 images in their inte..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 em- 
 pires, great battles, great enterprises, 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 exclu- 
 sive taste will reach into the system of projects and ex- 
 pectations. 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 cannot or will not 
 be sublime. Impatient of little mean and slow pro- 
 cesses, he will wish for violent transitions and entirely 
 new institutions. He will perhaps determine to se- 
 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 all 
 the activities of life, and become a misanthrope the 
 rest of his days. At any rate, he will disdain all la- 
 bour to perform well in little or moderate things, when 
 fate has frowned on his higher ambition. 
 
 c 
 
 * Just as, to employ a humble comparison, a votary of fashion, 
 after visiting a crowded public place which happened at that time 
 not to be graced by the presencr of many people of consequence, 
 leila yoUj will . an a/Tected bane ' There was not a creature there."
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 163 
 
 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 
 proposed as seem quite dissevered from means, in- 
 asmuch as there are scarcely any supposable means on 
 earth to accomplish them : but no matter ; if we can- 
 not ride we must swim, if we cannot swim we must 
 fly ; the object is effected by a mere poetical omnipo- 
 tence that wills it. And very often practicable objects 
 are attained by means the most fantastic, improbable, or 
 inadequate ; 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 cal- 
 culations 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 
 absolute immediate urgency, as for a while quite to 
 forget the process of attainment. That power has in- 
 cantations 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 possession ; 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 
 some' time, he forgets that he is advancing no nearer to 
 it — except on the wise and patient calculation that he
 
 161 ON TTIE ArPLICATION OF 
 
 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 traveller, 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 endear- 
 ments of home, insensible that there are many hills 
 r\nd dales for him yet to traverse. But the traveller 
 vvill awake ; so too will our other dreamer ; and if he 
 has the smallest capacitj'- of just reflection he will re- 
 gret to have wasted in reveries the time which ought 
 / > have been devoted to practical exertions. 
 
 But even though reminded of the necessity of inter- 
 vening means, the man of imagination will often be 
 tenpted to violate their relation with ends, by permit- 
 ting himself to dwell on those happy casualties, which 
 the prolific sorcery of his mind will promptly figure to 
 him is the very things, if they would but occur, to ac- 
 compliph his wishes at once, without the toil of a sober 
 proces.'. 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 ad- 
 judged to a man who was working on the road. He 
 has even h^ard of people dreaming that in such a 
 place something valuable was concealed ; and that, on 
 searching or d'^ging that place, they found an old earth- 
 en pot, full of gold and silver pieces of the times of 
 good King Char^e.s the Martyr. Mr. B. was travelling 
 by the mail-coach, in which he met with a most inter- 
 esting young lady ■vvkom he had never seen before ; 
 they were mutually litlighted, and were married in a 
 few weeks. Mr. C, a r.ian 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 utmosl alacrity and kind so- 
 licitude helped his lordship out of the ditch, and recov-
 
 THE EPIIHET ROMANTIC. 165 
 
 ered for hi.n his escaped horse. The consequence wnt 
 inevitable ; his lordship, superior to the pride of being 
 mortified to have been seen in a condition so unlucky 
 for giving the impression of nobility, commenced a 
 friendship with Mr. C. and* introduced him into hon- 
 ourable society and the road to fortune. A very an- 
 cient maiden lady of a large fortune happening to bf 
 embarrassed in a crowd, a young clergyman offered 
 her his arm and politely attended her home ; this at 
 tertion so captivated her, that she bequeathed and soor 
 after left him her whole estate — though she had many 
 poor relations. 
 
 That class of fictitious works -called novels^ though 
 much more like real life than the romances which 
 preceded, is yet full of these lucky incidents and ad- 
 ventures, which are introduced as the chief means to- 
 ward the ultimate success. A young man .without 
 fortune, for instance, is precluded from making his ad- 
 dresses to a young lady 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 
 imprudent or degrading for her to cast a look upon. 
 Now how is this to be accomplished ? — Why, I sup- 
 pose, 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 trap- 
 pings and luxuries of rank. You really suppose this 
 is the plan ? I am sorry you have so much less genius 
 than a novel-writer. This young man has an uncle, 
 w!/0 has been absent many years, nobody knew where, 
 ey.cept the young man's lucky stars. During his ab- 
 sence, the old uncle has made a large fortune, with 
 which he returns to his native land, at a time most op- 
 portune for every one but a highwayman, who, attack- 
 ing him in a road through a wood, is frightened away
 
 166 ON THE APPLICATION OF 
 
 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 thou- 
 sands 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 m any foreign 
 fortune-making country ? But there are rich old gen. 
 tlemen 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 highway- 
 man ; 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, to send the dastard robber gal- 
 loping 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 fa- 
 vour his addresses 1 One's indignation is excited at 
 the immoral tendency of such lessons to young read- 
 ers, 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 conse- 
 quence, into one folly more, that of being melancholy 
 when they find they may expect them in vain. It is 
 unpardonable that these pretended instructors by ex- 
 ample should thus explode the calculations and exer- 
 tions of manly resolution, destroy the connexion be 
 tween ends and means, and make the rewards of virtue 
 so dependent on chance, that if the reader does not 
 either regard the whole fable with contempv, or prom- 
 ise himself he shall receive the favours of fortur e in 
 ■ome similar wa^, he must close the book with the ct>a'
 
 THE EriTHET UOMANTIC. 167 
 
 riclion 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 of means, is the facility 
 with which fancy passes along the train of them, and 
 reckons to their ultimate effect at a glance, without rest- 
 ing at the successive stages, and considering the labours 
 and hazards of the protracted slow process from each 
 point t» the next. If a given number of years are al- 
 lowed 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 one 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 
 mind can change shillings into guineas, and guineas 
 into hundreds of pounds, a thousand times faster than, 
 in the actual experiment, those lazy shillings and 
 guineas can be compelled to mount to these higher 
 denominations of value. You remember ihe noble 
 calculation of Alnaschar on his basket of earthen- 
 ware, 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 intc a 
 favourite purpose, unaccompanied bf a process of the 
 judgment, deciding its practicability by an estimate of 
 the mean? ; in a mind under the ascendency of imagina- 
 tion this is a subordinate after-task. By 'he time that
 
 168 ON THE APPLICATION OF 
 
 this comes to be considered, the projector is too mach 
 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 Ihtie ] for 
 there must be an apparent proportion between the 
 means and the end. Well, trust the whole conce'-n to 
 ihe plastic faculty, and presently every insignificant 
 particle of instrumentality, and every petty contrivance 
 for its manap;ement, will swell into magnitude ; pigmies 
 and Lilliputians Avith their tiny arrows will soon grow 
 up into giants wielding spears ; and the diffident con- 
 sciousness w^hich was at first somewhat afraid to 
 me.'tsure 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 
 plate 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 
 of particulars ; I will only touch slightly on a few. 
 Various projects of a benevolent order would come under 
 this charge. Did you ever listen to the discussion of 
 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 disastrous thing, 
 notwithstanding the whimsical attempts of some inge- 
 nious men to represent the state of roving savages as 
 preferable 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 
 
 * I here place out of view that religion by which Omnipotenc* 
 will at length transform the world.
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 169 
 
 are the means to reclaim these wretched beings into the 
 civilized family of man 1 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 
 instances, of the success obtained by a small combina- 
 tion 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 1 And 
 have they not also come to us with too little explana- 
 tion to illustrate any general principles ? To me it ap- 
 pears extremely difficult to comprehend how the means, 
 recorded by historians to have been employed by some 
 of the unarmed civilizers, 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 
 state and dispositions of the various orders of savages, 
 it v;ould seem a presumption unwarranted by any thing 
 we ever saw of the powers of the human mind to sup- 
 pose that any man, or any ten men now on earth, if 
 landed and left on a savage coast, would be able to 
 transform a number of stupid or ferocious tribes into a 
 community of mild intelligence and regular industry. 
 We are therefore led to believe that the few unaccounta- 
 ble instances 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 favoura- 
 ble circumstances, co-operating with their genius and 
 perseverance, 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 wilh success, if indeed he could think it right 
 
 15
 
 170 ON THE APPLICATION OF 
 
 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 ? 
 If an animated young philanthropist still zealously 
 maintained that it might be done, I should be amused 
 to think how that warm imagination Avould 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 
 vnlderness"; he surrounds himself with savage meii, 
 without either trembling or revolting at their aspects 
 or fierce exclamations, or the proudly e.\hibited and 
 vaunted trophies of their 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 1 -.vretched vehicle for the humblest of his mean*
 
 THE EPITHET KOMANTIC. 171 
 
 mgs ; they listen with the deepest attention are con- 
 vinced of the necessity of adopting new habits of life, 
 and speedily soften into humanity and brighten into 
 wisdom. But he would become sober enough, if com. 
 pelled to travel half a thousand miles through the desert, 
 or over the snow, with some of these subjects of h;.8 
 lectures and legislation ; to accompany them in a hunt- 
 ing excursion ; to choose in a stormy night between 
 exposure in the open air and the smoke and grossness 
 of their cabins ; to observe the intellectual faculty nar- 
 rowed almost to a point, limited to a scanty number of 
 the meanest class of ideas ; to find by repeated experi- 
 ments that his kind of ideas could neither reach their 
 understanding nor excite their curiosity ; to see the ra- 
 venous 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 diversified by abominable ceremo- 
 nies ; or to be for once the spectator of some of the 
 circumstances attendant on the wars of sava;re3. 
 
 But there are many more familiar illustrations of the 
 extravagant estimate of means. One 13, the expec 
 tation of far too much from mere direct instruction 
 This is indeed so general, that it will hardly be de 
 nominated romantic, except in the mc5t excessive in 
 stances. Observe it, however, a moment in the con- 
 cern of education. Nothing seems more evident than 
 the influence of external circumstauces, distinct from 
 the regular discipline of the parent ot tutor, in forming 
 the character of youth. Nothing again seems more 
 evident than that direct instruction though an useful 
 co-operator with the influence of fhese circumstances 
 when they arc auspicious, is a fejble counteractor if 
 they be malignant. And yet this mere instruction is 
 enough, in the account of thousands of parents, to lead 
 the youth to wisdom and happiness ; even that very
 
 172 ON THI APPLICATION OF 
 
 youth wliom the united influence of almost all things 
 else which he is exposed to see, and hear, and partici- 
 pate, 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 pul- 
 pit. Till the dispensations of a better age shall be 
 opened on the world, the measure of effect which may 
 reasonably be expected from preaching, is to be deter- 
 mined by a view of the visible effects which are actu- 
 ally 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 congre- 
 gations liberally open their chests and purses to the 
 distressed on Monday? Might I not ask as well, 
 whether 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 per- 
 suasion of a mysterious apostolic sacredness in the of- 
 fice, 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 salutary effect on the 
 minds of the hearers, or, in some instances, from a 
 much worthier cause, the affectinof influence oi sacred 
 truth on their own minds, have been inclined to anti- 
 cipate striking efll-cts from their public rjiinistrations* 
 Mclancthon was a romantic youth when he began to
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 173 
 
 preach. He expected that all must be inevitably and 
 immediatel}^ persuaded, when they should hear what 
 he had to tell them. But he soon discovered, as he 
 gaid, that old Adam was too hard for young Melancthon. 
 In addition to the grand fact of the depravity of the 
 human heart, there are so many causes operating n- 
 juriously through the week on the characters of those 
 who form a congregation, that a thoughtful man oi"tcn 
 feels an invading melancholy amidst his religious ad- 
 dresses, from the reflection that he is making a feeble 
 efTort against a powerful evil, a single effort against a 
 combination of evils, a temporary and transient effort 
 against evils of almost continual operation, and a 
 purely intellectual effort against evils, many of which 
 act on the senses. When the preacher considers 
 the effect naturally resulting from the sight of 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 hear- 
 ers, are to leave in the mind something which shall be, 
 through the week, the efficacious repellant to the con- 
 tact and contamination of all these forces of mischief. 
 But how soon he would cease to imagine such an effi- 
 cacy in his exhortations, if the greater number of his 
 nearers could sincerely and accurately tell him, invard 
 tlie end of the week, in what degree these adinunitiona 
 had affected and governed them, in opposition to tlieir 
 corrupt tendencies, their habits, and their .emptations! 
 What would be, in the five or six days, the number 
 of the moments and the instances in which these ia- 
 
 15*
 
 174 ON THE APPLICATION*! OP 
 
 structions would be proved to have been eflTectual, 
 compared with the whole number of moments and cir- 
 cumstances to which they were applicable by appropri- 
 ateness of instruction and warning ? How often, while 
 hearing such a week's detail of the lives of a consider- 
 able proportion of a congregation, a man would have 
 occasion to say. By whose instructions were these per- 
 sons influenced thcn^ in that neglect of devout exer- 
 cises, that excess of levity, that waste of time, that 
 avowed contempt of religion, that language of profane- 
 ness and imprecation, 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 1 
 am reluctantly applying these cooling suggestions, 
 may tell me, that it is not by means of any force which 
 he can throw into his religious instructions, that he ex- 
 pects them to be efficacious ; but that he believes a di- 
 vine 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 experience ; that 
 is, in proportion to the number of happy transforma- 
 tions of character which we see taking place under the 
 efficacy of religious truth. He must admit this to be 
 substantially the rule : if he require that it be modified 
 by the consideration of promises and signs from the 
 Supreme Power of the nea^^ approach of an augmented 
 divine inter/er^nca for the efficacy of religion, I shall
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 175 
 
 Willingly admit what I can of such a reason for con- 
 ceding 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-mun- 
 dane position, which they deem to be exactly such a 
 convenience in their department, as the mathematician, 
 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. 
 
 It is presumed, that truth must at length, through 
 the indefatigable exertions of intellect, become general- 
 ly 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 substan- 
 lially 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 ap- 
 pointed to irradiate the latter ages of a dark and trou- 
 bled world ; and, on the strength of prophetic intima- 
 tions, 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
 
 176 ON THE APPLICATION OF 
 
 universal dominion over the understanding, it will 
 evince a still nobler power in the general effect of Qon- 
 forminff the heart and the hfe to its laws. But in the 
 present state of the moral system, our expectations of 
 the effect of truth on the far greater number 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 gratifying no doubt 
 to believe, that the several powers in the human con- 
 stitution 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 obser- 
 vation and experience, could be merged in Lethe, it 
 might be believed — perhaps for two or three hours. 
 How could an attentive observer or reflector believe it 
 longer? How long would it be that a keenly self-in- 
 specting mind could detect no schism, none at all, be- 
 tween its convictions and inclinations ? And as to 
 others, is it not flagrantly evident that very many per- 
 sons, with a most absolute conviction, by their own in- 
 genuous 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 princi- 
 ples of their own true selfinterest.* And do not even 
 
 * The criminal himself has the clearest consciousness that he 
 violates the dictates of his judgment. How trifling is the subtilty 
 which affects to show that he does nat 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 docs 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 i« 
 made according to a narrow and subordirate scale of estimating
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 177 
 
 the best men confess a fierce discord between the ten- 
 dencies of their imperfectly renovated nature, and the 
 diclutes 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 not, and the evil which I would not, that I do." 
 The serious self-observer recollects instances, (what a 
 singularity of happiness if he cannot !) in which a 
 :emptation, exactly addressed to his passions or his 
 aabits, has prevailed in spite of the sternest interdict 
 of his judgment, pronounced at the very crisis. Per- 
 haps 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 subsequent hour he had to reflect, that the ideas of 
 God, a future account, a world of retribution, could not 
 prevent him from violating his conscience. That he 
 did not at the critical moment dwell deliberately on 
 these remonstrant ideas, in order to give them eflect 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 consid- 
 erations. And what greater power than this could 
 they need to defeat the power of truth 1 If the pas- 
 sions can thus prevent the mind from strongly fixing 
 on the most awful considerations when distinctly pre- 
 
 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 knows to be worse 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 oV 
 the judgment to decide wliat is wisest and best on the whole, tho 
 man may truly be said to act against his judgment, who acts in 
 •pposjlion to >tie conclusion which it forms on this greater scale.
 
 J 78 ON THE APPLICATION OF 
 
 eented 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 
 •he evil before us, enforce the inducements to choosa 
 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 it3 teacher and advocate confess honestly whether 
 he have not had to deplore numberless times the de- 
 ficient efficacy of his own clearest convictions. And 
 if we survey mankind as under an experiment rela- 
 tive to this point, it will be found, in instances innumer- 
 able, that to have informed and 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 conse- 
 quent action. And therefore, most important though it 
 is that truth be exhibited and admitted, the expecta- 
 tions that presume its omnipotence, without extraordi- 
 nary intervention, are romantic delusion. 
 
 You will observe that in this case of trying the ef- 
 ficacy 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 ar 
 duous undertaking, that he will be often tempted ta 
 abandon it as hopeless.
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 179 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 When the gloomy estimate of means and of plana 
 for the amendment of mankind does not make an ex- 
 ception of the actual human administration of the re- 
 ligion 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 fail ; since I keep 
 in my mind a clear distinction between Christianity it- 
 self as a thing of divine origin and nature, and the ad- 
 ministration of it by a system of merely human pow- 
 ers and means. These means are indeed of divine ap- 
 pointment, and to a certain extent are accompanied by 
 a special divine agency. But how far this agency ac- 
 companies them is seen in the measure and limit of 
 their success. Where that stands arrested, the fact it- 
 self is the proof that further than so the auperior opera* 
 tion 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 mysterious- 
 ly small a part of that object has the divine agency 
 ever yet been exerted to accomplish ! Aad then, the 
 awful and immense remainder evinces the inexpressi- 
 ble imbecility of the means, when left to be applied as 
 a mere human administration. The manifestation of 
 its incompetency 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
 
 IdO ON THE APPLiCAtlON OF 
 
 evangelic declaration thousands of times, nor how very 
 many of them are fortified in an insensibility, on which 
 its most momentous announcements strike as hArmlesa 
 as the slenderest arrows on the shield of Ajax. Prob- 
 ably 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 after, that it was 
 an attempt of the same kind as that of demolishing a 
 tower by assaulting it with pebbles. Nor do I need to 
 observe how generally, if a momentary impression be 
 made, it is forgotten the following hour. 
 
 A man convinced of the truth and excellence of 
 Christianity, yet entertaining a more flattering notion 
 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 be- 
 *ween his eyes and the obvious reality. He cannot af- 
 firm that there is not an immense number of persons, 
 even educated persons, receiving the christian declara- 
 tions with indifference, or rejecting them with a care- 
 lessness partaking of contempt. The right means are 
 applied, and with all the force that human effort car
 
 THE EPITHET E.OMANT1C. 181 
 
 give them, but with a suspension, in these instu.oes, 
 of the divine agency, — and this is the effect ! Whil« 
 the fact stands out so palpably to view, I listen with 
 something of wonder, and something of curiosity, when 
 some, professed believers and advocates of the gospel 
 are avowing high anticipations of its progressive effi- 
 cacy, chiefly or solely by means of the intrinsic force 
 which it carries as a rational address to rational crea- 
 tures. I cannot help inquiring what length of time is 
 to be allowed for the 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 agen- 
 cy, as a dream of fanaticism. Might it not be prudent, 
 to moderate the expressions of contempt for the per- 
 suasion which excites an importunity for extraordinary 
 influence from the Almighty, till the success without it 
 shall be greater? The utmost arrogance of this con- 
 tempt will venture no comparison between the respec- 
 tive 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 ac- 
 commodating phrases they may sometimes employ. 
 Has there indeed been any success at all, in that great 
 business of conversion, to vindicate the calculations of 
 ♦.his latter class from the imputation of all the vainest 
 /oily that should be meant by the word Romantic 1 
 
 But, when I introduced the mention of reformers 
 and their projects, I was not intending any reference 
 to delusive presumptions of the operations of clirisli- 
 anity, but to those speculations and schemes for the 
 amendment of mankind which anticipate their effect 
 independently ot its assistance ; some of them perhaps 
 
 Iti
 
 182 ON THE APPLICATION OF 
 
 Silently coinciding with several of its principles, while 
 others expressly disclaim them. Unless these schemes 
 bring jvith 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 projectors. There is no 
 avoiding the ungracious perception, in surveying the 
 general character of the race, that, after some allow- 
 ance for what is called natural affection, and for com- 
 passionate sympathy, (an excellent principle, but ex- 
 tremely limited and often capricious in its operation,) 
 the main strength of human feelings consists in the 
 love of sensual gratification, of trifling amusement, of 
 distinction, of power, and of money. And by what 
 suicidal inconsistency are these principles to lend their 
 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 other 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- 
 
 * 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, m spite of his internal repugnanc« 
 Mui rage, that the inhabitanis were completely reformed.
 
 niE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 183 
 
 sionally will, that the course of action which refortring 
 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 sub- 
 ject, 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. 
 
 Look again to the state of facts. Collective man is 
 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 charac- 
 ter 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 gener- 
 ous virtues to the sky, what lively and rational appeals 
 have been made to the whole community, respecting 
 the slave trade,* the conditr'on of the poor, the immen- 
 
 • Happily this topic of accusation is in a measure now set iuside* 
 but it would liave remained as immovable as the continent of Africa, 
 if the legislature had not been forced into a conviction that, on tho
 
 184 ON THE APPLICATION OF 
 
 sity of cruelty perpetrated on brute animals, an i the 
 general, national, desperate complacency manifested for 
 what is named honourable war, during a whole hali 
 century of lofty christian pretension, — appeals substan- 
 tially 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 
 there is not enough of that virtue of humanity, even 
 in what is deemed a highly cultivated state of the hu- 
 man nature, to answer to the importunate call. Or if 
 this be not the cause, let the idolaters of human divin- 
 ity call, like the worshippers of Baal, in a louder voice. 
 Their success is likely to be the same ; they will ob- 
 tain no e.xtraordinary exertion of power, though they 
 cry from morning till the setting sun. And meanwhile 
 the observer, who foresees their disappointment, 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 exempli- 
 fications 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 benevo- 
 
 whole, the slave trade was not advantageous in point of pecuniary 
 interest. At least the guilt would so have remained up"n tlip. na- 
 tion acting in its capacity of a state. — This note is added subse- 
 quently to the first edition. — It may be 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 tho 
 attention and exertion directed to that condition; which has, never- 
 theless, become worse and worse. 
 
 • It is obvious that I am not supposing this moral revolutionia 
 to be armed with any power but that of persuasion. If he weie k 
 monarch, and possessed virtue and talents equa» to his power, ib»
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 185 
 
 fence, make him sad. He will repeat to himself, 
 " How easy it is to conceive these inestimable improve- 
 ments, 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 per- 
 form the great process ? Where in darkness is the 
 sacred repository in which they lie ? What Marraton* 
 shall explore the unknown way to it ? The man whc 
 would not as part of the price of the discovery, be 
 glad to close up all the transatlantic mines, would de- 
 serve 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 maga- 
 zine of expedients, consisting of Fortunatus's cap, the 
 philosopher's stone, Aladdin's lamp, and other equally 
 efficient articles, he is confident that the work may 
 speedily be done. These powerful instruments of me- 
 lioration 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 pow- 
 er. 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 pre- 
 sents to them the plagues which they are to stop, the 
 mountain which they are to remove, the torrent which 
 they are to dive"-;, the desert which they are to clothe 
 
 case would be materially different. Even then, he would accom- 
 plish hut little compared with what he could imagine, and would 
 desire; yet, to all human appearance, he might be the instrument 
 of wonderfully changing the condition of society within his em* 
 pire. If the soul of Alfred could return to the earth ! — 
 
 • Spectator, No. 5G. 
 • 15*
 
 i86 ON THE ArPLICATlON OF 
 
 ih verdure and bloom. Let them make their experi- 
 ment, and add each his page to the humiliating records 
 in which experience contemns the folly of elated im- 
 agination.* 
 
 * In reading lately some 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 o{ 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 commu- 
 nity begin to examine, to feel, to understand, their rights and 
 duties. They only require the 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 won- 
 dering mood. The fostering care of the Philosopher ! Why then 
 is not the philosopher about his business ■? Why does he not go 
 and indoctrinate a company of peasants in the intervals of a plough- 
 ing or a harvest day, when he will find them far more eager for his 
 instructions than for drink % Why does he not introduce himself 
 among a circle of farmers, who cannot fail, as he enters, to be very ju- 
 diciously discussing, with the aid of their punch and their pipes, the 
 most refined questions respecting their rights and duties, and want- 
 ing but exactly his aid, instead oi more punch and tobacco, to pos- 
 sess themselves completely of the requisites of political and moral 
 action 1 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 compre- 
 hensiveness of his views, and the beauty of his moral sentiments. 
 But perhaps it will be explained, that the Philosopher dotes on 
 mean to visit all these people in person ; but that having first se- 
 cured 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 then like an electrical machine, to 
 operate on the bulk of the community. Either way the achieve- 
 ment will be great and achnirable : the latter event seems to have
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 187 
 
 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 innnortal 
 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 per- 
 haps wished to change it only to make it a temple to 
 their fame, could be awaked from the unmarked o-raves 
 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 cham- 
 bers of death, to hide the shame of their remembered 
 presumption? The wars and tyranny, the rancour, 
 cruelty and revenge, together with all the other un- 
 numbered vices and crimes with which the earth ia 
 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 rad- 
 ical 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 sub- 
 due them. Nor are there as yet more than glimmer- 
 ing signs that we are commencing a better era, in 
 which the means that have failed before, or the expe- 
 dients of a new and more fortunate invention, are ap- 
 pointed 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 v.ry 
 schemes and operations by which the world should be 
 
 Deen predicted in that sibylline sentence. "When the sky falls w« 
 •hall catch larks, "
 
 188 ON THE APPLICATION OF 
 
 improved, though their first principles were pure .u 
 heaven. The innate principle of evil, instead of indif- 
 ferently 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 be- 
 come in effect what may be denominated 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 Al- 
 mighty has made to attend, as yet, the dispensation of 
 true religion, and accompanied with the consideration 
 of the impotence of human efforts to make that dispen- 
 sation efficacious where his will does not, forms a mel- 
 ancholy and awful contemplation. In the hours when 
 it casts its gloom over the mind of the thoughtful ob- 
 server, unless he can fully resign the condition of man 
 to the infinite wisdom and goodness of his Crearor, he 
 will feel an emotion of horror, as if standing on the 
 verge of a hideous gulf, into which almost all the pos- 
 sibilities, and speculations, and efforts, and hopes, rela- 
 ting to the best improvements of mankind, 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 
 undefinable 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 moriab, this evil into good,
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 189 
 
 either during- the course or in the result. A devout 
 theiot, 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 
 an 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 
 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 exhaust- 
 ing his corruptions. And should it take a long series 
 of ages, vices, and woes, to reach this glorious attain- 
 ment, patience may sustain itself the while by the 
 thought that when it is lealizcd, 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, re-
 
 190 ON THE ATFUCATION OF 
 
 garded as possessing that one attribute which makes it 
 delightful to acknowledge such a Being, the benevo- 
 lence that would make us happy. But even if this 
 noble self-sufficiency cannot be realized, the indepen- 
 dence of spirit which has laboured for it must not sink 
 at last into piety. This afflicted world, " this poor ter- 
 restrial citadel of man," is to lock its gates, and kecj' 
 v.'s miseries, rather than admit the degradation of ra 
 ceivinig 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 agen- 
 cy in its events. How easily a creature of their 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 dis- 
 tinguished 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 
 msects of fame are crushed, or sink into the despicable 
 reptiles of corruption, alas, then, for the cause of truth 
 and justice I 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 sha- 
 ken, 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 aa 
 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 humil- 
 ity and grateful adoration. His pride so obstinately 
 ascribes to himself whatever good is effected on the
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 191 
 
 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 if 
 the activity of men shall be employed as the means 
 of producing all of them, there will probably be as 
 palpable a disproportion between the instruments ana 
 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 enoupfh to 
 ascribe to the rod the power that divided the sea ; nor 
 will the witnesses of the moral wonders to come at- 
 tribute 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 in- 
 justice to mechanical powers, to say that slender ma- 
 chines will not move rocks and massive limbers; nor 
 to chemical ones, to assert that though an earthquake 
 may fling a promontory from its basis, the explosion 
 of a canister of gunpowder will not. — Between moral 
 forces also, and the objects to which they are to be ap- 
 plied, there are constituted measures of proportion ; 
 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 appli- 
 cation of them. Such an estimate has no place in a 
 mind under the ascendency of imagination, which, 
 therefore, by extravagantly magnifying the virtue of 
 its means, inflates its projects \vith hopes which may
 
 192 ON THE APPLICATION OF 
 
 justly 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 
 eflect than ever before, it must be because the talents 
 of 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 comes 
 in answer to the appeal to experience, is indeed most 
 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, 
 and 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 liule things, they 
 shall therefore, as if in revenge for such an economy, 
 do nothing. Our means will do something ; that 
 something 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 whicn 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
 
 THE fiPITHET HOMANTIC. 193 
 
 those objects to which I have summoned your activity, 
 IS placea within the reach of your powers. Your fee- 
 ble ability for action is not accompanied by such a ca- 
 pacity ot nnderstandmg, as would be requisite to com- 
 prehend why that ability was made no greater. 
 Though it had been made incomparably greater, 
 would tht-re not still have been objects before it too 
 vast for it5< operation ? Must not the highest of created 
 beings stil! have something in view, which they feel 
 they can but partially accomplish till the sphere of 
 their active force be enlarged? Must there not be an 
 end of improvement in my creation, if the powers of 
 my creatures had become perfectly equal to the mag- 
 nitude 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 accomplish till hereafter. Because 
 mightier labourers would have been requisite to effect 
 all that you wish, will you murmur that I have hon- 
 oured 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 be- 
 cause I retain the power in mine ? Are you afraid lest 
 that power should fail to do all things right, only be- 
 cause 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 em 
 ployment 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 char- 
 acters. 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 perfoc/ state 
 
 17
 
 194 ON THE APPLICATION OP 
 
 and as to the Cause, when I see it necessary for a God 
 to interpose in his own manner, I will come. ' 
 
 I might deem a train of observations of the melancho'y 
 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 
 and effort on him, and of the necessity of maintaining 
 habitually a devout respect to his intervention. It 
 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 undiminished 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 efTect 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 
 proportion exists no longer, and therefore the possible 
 effects become too great for calculation, when that ex- 
 pedient 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 over- 
 come his superior enemy, had been his troops, horses, 
 and arms, there would have been nearly an assignable 
 proi)ortion between these means and the end, and the 
 probable result of the conflict would have been a matter 
 of ordinary calculation. But when he said, " Neither
 
 THE EPITHET ROIANIIC. 195 
 
 Know we what to do, but our eyes are up unto thee," 
 he moved (if I may reverently express it so) a\iother 
 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 
 may 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- 
 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 ; 
 
 • Here I shall not be misunderstood to believe the multitude of 
 •toriea whicli have been lol*" by deluded fancy or detestable ia> 
 poaturc. ^
 
 196 ON THE APPLICATION OF 
 
 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. 
 
 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 I 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 wil' require the most strenuous and 
 sustained exertion to resemble. Away with any such
 
 THE EriTHET nOMANTIC. 197 
 
 sobriety and rationality as would repress th* disposition 
 to contemplate with a fjenerous 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 oi 
 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 unex- 
 ampled 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 de- 
 voting the privileges of that rank to a mode of excel- 
 lence which the generality of the people who compose 
 it never dream to be a duty, will by them be denom- 
 inated 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 deserte- and alien from 
 the reign of fashion, should attempt Uiiusual plans of 
 doing good, and should put himself under. some extra- 
 ordinary 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 deter- 
 mination to make, and the zeal to inculcate, great ex- 
 ertions 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 
 lesembling the Divinity, appear visionary felicities. 
 
 The epithet will be in readiness for application to a 
 
 17*
 
 198 ON THE APPLICATION OP 
 
 man who feeis it an imperious duty to realize, as faf 
 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 
 entirely thai fhis one thing spoken of is a worthy prin- 
 ciple 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 friends, from this moment you are bound, 
 from this moment we are all Dound, on peril of the 
 displeasure of God, to realize in ourselves, to the last 
 possible extent, all that we have thus in good faith de- 
 liberately 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 happy 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 in- 
 stances of a strenuous improvement of time ; rich per- 
 sons lavishing fine words on examples of beneficence 
 which they know to be far surpassing themselves, 
 though perhaps with no larger means ; and all express- 
 ing dee.p respect for the men who have been most emi- 
 nent in piety ; — and yet all this apparently with the 
 ease of a perfect freedom from any admonition of con- 
 science, 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 
 ahowc'nce is generally made for the great difference 
 between a man's entertaining high designs and hopes 
 for himself alone, and h's entertaining them relative ta
 
 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 199 
 
 Other peraons. It might be very romantic for a man 
 to reckon on eflecting 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 ex- 
 travagant 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, tcisdom and 
 excellence^ for the reason that, besides the difference in 
 probability of realization, between large schemes and 
 hopes as indulged by a man for himself or entertained 
 for others, there is a distinction to be made in respect to 
 such as he might entertain only for himself His ex- 
 traordinary 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 ex- 
 travagant as if other persons alone, persons in no de- 
 gree at his comm'and, 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 re- 
 aUzed independently of their will. The design of ac- 
 quiring 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 persona* 
 improvement, depending comparatively little on the 
 will, capacity, or conduct of other persons, are romantic 
 only when there is some fatal intellectual or moral de- 
 fect in the individual himself who has adopted them.
 
 ESSAY IV. 
 
 ON SOME OF THE CAUSES BY WHICH EVAN. 
 GELICAL RELIGION HAS BEEN RENDERED UN. 
 ACCEPTABLE TO PERSONS OF CULTIVATED 
 ^'ASTE. 
 
 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 ex- 
 istence itself rests but on that authority which dictates 
 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 
 contrarj', in many minds not denying it to be a com- 
 munication from God, a disposition to shrini'from 
 lome of its peculiar properties and distinctions >v hd
 
 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE, ETC. 201 
 
 effort to displace or neutralize them. I am not now to 
 learn that the substantial cause of this is that repug 
 nance in human naiuie to what is purely divine, which 
 revelation affirms, and all history proves, and which 
 perhaps some of the humiliating points of the chris- 
 tian system are more adapted to provoke, than any 
 other thing that bears the divine impress. Nor do 1 
 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, concerning 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, necessarily, to produce an effect injurious to the 
 claims of pure Christianity. — I wish to illustiate several 
 of these causes, after briefly describing the antichristiaa 
 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. Those 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 
 a mind too serious for the follies of the world and the 
 Dcglect of all religion, an^i >n which the very sentiment
 
 202 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 itself becomes, at tim3S, the subject of painful and ap« 
 prehensive reflection, from an internal monition that it 
 iS an unhajpy 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 
 w^ould 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 re- 
 quire almost a total change of his mental habits to ad- 
 mit 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 re- 
 fined 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 in 
 rank and corrupted in nature. And the christian rev- 
 elation 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 
 deplorable :ondition of our nature, he can Jiardly help 
 regretting that, even if our condition be so degraded, 
 the system of our relations with the Divinity, though
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 203 
 
 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 ia 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 
 exhibited ; but the doctrines which are added as dis- 
 tinctive of the peculiar cu'cumstances of the christian 
 economy, appear less splendid, and as if descending to- 
 wards the qualities of iron and clay. If he must admit 
 this portion of the system as a part of the truth, his 
 feelings amount to the wish that a different theory had 
 been true. It is therefore with a degree of shrinking 
 reluctance that he sometimes adverts to the ideas pecu- 
 liar to the gospel. He would willingly lose this spe- 
 cific scheme of doctrines in a more general theory of 
 religion, instead of resigning every wider speculation 
 for this scheme, in which God has comprised, and dis- 
 tinguished by a very peculiar 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 re- 
 jection according to his taste, is peremptorily and ex- 
 clusively tlte 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 ren- 
 der unavailing liis regard for those more general truths, 
 respecting the Deity, moral rectitude, and a future state, 
 which are necessarily at the basis of the system. He 
 is afraid to examine and determine the question, wheth*
 
 204 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 er 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 philos- 
 ophy, harmonized by reason, and embellished by taste. 
 If it were safe, he would much rather be the dignified 
 professor of such a philosophic refinement on Christian- 
 ity, than yield himself a submissive and wholly con- 
 formed disciple of Jesus Christ. This refined system 
 would be clear of the undesirable peculiarities of chris- 
 tian 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 char- 
 acter which, however opposite to pure christian excel- 
 lence, the world has always idolized. 
 
 I 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 maj'' 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 
 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 christj'an name(
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 205 
 
 sink out o4' 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 antipatliy 
 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 char- 
 acter, 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 cor- 
 rupt 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 1 
 have said, to refine away ; but in moments of impartial 
 seriousness, are constrained to admit something very 
 near at least to the conviction, of their being iiiscparablt/ 
 from the sacred economy. This however fails tc subdue 
 or conciliate the heart; and the dislike to some of the 
 parts has often an influence on the affections in regarC 
 to the whole. That portion of the system which ihey 
 
 18
 
 206 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 think ihey iould admire, is admitted with the coldness 
 of a mere speculative assent, from the effect of the 
 intrudino: recollection of its beingf 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 of 
 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 char- 
 acter 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 humihty, penitence, 
 and a separation from the spirit and habits of the 
 world. — I do not see any necessity for a more formai 
 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 dodrines of Chris- 
 tianity, yet some of them are perniciously effectual 
 against its moral sentiments 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 
 wiuch I may comm ;nt, and though I keep them chiefly
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 207 
 
 in View, yet the influence of some of these causes ex 
 tends in a degree to many persons of subordinate mea* 
 lai rank. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 In the view of an intelligent and honest mind tho 
 religion of Christ stands as clear of all connexion with 
 the corruption of men, and churches, and ages, as tV'hen 
 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 
 of 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, ttian 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, 
 than those on whom it is the heaviest reproach that 
 they pretend to be its friends. The perception of its 
 nature and dignity must be clear and abscjlute, in the 
 man who can observe it under the appearance it acquires 
 111 intimate combination with the thoughts, feelings, 
 and language of its disciples, without ever losing signi
 
 20S ON THE AVERSION CF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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 ap- 
 peared 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 
 on the pride of human intelligence rejecting it for its 
 meanness^) it is yet most expressly sent to the class 
 which philosophers have always despised. And a good 
 man feels it a cause of grateful joy, that a communi- 
 cation has come from heaven, adapted to effect the hap- 
 piness of mukitudes in spite of natural debility or ne« 
 glected education. While he observes that confined
 
 TO EVANGELICAL REIIGION 20S 
 
 capacities do not preclude the entrance, and the perm* 
 nent residence, of that sacred combination of truth ana 
 power, wliich find? no place in the minds of many phi- 
 losophers, and vvi;s, 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 dimen- 
 sions and habitudes of their minds. And perhaps the 
 exhibitions of it will come forth with more of the 
 character of those minds, than of its own 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 
 man might hesitate to adm.it it as the inost 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 lomptod to wish he could 
 detach it from all the associaiions which he feels it has 
 acquired from the humoicr exhibition. And he does 
 not greatly wonder that other men of the same ir'el- 
 •ectual habits, and with a less candid solicitudt o
 
 210 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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 e mar* 
 already devoted to the religion of Jesus Christ. Nc 
 passion that has become predominant is ever cooled b) 
 any thing which can be associated with its object, while 
 that object itself continues unaltered. The passion ii 
 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 thinff 
 itself is close to his mind, and therefore the causes 
 which would have misrepresented it by coming be- 
 tween, 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 nake 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
 
 TO EVANGEL. CAL RELIGION. 21* 
 
 glad that it has in this man all the consolatory and ail 
 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, in- 
 stead 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 uncultivated 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- 
 j)litude, 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 faitli 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 
 time 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 eterrjty,
 
 212 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 I have a more vivid and compreliensive 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 de- 
 vout genius has uttered in the contemplation of it, I 
 am therefore called upon to excel them as much in de- 
 votedness 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 as- 
 sailants. But it requires a most extraordinary cogency 
 of conviction, and indeed more than simple intellectual 
 conviction, to obtain a cordial reception for these prin- 
 ciples, 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 coni- 
 prises an ample assemblage of intellectual views, and 
 as the greater number of christians are inevitably inca- 
 pable of presenting them in a dignified character of 
 conception and language from the same causes which 
 disqualify them to do such justice to other intellectual 
 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. Obviously 
 this is a very serious circumstance ; for if he had heard 
 as much spoken on any other subject of high Intel 
 lectual rank, as moral philosophy, or poetry, or rhetoric, 
 in which perhaps he now takes great interest, and if a 
 similar proportion of what he had heard had been as 
 much below the subject, it is prooable that he and the sub- 
 ject would have remained strangers. And it is a melan- 
 choly deposition against the human heart, that fewei
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 213 
 
 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 in- 
 quiry either implies doubt, which was pronounced a 
 criminal state of 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 of sin 
 cere christians, whose religion involved no intellectual 
 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 some part of 
 the religion itself, as a thing definable and important, 
 independently of the feelings of any individual, and aa 
 consisting in a vast congeries of ideas, concerning the 
 divine government of the world, the relations of ra- 
 tional 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 con- 
 cern in (hat religion, and impatiently interrupted such 
 discourse with the observation — That is not experi- 
 ence. 
 
 Others he has heard continually recurring to two or
 
 214 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 three points of opinion, adopted perhaps in servile *k 
 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 de- 
 fended, even when they were not attacked or question- 
 ed. If they tt'erc called in question, it was an evidence 
 not less of depraved principle than of perverted judg- 
 ment. 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 repeat- 
 ing 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 perceive 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 sen- 
 timent which he happened to express concerning re- 
 ligion, as a test of its ([uality, and a proof of its cor . 
 
 ruptnes.s. 
 
 Instances may have occurred in which he has ob- 
 served some one idea or doctrine, that was not the dis- 
 tinctive peculiarity of any system, to have so monopo- 
 lized the mind, that every conversation, from whatever 
 point of the compass it started, was certain to find ita 
 way to the favourite topic, while he was sometimes fret- 
 ted, sometimes amused, never much improved, by ob- 
 serving its instinctive pi ogress 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 nind probably fell into a
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 215 
 
 fault very similar to that of his well-meaning acquain- 
 tance. 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 audi- 
 tor became unable to think on the subject without ad- 
 verting immediately to the narrow illustration of it ex ■ 
 hibited by this one man ; insomuch that this image of 
 combined penury and conceit became established in his 
 mind as representative of the subject. In consequence 
 of this connexion of ideas, he perhaps became disin- 
 clined to think on the subject at all ; or, if he was dis- 
 posed or constrained to think of it, he was so averse to 
 let his views of Christianity thus converge to the little- 
 ness of a point, that he laboured to expand them 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 unpardon- 
 able 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 
 unnecessary expenses, and of leisure, judging by the 
 quantity of time consumed in trivial talk, or in need- 
 less sleep, to furnish their minds with various informa- 
 tion, but who were quite on a level, in this respect, 
 with those of the humblest rank. They never even 
 suspected that knowledge could have any connexion 
 with religion ; or that they could not be as clearly and 
 comprehensively in possession of the great subject as a 
 man whose faculties had been exercised, and whose 
 extended acquaintance with things would supply an 
 ample dfversity of ideas illustrative of religion. Ho 
 kas perhaps even heard them make a kind of merit of
 
 216 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 their indifference to knowledge, as if it were the proof 
 or the resuh of a higher value for religion. If there 
 was ventured a hint of reprehensive wonder at theil 
 reading so little, and within so very confined a scope, 
 it would he 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 thou- 
 sands 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 improve- 
 ment in knowledge, have 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 religiou 
 language. In so considerable a space of time, the ha 
 bitual inquisitiveness after various truth would have 
 given much more clearness to their faculties, and much 
 more precision to the 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 combinations with the other 
 parts of our knowledge, by which it is enabled to pre- 
 sent new and striking aspects, and to multiply its argu- 
 ments to the understanding, and its appeals to the heart, 
 They might have enrched 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 
 thej^e n'eans of enlarging their ideas of a subject which
 
 TO EVANGELIIAL RELIGION. 5ilT 
 
 they professed to hold of infinite importance. Vet 
 perhaps, if this man of more intellectual habits showea 
 but little interest in conversing with them on that sub- 
 ject, or seemed intentionally to avoid it, this was con- 
 sidered as pure aversion to religion ; and what had 
 been uninteresting to him as doctrine, then became re- 
 volting 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, 
 ihey have perhaps acknowledged no perception of its 
 beauty, or expressed a doubt of its tendency, from its 
 not being in canonical diction. Or perhaps they have 
 directly 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 
 admiration of some of the views of the gospel, not 
 ordinarily recognised or exhibited, and bearing what I 
 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 Kis 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 chris 
 tians whose mental powers and attainments were small, 
 a candid humility, instructing them, while expressing 
 their animated gratitude for what acquaintance with 
 
 ♦ I own that what I said of Jesus Christ's gladly receiving one 
 of the hamhlcT intellectual order for his disciple, wouJJ t« but lilUa 
 applicable to so:i)c of the characters that I describe. 
 
 19
 
 218 ON THE AVEr.SION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 religion they had been enabled to attain, and for the 
 immortal hopes springing from it, to feci 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 attack 
 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 
 christians, perhaps as their respective marks of dis- 
 tinction from one another ; or any smaller ceremonial 
 peculiarities, devised and pleaded for by particular in- 
 dividuals or families. 
 
 Certain things in the religious habits of some chris- 
 tians may have disgusted him excessively. Every thing 
 which could even distantly remind him of grimace, 
 would inevitably do this ; as, for instance, a solemn 
 lifting up of the eyes, artificial impulses of the breath, 
 grotesque and regulated gestures and postures in relig- 
 ious exercises, an afl^ected faltering of the voice, and, I 
 might add, abrupt religious exclamations in c:)mmon 
 discourse, though they were even benedictions to the 
 Almighty, which he has often heard so ill-timed as to
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 219 
 
 have an irreverent and almost a ludicrous effect. In a 
 man of correct and refined taste, the happiest improve- 
 ment in point of veneration for genuine religion will 
 produce no tolerance far such habits. Nor will the dis- 
 l.ike to them be lessened by ever so perfect a conviction 
 of the sincere piety Df 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, 
 m young persons especially, through the continued ir- 
 ritation of disgust caused by such displeasing habita 
 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 prob' 
 ably, if he twenty times recollected one of those senti- 
 ments, the repulsive figure was sure to recur to his im- 
 agination. 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 percep- 
 tion 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, Vir- 
 gil 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 reluctcnce to think of the subject be- 
 cause it is connected with these ideas, strengthens that 
 connexion. For often the striving not to dwell on the 
 disagreeable images, produces a mischievous reaction 
 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 p'^aasing or unpleas-
 
 'i20 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 ing, 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 g I serv- 
 ed, that the infrequency of thinking on the evangelical 
 subjects, will confirm the injurious associations. The 
 same mental law prevails in regard to subjects as to 
 persons. If anjr unfortunate incident, or any circum- 
 stance 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 wc meet him but 
 seldom ; on the contrary, if our intercourse become fre- 
 quent 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 associa- 
 tions 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. 
 
 While remarking on the effect of unpleasing images 
 employed to illustrate christian principles, I cannot 
 help wishing that religious teachers had the good taste 
 Jo 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 re^Drcsented 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 Ian-
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 221 
 
 guage, thai it will unavoidably occur ; and the analogy 
 briefly and simply sug-gested may sometimes assist the 
 thought without lessening the subject. But it is de- 
 grading to spiritual ideas to be extensively and syste- 
 matically transmuted, 1 might say cooked, into sensual 
 ones. The analogy between meaner and more digni- 
 fied 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 magnitude of the superior, and thus the im- 
 portance 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 de- 
 lights or the supports of religion, after he has seen 
 them reduced into ail the forms of eating and drink- 
 ing. In such detailed analogies -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 truth, it will be apt to descend to 
 the lowest. There is no such violent tendency to ab- 
 straction 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 
 unju.st not to observe that some christians, of a sub- 
 ID*
 
 222 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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 evan- 
 gelical communities, that this man has acquired an 
 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 insepara- 
 ble 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 qualify- 
 ing 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 princi- 
 ples of religion exhibited and inculcated in a repulsive 
 lano-uacre and cast of :hou"-ht by the seniors of his 
 family or acquaintance. In that case, the unavoidable 
 frequency of intercourse must have rendered the coun- 
 teractive operation of the unpleasing circumstances, 
 associated wnh christian truth," almost incessant. And 
 "t would naturally become cont'nually stronger. For
 
 TO EVANGELICAt RELiGION, 223 
 
 each repetition of that which offended his refined mea- 
 tal habits, would incite him to value and cherish them 
 the more, and to cuhivate them according to a standard 
 still more foreign from all congeniality with his ir,- 
 structors. These habits he began and continued to 
 acquire from books of elegant sentiment or philosophi- 
 cal speculation, which he read in disregard of the ad- 
 vice, perhaps to occupy himself much more with works 
 specifically religious. To such literary employment 
 and amusement he has asfain and ag-ain returned, with 
 a delightful rebound from systematic common-places, 
 whether delivered in private or in public instruction j 
 and has felt the full contrast between the force, lustre, 
 and mental richness, brio-htenino- and animatinfj the 
 moral speculations or poetical visions of genius, and 
 the manner in which the truths of the gospel had been 
 conveyed. He was not serious and honest enough to 
 make, when in retirement, any deliberate trial of ab- 
 stracting these truths from the vehicle and combination 
 in which they were thus unhappily set forth, and in a 
 measure disguised, 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 evidence. But his sense of the duty of doing this 
 was perhaps less cogent, from his perceiving that the 
 evangelical 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 arti- 
 cles 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
 
 224 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 mamtained them by the habit of believing them. The 
 recoil of his feelings, therefore, did not alarm hvs con- 
 science with the apprehension that it might be abso- 
 lutely 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, per- 
 haps sometimes harsh seriousness, of his friends, reite- 
 rating the assertion of his mind beinsr in a fatal condi- 
 lion, 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 intellectual fastidiousness, and adopt in piou." sim- 
 plicity all their feelings and ideas. But as the con- 
 tracted views, the rude figures, and the mixture of sys- 
 tematic and illiterate languagfe, recurred, his mind 
 
 O O / 7 
 
 would again revolt, and compel him to say, This can- 
 not, 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 t)ie mode 
 cf 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 diminu- 
 tive and the most majestic forms. So the same simple 
 principles of christian truth may Cx;nstitute the basis of 
 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 
 *o be fixed in the mind as so many bare scientific propo- 
 sitions, each confined to one single jnode of conception,
 
 TO EVANGELICAL REI\u-ON, 225 
 
 without any collateral ideas, and to be always express 
 ed in one unalterable {"orm 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 feei- 
 
 *ings. These ideas and feelings, forming round the 
 pure simple principles, will correspond, and will make 
 those principles 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 aa 
 a creek 1 Through this climax it retains an identity 
 of its essential principles, and appears progressively a 
 noble'r thing only by gaining a position for more con 
 spicuously displaymg 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 wiih pity on the rank you 
 at present hold, you would still find the dignity of this 
 siubject on your level, and rising above it. Do you 
 doubt this ? What then do you think of such spirits, 
 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. 
 Id their loftiest canl^mplations, they did not feel their
 
 226 ON THE AVERSION OP MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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 leariU the habit of recognising this analogy, and in 
 pursuance of it casting your thought upward to 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 
 your dislike 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 
 Df 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 from those 
 minds? But even suppose that they also failed, and 
 that all modern christians, without exception, had con- 
 spired to give an unattractive and unimpressive aspect 
 to the subject of their profession, there is still the Chris- 
 tian Revelation — may I not presume that you some- 
 times read it? But this is to be done in that state of 
 susceptible seriousness, v^ithouf which you will have
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIG.ON.. 227 
 
 tM 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 
 that with which a thoughtful and imaginative man 
 might be supposed to have looked on the countenance 
 of Newton, feeling a kind of mystical absorption in the 
 attempt to comprehend the magnitude of the soul re- 
 sidinof within that form. When in this state of serious 
 susceptibility, have you not also perceived in the char- 
 acter 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 distinguished. 
 men, and much more elevated and unearthly ? If you 
 examined the cause, you perceived that the dignity 
 arose partly from their being employed as living ora- 
 cles of this truth, and still more from their whole char- 
 acters being pervaded by its spirit. And have you not 
 been sometimes conscious, for a moment, that if it pos- 
 sessed 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 combi- 
 nation of sanctity, devotion, disinterestedness, superiority 
 to external things, energy, and aspiring hope, in com- 
 parison of which the ambilion of a conqueror, or the 
 pride of a self-admiring philosopher, would be a very 
 vulgar kind of dignity. You acknowledge these rep« 
 resentations to be just; you allow that the kind of
 
 228 ON THE AVERSION OF MEK OF TASTE 
 
 sublimity which you have sometimes perceived in the 
 New Testament, that the qualities of the apostolic 
 spirit, and that the intellectual and moral greatness 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 disingenu- 
 ous in you to suffer the meanness which you know to 
 be but associated and separable, to be admitted by your 
 own mind as an excuse for its alienation from what is 
 acknowledged to be in itself the very contrary of mean- 
 ness? Ought you not to turn on yourself with indig- 
 nation at that want of rectitude which resigns you to 
 the effect of these associations, or with contempt of tho 
 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 fastidious- 
 ness 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 em- 
 bracing 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 refinement per- 
 haps 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 dis- 
 grace it, by occupying the declivity and the vale. 
 
 But after all, what need of referring to illustrious 
 names 1 as if the claims of that which you acknowl- 
 edge to be from heaven should be made to depend oa 
 the number of those who have received it gracefully; 
 :r as if a rational being could calmly wait for his taste 
 /o 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
 
 TO EVANGELICAL KELIGION. 22S 
 
 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 overwhelm- 
 ed with wonder and shame, that so minor an interfer- 
 ence as that of mere taste should so longf 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 meet a consequence unspeakably disastrous, 
 will an unhallowed and proud refinement appear to 
 have been a worthy cause for which to incur it 1 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 con 
 cerning it than its truth and importance, and if its ac 
 cidental and separable associations with littleness, can 
 counteract its essential inseparable ones with the Gov- 
 ernor 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 car- 
 ries 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, ac- 
 quire the spirit which should impel you also toward 
 heaven. But why do you not feel your Individual con- 
 cern in this great subject 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 
 Paiinos, an awful appearance of Jesus Christ and the 
 visions of hereafter? What is it to you that many 
 chr/slians have given an aspei;t of littleness to the gos- 
 pel, or thaf; a few have sustamed and exemplifiec its 
 sublimity 1 
 
 20
 
 230 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Another, cause which I think has tended to rendei 
 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 
 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 de- 
 partment is exempted from the authority of this stand- 
 ard, 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 au- 
 thority is the law. It does indeed allow indefinite va- 
 rieties of what is called style, since twenty able and 
 approved writers might be cited, who have each a dif- 
 ferent style ; but yet there is a certain general charaC' 
 ter 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 manne;".
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 231 
 
 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 ele- 
 vated entirely above the authority of the standard, by 
 some transcendent force or majesty of thought, or a su- 
 perhuman communication of truth. 
 
 I mififht make some chartre against the language of 
 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 any 
 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 languag-e 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 dic- 
 tion of evangelical religion also must be pronounced 
 barbarous. For I suppose it will be instantly allowed, 
 that the mode of expression of the greater number of 
 evangelical divines,* and of those taught by them, is 
 
 ♦ When I say evangelical divines, I concur with the opinion of 
 those, who deem a consideraVjle, and, in an intellectual and literary 
 view, a highly resjxctable class of the writers who have professed- 
 ly 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 chris- 
 tian morals, but not placing the economy of redemption exactly in 
 that light ill which the New Testament appears to pl.acc it. Soma 
 of these have avoided the kind of dialect on whii-h I am anmiad- 
 'crting, not only by mean* of a diction mo'e classical and digni'.
 
 232 ON THE AVERSION OP MEN OF TASTE 
 
 widely different from the standard of general langua^b, 
 not only by the necessary adof»tion of some peculia! 
 terms, but by a continued and systematic cast of phrase- 
 ology; insomuch that in reading or hearing five or six 
 sentences of an evangelical discourse, you ascertain 
 the school by the mere turn of expression, independ- 
 ently of any attention to the quality of the ideas. If, 
 in order to try what those ideas would appear in an al- 
 tered form of words, you attempted to reduce a par- 
 agraph 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 lan- 
 guage, a dialect which should be intrinsically spiritual ; 
 and so exclusively appropriated to christian doctrine as 
 to be totally unserviceable 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 general range of diction is abandoned, with 
 all its nowers, diversities, and elegance, to secular sub 
 
 fied in the general principles of its structure, but also by avoiding 
 the ideas with which the phrases of this dialect are commonly as ■ 
 sociated. I may however here observe, that it is by no means al- 
 together 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. 
 
 ♦ This is so true, that it is no uncommon expedient with the 
 would-be wits, to introduce some of the spiritual phrases, in speak. 
 \n<J of any thing which they wish to render ludicrous; and thej 
 are generally so far successful as to be rewarded by the laugh ot 
 the smile of the circle, who probably may never have had tha 
 good fortune of hearing wit, and have not the sense or conscienre 
 to care about religion.
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 233 
 
 jects 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 
 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 tho 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 I am not aware, conveyed and con- 
 cetled uttder these j '.range shapings of phrase? It 
 
 20*
 
 234 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 this another stage of the religion, the school of th« 
 adepts, in which 1 am not yet initiated ? And doei 
 religion then every where, as well as in my country, 
 affect to show and guard its importance by relinquish- 
 ing the simple language of intelligence, and assuming 
 a sinister dialect of its own ? Or is this the diction of 
 •an individual only, and of one who real.y intends but 
 to convey the same ideas that I have elsewhere re- 
 ceived in so much more clear and direct a vehicle of 
 words ? But then, in what remote corner, placed be 
 yond the authority of criticism and the circulation of 
 literature, where a noble lansfuao^e stasfnates into bar- 
 barism, 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 ex- 
 clude 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 
 tny 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 
 Tery act it misrepresents and obscures. It is giving an 
 uncouthness of mien to a beauty which should attract 
 all hear^. It is teajh'ng a provincial dialect to the
 
 . TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 235 
 
 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 administra 
 tion of 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? But it may be made a question whether it can 
 be perfectly conveyed in such language. This point 
 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 com- 
 mon 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 combina- 
 tion of words which are common, and have no degree 
 of technicality. — 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 genera! 
 
 • As for instance, walk, and conversatloi, instead of conduct^ 
 metiona, or deportment ; Jlesh, instead of, soinctimcs. body, gome- 
 times natural inclination.
 
 Z^G ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 order o\ ihe language, gathered into a peculiar plirase ; 
 which cannot be expressed in the language of anothel 
 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 pretensions. When you obtain their 
 meaning, you may well wonder why a peculiar appa- 
 ratus of phrase should have been constructed, to bring 
 and retain such an element of thought within the sphere 
 of your understanding. But indeed the very circum- 
 stance of there being nothing extraordmary in the sense, 
 may have been one inducement to the contrivance. 
 There may have been a certain discontent that the im- 
 port should not appear more 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 eflTect, without 
 some special token borne on its exterior to warn us to 
 pay it reverence. In whatever manner, however, the 
 language came to be perverted into these artificial modes, 
 •.t 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 theil 
 rejection would be the forfeiture of a certain portior 
 of religious truth 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 phrase? 
 as it is within our familiar experience that all phld^ses 
 consisting of only common words, and hav ng no 
 relation to art or science, can be exchanged for several 
 different couibinations of words, without materially 
 altering the thought or lengthening the expression 
 Make the e-fperiment on any paragraph written in the 
 manner in question, on any religious topic whatever 
 and see wi ether you cano^t melt all the uncouth con-
 
 70 EVANGELICAL RELIGIO.V 237 
 
 «tru;Mons of diction, to be cast in a new and un- 
 canonical shape, without letting any sense there waa 
 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 pe- 
 culiar 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 oth- 
 er single terms which are in general use. For exam- 
 ple, edification, tribulation, blessedness, godliness, righ'.- 
 eousness, carnality, lusts, (a term peculiar and theolog- 
 ical only in the plural,) could be exchanged for paral- 
 lel »erms 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 h is distinguished from them. The words in- 
 struction, improvement, for instance, may not express 
 exactly the sense of edification ; but the word edifica- 
 tion 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 instruction. 
 This is still more true of some other words, as for ex- 
 ample, tribulation and afiliction. Whatever small dif- 
 ference of import these words may have in rirtue of 
 derivation, it is probable that no man ever wrote tribu- 
 lation rather than affliction on account of such differ- 
 ence. If, in addition to the:>e two, the word distress 
 has offered itaell^ the selection of any one from the thre«
 
 238 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 has perhaps always been determined by habit, or acci- 
 dent, rather than by any perception of a distinct signifi- 
 cation. The same remark is applicable to the words 
 blessed, happy, righteous, virtuous, carnal, sensual, and 
 a multitude of others. So that though there are few 
 words strictly synonymous, yet there are very many 
 which are so in effect, even by the allowance and sanc- 
 tion 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 ideiil 
 perfection may be, that every conception should be so 
 discriminative 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, fron> 
 Avhat he could express by the words, sensual, pious, re- 
 ligious, instructive, he would certainly do right to ad- 
 here to the more peculiar words ; but if he does not, ho 
 may perhaps improve the vehicle, without hurting tho 
 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 con- 
 sists in words almost peculiar to the language of di 
 vines, and for which equivalent terms cannct be found, 
 except in the form of definition or circumlocution. 
 Sanctification, regeneration, grace, covenant, salvation, 
 and a few more, may be assigned to thi: class. These
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 239 
 
 may be called, in a qualified sense, the technical terms 
 of evangelical religion. Now, separately from any re- 
 ligious considerations, it is plainly necessary, in a lit- 
 erary view, that all those terms that express a modifi- 
 cation of thought which there are no other words com- 
 petent to express, without great circumlocution, should 
 be retained. They are requisite to the sufficiency of the 
 langfuaffe. And then, in consideringc 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, 
 Avhich shall stand as its technical terms. But here sev- 
 eral thoughts suggest themselves. 
 
 First, the definitions of some of these christian terms 
 are not absolutely unquestionable. The words have 
 assumed the specific formality of technical terms, with- 
 out 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 sci- 
 ence, especially of mathematical science, are in theirs. 
 Technical 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 significa- 
 tion. 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 in- 
 fer 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 
 ^ often as to render tiie term obsolete. It might be
 
 240 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 useful so:netimes, especially in verbal instruction, 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 the tediousness, by 
 the distinctness and fulness of enunciation.* 
 
 Secondly, if the definitions of the christian peculixT 
 terms were even as precise and fixed as those of scien- 
 tific 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. In 
 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 inan- 
 ity. 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 whea 
 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 aa 
 unalterable stability. Unless the ideas themselves, by 
 being often expressed in common words, preserve the 
 signification of the terms, the terms will not preserve 
 
 • It is needless to observe that this would be a superfluous la- 
 Iwur witli respect to the most simple of the peculiar words, such 
 fiar instance as salvation.
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 241 
 
 the accuracy of the ideas. This is true no doub of the 
 technical terms of science ; but it is true in a much 
 more striking manner of the peculiar words in theology. 
 If the technical terms of science, at least of the strict- 
 est 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 knowl- 
 edge to blank ignorance. But in the christian theol- 
 ogy, the change might be from truth to error ; since 
 he 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 conjecture in 
 what sense the terms conversion and regeneration, for 
 examole. 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 subsequently 
 borne in the v/ritings of many of its divines ? The 
 peculiar words may remain, when the ideas which 
 they were intended to perpetuate are gone. Thus in- 
 stead 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 which 
 it was wished to render obsolete ; but they have been 
 still more frequently and succe.ssfully 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 only by keeping that signification clearly in 
 sight in another way than the bare use of these words 
 themselves, it would be wise in christian authors and 
 sneakers sometimes to express the ideas in common 
 words, either in expletive and explanatory connexion 
 
 21
 
 242 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 with the peculiar terms, or, occasionallv, instead of 
 them. I would still be understood to approve entirely 
 of the use of a few of '.his 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 par- 
 ticulars 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 unaffect- 
 ed manner, and the phrases formed of common Avords 
 uncouthly combined, may be swept awaJ^-^— Many pe- 
 culiar and antique words might be exchanged for other 
 single words, of equivalent signification, and in general 
 use. — And the small number of peculiar terms ac- 
 knowledged 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 expres- 
 sion, 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. Tf evangeli- 
 cal 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, 
 if these observations be co rectj no radical chsinge pc*
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 243 
 
 cessary in the consistence of their language. An en- 
 lightened believer in christJanity might have been 
 sorry, if, in such a case, he had sjen any of them su- 
 perstitiously labouring to acquire all the phrases o^ 9 
 school, instead of applying at once to its new vocaaon 
 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 with the utmost precision? As their language 
 had been found sufficiently specific to injure the gospe), 
 it would have been strano-e if it had been too general 
 to serve it. The required alteration would probably 
 have been little more than to introduce familiarl}'^ the 
 obvious denominations of the christian topics and ob- 
 jects, such as, redemption, heaven, mediator, Christ, 
 Redeemer, with the others of a similar kind, and a very 
 iew of those almost technical words which I have ad- 
 mitted to be indispensable. The habitual use of such 
 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 dif- 
 ference 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 
 spi -t. — On the whole then, I conclude that, with the 
 exception which I have distinctly made, the evangeli- 
 cal principles may be clearly exhibited in what may be 
 called a neutral diction. And if they may, I can im- 
 agine some reasons to justify the wish that it were gen- 
 erally employed. 
 
 As one of these reasons, I may revert to the consid 
 eration of the impression made by the dialect wliich 1 
 have described, on those persons of cultivated taste 
 whom this e.'say has chiefly in view. I am aware that 
 they are greatly inclined to make an idol of their taste ; 
 and I am aware also that n* species of i:religion can
 
 244 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTK 
 
 be much worse than to sacrifice to this idol any thing 
 which essentially belongs to Christianity. If any pun 
 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 tho 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 to any part 
 of either its essence or its form as really displayed from 
 heaven, should be exacted to any thing unnecessarily 
 and imgracefuUy 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 ♦ransition. The subject 
 is piaced m 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 
 foreign lanouajie. You have sometimes observed, 
 when a person has introduced religious topics, in tha
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 245 
 
 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 sub- 
 ject, it was done by an entire change of the whole 
 tenour and bearing of the discourse, and with as for- 
 mal 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 othei 
 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 terms, 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- 
 liar ; and, that being admitted, would it not be better 
 to avert the imputation, as far as this difference of 
 lano-uaofe could avert it? Better, I do not mean, in 
 Ihe 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 ougiit, 
 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 piinciplei 
 
 20*
 
 246 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTB 
 
 anight appear to the persons who meet them with this 
 prejudice. You may have observed that in attributing 
 (anaticism, they often fix on the phrases, at least as 
 much as on the absohite 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 
 substantial 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 effect 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 rnode of exhibiting chris- 
 tian truth Bat 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 
 oecause they are of an order too rectified and refined. 
 
 As a further consideration in favour of adopting a 
 jnure general language, it may be observed, that hypo- 
 crisy would then find a much greater difliculty, as far 
 as speech is concerned, in supporting its imposture. 
 The usual language of hypocrisy, at least of vulgar
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELli/ r.<. *247 
 
 hypocrisy, is cant ; and religious cant is often an af- 
 fected use of the phrases which have been heard em« 
 ployed as appropriate to evangelical truth ; with which 
 phrases the hypocrite has connected no distinct ideas, 
 so that he would be confounded if an intelligent ex- 
 aminer 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 pre- 
 tender 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 discriminatively in language of his own, the part 
 of a hypocrite would be much less easily acted, and 
 less frequently attempted. Religion would therefore 
 be seldomer dishonoured by the mockery of a false 
 semblance. 
 
 Again, if this alteration of language were introdu- 
 ced, some of the sincere disciples of evangelical religion 
 would much more distinctly feel the necessity of a 
 positive intellectual hold 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 maybe totally absent 
 from his mind, the others may be most faintly appre- 
 hended ; there is no precise construction therefore of 
 the thought ; and thus the sign which he uses, stands 
 in fact for nothing. If, on hearing one of these phrases, 
 you were to turn to the speaker, and say. Now what it 
 that idea ? What do you plainly mean by that ex- 
 Dression ? — you would often find with how indistinct a
 
 248 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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 
 ifome 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 pre- 
 cision, and at the expense of less mental exercise, than 
 any other subject would require. And of how little 
 consequence it would seem to be, in this mode of be- 
 lieving, whether a man entertains one system of prin- 
 ciples 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 iew indispensable terms from the general 
 standard, for the simple reason, that it must be barba- 
 rous; unless, as I have observed, it be raised quite 
 above the authority of this standard, and of the crit- 
 icism and the taste which appeal to it, by the venerable 
 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 mnniier of thinking shall be so transcendent in
 
 TO EVANGEL CAL RELIGION. 249 
 
 originality and demonstrative vigour, as to authorize 
 hiia to throw the hinguage into a new order, all hia 
 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 es- 
 tablished 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 
 being 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 pow- 
 erful 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 teach- 
 ers have concurred to establish for the language of re- 
 ligion. 
 
 It may be said, perhaps, that any such splendid in- 
 tervention, in authorization Df that model, can b« 
 spared ; for that the class contains so many of great 
 ability, and so many more of great pietj' and useful 
 uess, that the peculiar diction will maintain its ground
 
 250 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OP TASTE 
 
 Probably it will do so, in a considerable degree, for a 
 long time. But no numbers, ability, or piety, will evM 
 redeem it from the character of barbarism. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 In defence of the diction which I have been descri- 
 bing, it will be said, that it has grown out of the lan- 
 guage of the Bible. To a great extent, this is evident- 
 ly true. Many phrases indeed which casually occurred 
 in the writings of divines, and many which were la- 
 boriously invented by those who wished to give to 
 divinity a complete systematic arrangement, and there- 
 fore wanted denominations or titles for the multitude of 
 articles in the artificial distribution, have been incorpo- 
 rated 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 resem- 
 blance, to its characteristic lanofuaafe. 
 
 Before proceeding further. 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 the- 
 ological, but in any grave moral composition Paesages 
 of the inspired writings must necessarily be cited in 
 some instance, in proof of the truth of opinions, and 
 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 exoressioris, consisting
 
 TO evangel: jCAL RELIGIOII. 251 
 
 ^rhaps sometimes of only two or three words, may ba 
 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 difTerent from our 
 common mode of language, they are read as expres- 
 sions foreign to the surrounding composition, and, 
 without an effort, referred to the work from which they 
 are brought and of which they retain the unaltered 
 consistence ; in the same manner as passages, or stri- 
 king 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 sa- 
 cred 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 shorter ex- 
 pressions may be introduced without the formality of 
 noticing, either in terms or by any other mark, frofn 
 what volume they are drawn. — These observations are 
 more than enough, to obviate any imputation of want- 
 ing a due sense of the dignity and force which maybe 
 imparted by a judicious introduction of the language 
 of the Bible. 
 
 It is a difTei ?nt mode of using biblical language, 
 that constitutes so considerable a part of the dialect 
 which I have ventured to disapprove. When inser- 
 tions are made from the Bible in the manner here de*
 
 252 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 scribed 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 
 beino; ifidressed in a common general phraseology ; 
 and when the. pure scripture expressions occur, they 
 are recognised in their own peculiar character, and 
 with the sense that wo are reading, in small detached 
 portions, just so much of the Bible itself This dis- 
 tinct recognition of the two separate characters of Ian 
 guage prevents any impression of an uncouth hetero 
 geneous consistence. But in the theological dialect, 
 that part of the phraseology which has a biblical cast, 
 jg neither the one of these two kmds of language nor 
 ie other, but an inseparable though crude amalgam 
 ijf both. For the expressions resembling those of 
 scripture are blended and moulded into the substance 
 of the diction. I say rese?nbling ; for though some 
 of them are precisely 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 distinguished points on a common ground, as gems 
 advantageously set in an inferior substance, are reduced 
 to 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. Theyther*
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGIO^. 253 
 
 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 1 
 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 vaat quantity of most 
 inferior writing has appeared in this kind of diction ; 
 that it is not 7low 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 
 jervilely systematic and cramped manner of thinking. 
 Jt may be considered also, that, from whatever high 
 origin any modes and figures of speech may be drawn, 
 they are reduced, in 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 is 
 not adapted to excite 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 cases, an attempt to imitate 
 the peculiarity of form in which a venerable object is 
 presented, not only fliils 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 
 
 22
 
 254 ON THE A'*ERSION OF MEN CP TASTE 
 
 construction peculiar to itself, would be an impressiv« 
 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 com- 
 mand. Such idioms may indeed remind one of proph 
 ets and apostles, but it is a recollection which prompts 
 to say, Who are these men that, instead of respectfully 
 introducing at intervals the direct words of those re- 
 vered dictators of truth, seem to be mocking the sacred 
 language 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 some- 
 thing 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 
 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 instruct- 
 ed, exactly and definitively the idea which he under- 
 stands to be expressed in the cited passage. Even to 
 possess himself of a clear apprehension, there is, he 
 might perce'"e in his mind, a kind of translating op*
 
 TO EVANGEIICAL RELIGJON. 255 
 
 eration, emboyding the idea in more common lan- 
 guage, equivalent to the biblical. 
 
 But would not the disuse of a language which seems 
 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 di.ect 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, 
 tlte way would not be to attempt incorporating a great 
 number of his turns of expression into the essential 
 structure of our own diction, which wor.ld generally 
 have a most uncouth efTect, 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. 
 
 liCt the oracles of inspiration be cited continually, 
 both as authority and illustration, in a manner that 
 ihall make the mind instantly refer each expression
 
 256 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OI TASTE 
 
 that is introduced to the venerable book whence it ii 
 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.* 
 
 • In the above remarks, I have not made any distinction between 
 the sacred books in their own language, and as translated. It might 
 not, however, be improper to notice, that though there is a great 
 peculiarity of language in the original, yet a certain proportion ot 
 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 conformed to the present state of the language, in the same 
 degree in which the earlier translation was conformed to the state 
 of the language at that time, would make an alteration in some 
 parts of that phraseology which the theological dialect has attempt- 
 ed to incorporate and imitate. If therefore it uere the duty of di- 
 •rines 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 scrip- 
 tures, Dut to the earlier cast of our own language. At the same 
 time it nmst be admitted, both that the change of expression which 
 a later version might, on merely philological principles, be justified 
 by the progress and present standard of our language for making, 
 would not be great ; and that every sentiment of prudence and de- 
 votional taste forbids to make quite so much alteration as those 
 principles might warrant. All who have long venerated the scrip- 
 *ures in their somewhat antique version, would protest against 
 neir 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 aires to come, it would be desirable that the translation of the 
 Bible should always continue, except in what might essentially 
 affect the sense, a century or two behind, for the sake of that ven- 
 erable ah- which a shade of antiquity confers on the form, of what 
 is so sacred and authoritative in substance. But I cannot allow 
 that tie same law is to be ex '.ended to the language of divines. 
 They have no right to assime the same ground and the same dis-
 
 TO EVANGEUCAL RELIGION. 257 
 
 An advocate for the theological diction, who should 
 nesitate to maintain its necessity or utility on the ground 
 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 
 Deen so long accustomed to it. I cannot but be aware, 
 that many respectable teachers of Christianity would 
 find 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 cul- 
 tivated, it will perhaps be better for them, especially if 
 far advanced in life, to retain the accustomed mode of 
 expression with all disadvantages. Younger theologi- 
 cal students, however, are supposed to become acquaint- 
 ed with those authors who have displayed the utmos'; 
 extent and powers of language in its freest form : ana 
 it is right for them to be told that evangelical 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 
 
 tiiKiions as the Bible ; they ought not to affect to keep it company. 
 Thaii is no solemn dignity in their writings, which can claim tc 
 be invested with a venerable peculiarity. Imitate the Bible or not, 
 their composL ion is merely of the ordinary human quality, and 
 Bubject to the same rules as that of their contemporaries 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 thcmsf Ives by pretending to identi fy themselves with tb« 
 Bible. 
 
 22*
 
 258 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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 be 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 phraseology had scarcely given them 
 any clear notions. It would be found, as I have ob- 
 served 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 mechanically 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 ignorance, indolence, and pre- 
 judice. 
 
 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 to be a fact from many observa- 
 tions in real life, especially among intellectual young 
 persons, 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 disfa-
 
 TO evangelic.il religion. 259 
 
 vouT with too many persons of accomplished mental 
 habits. A large proportion of that writing may be sen- 
 tenced as bad, on more accounts llian merely the pecu- 
 liarity of dialect. But this is an invidious topic, 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 admi 
 ration, in the absence of all the graces, and notwith- 
 standing much incorrectness or clumsiness in the work- 
 manship of the composition. But when thus standing 
 the divested and sole excellence, it must be pre-emi- 
 nently 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 unfor- 
 tunate 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 im- 
 mortality. 
 
 Now, in this view, I suppose it will be acknowledged 
 that the evangelical cause has been, on the whole, far 
 from happy in its prodigious list of authors. A num- 
 ber of them have displayed a high order of excellence ; 
 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 superfluous 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 ex- 
 hibition of the most subordinate materials that can be
 
 260 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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 Bar- 
 row'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 could not have attained, but as 
 what they judge incompatible 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 shine on a serious human mind without imparting 
 some small occasional degree of dignity to the strain 
 of thought. The indulgent feelings, which you enter- 
 tain for the intellectual and literary deficiency of hum- 
 ble christians in their religious communications in pri- 
 vate, are with difficulty extended to tiiose who make 
 for their thoughts this demand on public attention ; it 
 wras 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 
 ttme, to be read or known ; but the new supply con- 
 tinually brought forth is so numerous, that a person
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 26" 
 
 ^no .urns 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 worka 
 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 tj him, if he did 
 not find some happier illustrations of hi 
 
 There is another large class of christian books, 
 which bear the marks of learning, correctness, and an 
 orderly understanding ; and by a general propriety 
 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 ac- 
 tion of the mind ; you seem to understancj it all, and 
 mechanically assent while you are thinking of some- 
 thing else. Though the author has a rich immeasur- 
 able field of possible varieties of reflection and illustra- 
 tion 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. 
 
 There is a smaller class that might be called 
 mock-eloquent writers. These saw the effect of bril 
 liant expression in those works of eloquence and po- 
 etry where if 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 com- 
 mand. But unfortunately they forgot that eloquence 
 resides essentially in the thought, and that no words 
 car. make genuine eloquence of that which would not 
 be such in the plainest that could fully express the 
 sense. Or probably, they were quite confident of the
 
 S62 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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 lan- 
 guage. The writers would be but little inclined to 
 suspect of poverty or feebleness the thoughts which 
 geemed so naturally to be assuming, in their mmds and 
 on their page, such a magnificent style. A gaudy verbo- 
 sity is always eloquence 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 elo- 
 quence ; but the sounding sentences of these writers 
 leave you cool enough to examine with doubtful curiosi- 
 ty a language that seems threatening to move or aston 
 ish you, without 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 ex 
 pression with the quality of the thoughts ; and then 
 read on for amusement, or cease to read from disgust. 
 In a serious hour, indeed, the feelings both of amuse- 
 ment and disgust give place to the regret, that it should 
 be in the power of bad writing to bring the most im- 
 portant subjects in danger of something worse than fail- 
 ing 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, i^ 
 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 
 
 ♦ I shoiild be accurate, and say, the reader of disciplined iudg- 
 Inent and good taste; for it is true enough that readers are not 
 wantins, nor few, who can be taken with glare and bombast
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 263 
 
 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 
 ilso 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 afl^ected in mere sympa- 
 hy 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 some- 
 times 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. 
 
 It would be going beyond my purpose, to carry my 
 remarks from the literary merits to the moral and the- 
 ological 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 
 Tevelation, 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 evan- 
 gelical truth as an assassin values his dagger, and foi
 
 264 ON THE AVERSION OF ME'>1 OF TASTE 
 
 the same reason ; wiih a descanter on the invisible world, 
 who makes you think of a popish cathedral, and from 
 the vulgaritjc 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 attributes and gov- 
 ernment, as seems to delight in representing the Deity 
 as a dreadful king of furi&s, whose dominion is over- 
 shaded with vengeance, whose music is the cries of vic- 
 tims, and whose glory requires to be illustrated by the 
 ruin of his creation. 
 
 It is quite unnecessary to say, that the list of excel- 
 lent christian writers would be very considerable. But 
 as to the vast mass of books that would, by the con- 
 senting adjudgment of all men of liberal cultivation, re- 
 main 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 essentia, 
 truths of Christianity, yet utterly preclude the full im 
 pression of its character ; which e.xhibit its claims on 
 admiration and affection with insipid feebleness of sen- 
 timent; or which cramp its simple majesty into an ar- 
 tificial form at once distorted and mean ; must be seri- 
 ously prejudicial to the influence of this sacred subject, 
 though it be admitted that many of them have some- 
 times imparted a measure both of instruction and of con- 
 solation. 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 
 
 * It is true enough that on every other subject, on which a mul- 
 titude 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 pio- 
 portion to the excelkmt ones in the religious department than any 
 other. One chief cause of this has been, the mistake by which 
 ■nany good men, professionally employed in religion, have deemed
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 265 
 
 which an intellio-ent christian cannot look without re* 
 joicing that they were not the books from whicli he re- 
 ceived 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 hJs 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 vener- 
 ation for Christianity would induce the wish, that, after 
 a judicious selection of books had been made, the Chris- 
 tians also had their Caliph Omar, and their General 
 Arnrou. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 The injurious causes which I have thus far consider- 
 ed, 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 to put it in 
 antipathy to the religion of Christ, even though pre- 
 sented 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 incontrovertiblej that what is denomina 
 ted Polite Literature, the grand school in which laste 
 acquires its laws and refined perception?^ and in which 
 
 »heir respectable mental competence to the office of public speak- 
 ing, the proof of an equal competence to a work which is subjected 
 to much severer literary and intellectual laws. 
 
 23
 
 266 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN cF TASTE 
 
 are formed, much more than under any higher a^jsterei 
 discipline, the moral sentiments, is. for the far greatel 
 part, hostile to the religion of Christ ; parti), by Iniro- 
 ducing insensibly a certain order of opinions uncon 
 sonant, or at least not identical, with the principles.- oi 
 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 ingeni- 
 ous 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 
 jn view ; at the same time, it is obvious that the writ- 
 ings of heathen antiquity have continued to operatctill 
 now, in the very presence and sight of Christianity, 
 with their own proper influence, a correctly heathenish 
 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 for as his efforts 
 were successful, the doctrine and spirit of the Teacher 
 from heaven.* 
 
 •• It is however no pari, of my object in these letters to remark 
 on the influence, in modern times, of the fabulous religion that in- 
 fested the anoient works of genius. That influence is at the pres- 
 ent time, I should think, extremely sma'J, from the hbles being so 
 «tale; all readers are sufficiently tired of Jupiter, Apollo, Miner-
 
 TO ET ANGELICAL RELIGION. 267 
 
 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 mea- 
 sure ceased to interfere with the intellectual discipline 
 of modern times. It obtains too little attention, and 
 too little deference, to contribute materially to the for- 
 mation of the mental habits, which are adverse to the 
 christian doctrines and spirit. Divers learned and fa- 
 natical devotees to antiquity and paganism, have indeed 
 made some effort to recall the long departed venera- 
 tion for the dreams and subtleties of ancient philosophy. 
 But they might with as good a prospect of success re- 
 commend the building of temples or a pantheon, and 
 the revival of the institutions of idolatrous 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 ; un- 
 less they may be supposed to like it as heathenism more 
 than they admire it as wisdom; or unless their pride 
 
 va, and the rest. As long however as they could be of the small- 
 est service, they were piously retained by the christian poets of thia 
 and other countries, 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 tliat may more commodiousiy hitch into verse, and be in- 
 voked to adorn and sanctify the belles lettres of the next century. 
 The Mexican abominations and infcrnalities have already received 
 from us their epic tribute. The poet has no reason to fear that the 
 BUpj)Iy 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 reli- 
 gion, and the whole resource? of innocent fiction, are too little to 
 liiraish materials enough for the wants and labours of his gcniiui
 
 268 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 would wish to retain a reminiscence of it for contrast «J 
 their own more rational philosophizing. 
 
 The ancient speculations of the religious order in' 
 elude indeed some splendid ideas relating to a Supremo 
 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 or- 
 igin. For the most part they probably were tradi- 
 tionary 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 mo- 
 ments excelling itself But in whatever proportions 
 they be referred to the one origin or the other, they 
 stand so distinguished from the accumulated multifari- 
 ous 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 philoso- 
 phers who would cite and applaud them. They rather 
 direct our contemplation and affection toward a reli- 
 gion divinely revealed, than obtain any degree of 
 favour for those notions of the Divinity, which sprang 
 and indefinitely multiplied from a melancholy combina- 
 tion of ignorance and depraved imagination. As tc 
 the apparent 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 chris- 
 tian 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 pafi-ticular systems of modern philosophers, aa 
 affecting the cordial and simple admission of christian
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 269 
 
 doctrines, the ancient metaphysics may certainly bo 
 pronouBied inoperative and harmless. If it were pos- 
 sible to analyze the mass of what may be termed our 
 effective literature, so as to ascertain what elements and 
 interfusions 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 fu- 
 ture not one of a thousand men, cultivated in a respec- 
 table deofree, will ever take the trouble of a resolute 
 and persisting effort to master those speculations. Be- 
 sides the too prevailing and still increasing indisposition 
 to metaphysical study in any school, there is a settled 
 conviction that those speculations were baseless and 
 useless, and that whoever aspires to the high and ab- 
 stracted wisdom must learn it from the later philoso- 
 phers. And as the only thing we can seek and value 
 in pure abstracted speculations is truth, when the per- 
 suasion of their truth is gone their attraction and influ- 
 ence are extinct. That which could please the imagi- 
 nation or interest the affections, might in a considerable 
 degree continue to please and interest them, though 
 convicted of much fallacy. But that which is too sub- 
 tile and intangible to please the imagination, loses all 
 its power when it is rejected by the judgment. This 
 is the predicament to which time has reduced the meta- 
 physics of the old philosophers. The caplivation of 
 their systems seems almost as far withdrawn from us 
 as the sonffs of their Si'rens, or the enchantments of 
 Medea. 
 
 Wliile these thin speculations have been suspended 
 in air, taking all the forms and colours of clouds or rain- 
 bows, meteors or fogs, the didactic morality of s(Jme of 
 the ani'ient philosophers, faithfully keeping to the solid 
 ground of human interests, has doubtless had a consid- 
 
 23-*
 
 270 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 erable influence on the moral sentiments of cultivated 
 men, progressively on to the present time. A certain 
 quality, derived from it into literature, has perpetuated 
 its operation indirectly on many who are not conversant 
 ",vith it immediately at its orio-in. But it may have a 
 considerable direct influence on those who are in ac- 
 quaintance with the great primary moralists themselves. 
 After a long detention among the vagaries and raon* 
 sters of mythology, or a bewildered adventure in the 
 tenebrious and fantastic region of ancient metaphysics, 
 in chase of that truth which the pursuer sometimes 
 thinks, though doubtfully, that he sees, but which still 
 eludes him, the student of antiquity is gratified at meet- 
 ing with a sage who leads him among interesting 
 realities, and discourses to him in plain and impressive 
 terras 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 
 of any vitiating effect on his moral sentiments. He 
 entirely forgets that moral excellence, or virtue, has 
 been defined and enforced by another authority ; and 
 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 important 
 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 admonished to sus- 
 pect 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
 
 TO EVvNGELr: AL RELIGION. 271 
 
 express it, moral sentiments into real beings an J inter- 
 esting companions, by displaying the life and actions 
 of eminent individuals. A few of the personages nf 
 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 4)0th the characters 
 and the sentiments, which are the favourites of the poet 
 and the historian, become the favourites also of the 
 admirinff reader ; for this would be a virtual denial of 
 the excellence of the performance, in point of eloquence 
 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 maymer 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 of our moral feelings, 
 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 cf the whole civilized world ; 
 and it is many centuries since there needed one addi- 
 
 * 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 inoral spirit of that religion. It 
 would border on the ridiculous to represent the martial enthusiasm 
 of ancient historians and poets as counteracting the peculiar doc- 
 trims of the gospel, meaning by the terra those dictates o/" truth 
 that do not directly involve moral distinctions.
 
 272 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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 towards 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 Avill 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 
 feeling's 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 to character will in- 
 evitably excite his aversion. Which of them is that 
 likely to be, if he is become thoroughly possessed with 
 the Homeric passion ? 
 
 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 wis- 
 dom, to enter into a scene of such actions and charac- 
 ters, 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 
 entirely escaped that deep deprivation of feeling which 
 can think of crimes and miseries with little emotion, 
 and which we have all acquired from viewing the pro-
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 273 
 
 minent portion of the world's history as composed of 
 scarcely any thing else. He would find the mightiest 
 strain of poetry employed to 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. 
 tie 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 ; andthat it 
 is noble in a hero to prefer even a short life attended 
 by 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 
 rendered interesting even amidst the horrors of revenge 
 and destruction, by the intensity of his affection for 
 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 in- 
 tervals his own surprise, in the fate of this fell <;xter- 
 minator ; and he wonders, and he washes to doubt, 
 whether the moral that he is learning, be, after all, ex- 
 actly 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 caU
 
 274 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 them enemies. But this, my dear friend, is the real and 
 effective moral of the Iliad, after all that critics have so 
 grave'y written about lessons of union, or any other 
 subordinate moral instructions, which they discover or 
 imaofine in the work. Who but critics ever thoug-ht or 
 cared about any such drowsy lessons 7 Whatever is 
 the chief and grand impression made by the whole work 
 on the ardent minds which are most susceptible of the 
 influence 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, Vvith an eloquent history, which simply exhibits 
 the actions and character i, I deny the assertion. The 
 actions and characters ar presented in a manner which 
 prevents their just impr- ssion, and empowers them to 
 make an opposite one. A transforming magic of genius 
 displays a number of atrocious savages in a hideous 
 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-
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 275 
 
 ifible for & Tti'iii whose mind was first completely assimi- 
 lated to thcj spirit of Jesus Christ, to read such a work 
 without 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 hear- 
 ing 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 enouijh 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 destroyed, 
 for him to receive the only true religion, and the only 
 Redeemer of the world ? To show how impossible it 
 would be, I wish I may be pardoned for making 
 another strange, and indeed a most monstrous supposi- 
 tion, 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, (except- 
 ing the mere exchange of the notions of mythology 
 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- 
 grui'.y existing, or that ever had existed, in the crea- 
 tion, what harmony can there be between a man who
 
 276 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 has acquired a considerable degree of congeniality with 
 the spirit of these heroes, and that paramount Teachel 
 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 ladies 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 in- 
 separable from the nature of man, may have been, in 
 he civilized world, reinforced by the enthusiastic ad- 
 miration 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 consequences 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 i/'this 
 spirit be totally hostile to that of Christianity, and if 
 Christianity 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 
 satisfaction, certainly, in illustrating the operation of 
 evils without proposing any adequate method of coa-
 
 TO EVANGELlCAl RELIGION. 277 
 
 tending with them. But in tne present case, I really 
 do not see what a serious observjr of the character of 
 mankind can offer. To wish that the worlds 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 sen- 
 timents mig'it be sufficiently recollected, and loved, to 
 accompany the study, and constantly pre»vent 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 irresis- 
 tibly as his Achilles vanquished. It is also most per- 
 fectly true, that as long as pride, ambition, and vindic- 
 tiveness, hold so mighty a prevalence in the character 
 and in the nature of our species, they would still am- 
 ply 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 na- 
 tions will continue to commit offences against one an- 
 other, and to avenge them ; to assume an arrogant pre- 
 cedence, and account it and laud it as noble spirit ; to 
 celebrate their deeds of destruction, and call them 
 glory ; to idolize tb e men who possess, and can infuse, 
 the grealesi 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 wiil continue thus to act, till a mightier ia* 
 
 24
 
 278 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 tervention 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 disposi- 
 tion of mind as can receive the intellectual improve- 
 ment derivable from them, and at the same time as lit- 
 tle coincide or be infected with their moral spirit, as in 
 the present age we venerate their mythological van- 
 ities. 
 
 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 
 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. Probably 
 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 indul- 
 gence. 
 
 With respect to religious parents anjl 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 dic- 
 tates, it will be an important duty to illustrate to them 
 the amiable tendency, and to prove the awful authority.
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 279 
 
 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. 
 
 Virffil's work is a kind cf lunar reflection of the ar- 
 
 O 
 
 dent effulgence of Homer ; surrounded, if I may ex- 
 tend the figure, with a beautiful halo of elegance and 
 tenderness. So much more refined an order of senti- 
 ment 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 enouo-h of the reader's feelinfjs to assimilate them 
 in moral temper. No fiction or history of human char- 
 acters and actions will ever powerfuUj^ transfuse its 
 spirit, without some one or some very kw individuals 
 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 ^neid, 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 imp'ety which would 
 throw back with violence the possession of life, as if ia 
 reproach to its great Author, for having suffered that 
 tliere shoald be unhappiness in a world where there is 
 •in.
 
 280 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTK 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 In naming Lucan, I am not unaware that an avjwa 
 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 sur- 
 pass all the other ancient poets in direct force of the 
 ethical spirit ; and that he would have a stronger influ- 
 ence to seduce my feelings, in respect to moral great- 
 ness, into a discordance from christian principles. His 
 leading characters are widely different from those oi 
 Homer, and of an eminently superior order. The 
 mighty genius of Homer appeared and departed in a 
 rude age of the human mind, a stranger to the intellec- 
 tual enlargement which would have enabled him to 
 combine in his heroes the dignity of thought, insteaa 
 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 \var, 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 vtngeance of victory. 
 Ambition as exhibited in Pompey and Csesar seems 
 almost to become a grand passion, when compared to
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 281 
 
 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 of death, 
 whicL in the heroes of the Iliad often seems like an 
 incapacity or an oblivion of thought, is in Lucan'a 
 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, (accorrling indeed to his own frequent similes,) the 
 reckless daring of wild beasts. Lucan sublimates 
 martial into moral grandeur. Even if you could de- 
 duct from his great men all that which forms the speci- 
 fic martial display of the hero, you would find their 
 greatness little diminished ; they would still retain their 
 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 abso- 
 lute impression of grandeur from a speech of Cato,* than 
 &om 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 irresisti- 
 bly interesting. He might seem to have felt a presage, 
 while musing on the last of the Romans, that their 
 root was soon to follow them. The reader becomea 
 
 24*
 
 282 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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 
 'ieling be concordant with the religion of Christ, and 
 A^ith the ?pirit 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 
 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 tht.t 
 the moral spirit of the epic poets, taken together, is as 
 little in opposition to the christian theory of moral
 
 TO EVANGEL/CAL RELIGION. 293 
 
 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 pene- 
 trating 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 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 per- 
 sons and personages brought on the scene are such as 
 we care nothing about, otherwise than merely on ac- 
 count of the circumstances in which we see them act- 
 ing or suffering. With few exceptions they come on 
 the stage, and go off, without possessing us with either 
 admiration or affection. When therefore the maxima 
 or reflections which we hear from them have an im- 
 pressive effect, it is less from any commanding 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 qualities, into a 
 willing communion with them, at times, in moral prin- 
 ciples and emotions. We aro relieved and gratified 
 after passing through so much wickedness, misfortune, 
 and inane common-place moralizing, to be greetetl
 
 284 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 with fine expressions of justice, generosity, and fidelity 
 to a worthy purpose, by persons whom we can regard 
 as hving realizations of such virtues. It is like finding 
 among barbarous nations, (as sometimes happens,) 
 some individual or two eminently and unaccountably 
 above the level of their tribe, whose intelligence and 
 virtues have, by the contrast and the surprise, a stronger 
 attraction than similar qualities meeting us in a culti- 
 vated community. But the delight sometimes kindled 
 by sentiments of magnanimous or gentle virtue, is ex- 
 ceedingly repressed, and often quenched, in the wader 
 of the Greek drama, by the incessant intrusion of a 
 hideous moral barbarism ; especially by the implica- 
 tion of the morality with an execrable mythology. 
 There is an odious interference of " the gods," some- 
 times by their dissensions with one another perplexing 
 and confounding the rules of human obligation ; oftea 
 contravening the best intentions and efforts ; depriving 
 virtue of all confidence and resource ; despising, frus- 
 trating, or punishing it ; turning its exertions and sac- 
 rifices 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 example, in 
 the Prometheus Chained, or the whole stories of CEdi- 
 pus and Orestes. On the whole I have conceded much 
 m saying, that a small portion of the morality of that 
 drama may have a place with that of the best of the 
 didactic moralists. 
 
 I shall not dwell long on the biography and history, 
 Sin;e 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
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGK^N. 285 
 
 80 necessary "t wM seem, to the consolations of a 
 christian, t^hai I have read of some learned man de- 
 claring, and without any avowed rejection of ihi 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 
 commanding in the great men of Lucan, several of 
 whom indeed are the subjects also of the biographer. 
 Various distinctions might, no doubt, be remarked in 
 the impression made by great characters as illustrated 
 in 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 enters 
 this majestic company with an impres.sion of mystical 
 awfulness, resembling that of Ezekiel in his vision 
 In this select and revered assembly we include only 
 those who were distinguished by elevated virtue, as 
 well as powerful talents and memorable actions. Un- 
 doubtedly the magnificent powers and energy without 
 moral excellence, so often displayed on the field of 
 ancient history, compel a kind of prostration of the 
 soul in the presence of men, whose surpassing achieve- 
 ments 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 seema 
 but secondary to greatness of virtue, as in the examples 
 ot Phocion, Epaminondas, Aristides, Timoleon, Dioa,
 
 286 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 Cimon, and several more, the heart applauds itself kl 
 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 
 givfc as venerable an impression of pagan greatness, aa 
 if none of its examples had been the heroes whoso 
 fierce brilliance lightens through the blackness of their 
 depravity ; or the legislators, orators, and philosophers, 
 whose wisdom was degraded by imposture, venality, or 
 vanity. 
 
 A most impressive part of the influence of ancient 
 character on modern feelings, is derived from the 
 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 
 pursuit of wisdom, and whose occasional sublime 
 glimpses of apprehension, received from beyond the 
 sphere of error in which they were enclosed and be- 
 nighted, 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 noblo 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
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 287 
 
 attentive to them both, will have verified in his own 
 experience. He has feh 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 ; and surely it is ex- 
 cellence also that attracts me 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 both 
 avow and manifest a most signal peculiarity, and with 
 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 \\iQfacts^ the 
 mere actions were the same,) of a very different nature 
 from that of the men who had not in firm faith any 
 god that they cared to please, and whose highest glory 
 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 tl»«
 
 288 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 mfiexible 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 
 }>laced 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, 
 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 or 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 
 
 * Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni. 
 
 t Should it be pretended that, in admiring pagan excellence, the 
 mind takes the mere facts' oi that excellence, separately from the 
 principles, and as far as they are identical with the facts of chris- 
 tian excellence, and then, connecting christian principles with 
 them, converts the whole ideally into a christian character before 
 it cordially admires, I appeal to experience that this is not true. 
 If it were, the mind would be able to turn with full oomplacency 
 from an affectionate admiration of an illustrious heathen, to ad- 
 mire, in the same train of feeling and with still warmer emotion, 
 the excellence of St. Paul: which is not the foot.
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 289 
 
 •dmits distinct pagan propositions, but the heart insea- 
 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 ;* 
 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 
 ^sculapius, 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 
 stale of mind is no less in effect than hostility to the 
 gospel, which these feelings are practically pronouncing 
 
 ♦ 1 hope none of these observations will be understood to 
 inssinuate the impossibility of tlie future happiness of virtuous 
 keathens. But a question on that subject would here be out of 
 
 25
 
 290 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 to be at least unnecessary ; and therefore that noblest 
 part of ancient literature which tends to produce it, is 
 inexpressibly injurious. It had been happy for many 
 cultivated and aspiring minds, if the men whose cha- 
 racters are the moral magnificence of the classical 
 history, had been such atrocious villains, that thcii 
 names could not have been recollected without ex- 
 ecration. Nothing can be more disastrous than to bo 
 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 
 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 ad 
 mire under a discriminative restriction, else the emotion 
 involves a desertion of his cause. He must learn to as- 
 sign these men in thought to another sphere, and to 
 regard them as beings under a different economy with 
 which our relations are dissolved ; as wonderful exam- 
 ples of a certain imperfect kind of moral greatness, 
 formed on a model foreign to true religion, and which 
 is crumbled to dust and given to the winds. — At the 
 same time, he may well, while beholding some of these 
 men, deplore that if so much excellence could be form- 
 ed on such a model, the sacred system which ^ves the 
 acKnowledged exemplar for his own character should 
 not have far more assimilated him to heaven. — So much 
 for the eflect of the most nte resting part of aaziav 
 literature
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 291 
 
 In the next letter I shall make some observation;* on 
 modern polite literature, in application of the same rule 
 of judgment. Many of .hem must unavoidably be 
 very analogous to those already made ; since tne 
 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 ex- 
 erted a much more extensive influence in modern 
 times by means of the modern writers to whom they 
 have communicated their moral spirit, than immediate 
 ly by their own works. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 To a man Avho had long observed the influences 
 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 hterature, 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 in- 
 juries 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 bour.dary that 
 guarded the sanctity of Mount Sinai. It might have 
 been presumed, that all principles which the new dis-
 
 292 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 pensation rendered obsolete, or declared or implied ta 
 be wrong, should no more be regarded as belonging to 
 ihe 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 t« the senses; and as ab 
 surd 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 actually substituted, abol- 
 ished, or supplied, would therefore be practically re- 
 garded 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 arti- 
 cle, 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 surpassing moment.* 
 
 • 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 remain- 
 ed possible to be done in service to Christianity, that his accom- 
 plished mind was left at leisure for hymns to the Hu.doo gods 1
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 293 
 
 But the grea nimiber who chose to wiite on sub- 
 jects that come within the relations of tlie christinn 
 system, as on the various views of morals, the dibtmc- 
 tions and judgments of human character, and the the- 
 ory of happiness, with almost unavoidable references 
 sometimes to our connexion with D.eity, to death, and 
 to a future state, ought to have written every page un- 
 der the recollection, 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 im- 
 piety, if essentially discordant with the dictates of th3 
 New Testament. Had this been a habitual and in 
 fiuential 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 in 
 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 rea- 
 son, that the extended prevalence of the happy light of 
 
 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 ot poetry, and so 
 on; but should not a worshipper of God hold himself under a 
 Bolemn 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 1 What would Elijah have said to such an 
 employment of talents in his time 1 It would have availed little 
 to have told him that these divinities were only peisonifications 
 (with their appropriate representative idols) of ol)ji'cts in nature, 
 of eleraenU, or of abstractions. He would have sternly replied, 
 And was not Baal, whose prophets I destroyed, the same] 
 
 25*
 
 294 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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 coun- 
 tries, whose belief in Christianity was no more than a 
 deference to the authority of the church, and whose oc- 
 casional allusions or testimonies to it would 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 Christian- 
 ity thrown occasionally on their pages of moral senti- 
 ment. 
 
 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 accor- 
 dant, 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 formerly 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 that 
 school of thinking and taste, in which the generality 
 of cultivated men have acquired the moral habitude ot 
 .heir minds. That schdo' is composed of poets, mora
 
 ro EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 295 
 
 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 accountableuess of the 
 authors, and the final effect on their pupils. I main- 
 tain 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 for 
 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, maintajjjed 
 through the works of our ingenious authors to avoid 
 formally treating on any topics of an expressly evan- 
 gelical kir. \ as to the absence of that christian tinge 
 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 
 it 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, interfused 
 through the various forms and combinations of the 
 
 ro
 
 296 ON THE avi:rsion of men of taste 
 
 elements, contributes essentially to constitute that con 
 dition by which they are adapted to their importani 
 uses, which condition and adaptation therefore they 
 would lose if that principle were no longer inherent 
 
 And this claim for the extensive interference of the 
 christian principles, made as a requirement frori au- 
 thority, appears to be just in virtue of their own nature. 
 For they are not of a nature which necessarily restricts 
 them to a peculiar department, like the principles ap- 
 propriate t ") some of the sciences. We should at once 
 perceive tl e absurdity of a man who should be pre- 
 tending to adjust all his ideas on general subjects ac- 
 cording to the rules of geometry, and should maintain 
 (if any man could do so preposterous a thing) that geo- 
 metrical laws ought to be taken as the basis of our rea- 
 sonyjig' on politics and morals. Or, if this be too ex- 
 treme 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 sub- 
 jects therefore is not an arbitrary and forced applica- 
 tion of them ; it is merely permitting their cognizance 
 and interfusion in whatever has some quality of a com- 
 mon nature with them. It must be evident in a mo- 
 ment that the most general doctrines of Christianity, 
 such as those of a fu.ure judgm.ent, and immortality, 
 have a direct relation with erery thing that can be
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 297 
 
 comprehended within the widest range of moral specu 
 lation and sentiment. It will also be found that the 
 more particular doctrines such as those of the moraj 
 pravity of our nature, an atonement made by the sac 
 rifice of Christ, the interference of a special divine in 
 fluence in renewing the human mind, and conducting 
 it through the discipline for a future state, togethei 
 with all the inferences, condhions, and motives result- 
 ing from them, cannot be admitted and religiously re- 
 garded, without combining in numberless instances 
 with a man's ideas on moral subjects. That writer 
 must therefore have retired beyond the limits of an im- 
 mense field of important and most interesting specula- 
 tions, indeed beyond the limits of all the speculation 
 most important to man, who can say that nothing ia 
 the religion of Christ bears, in any manner, on any 
 part of his subject, any more than if he were a philoso- 
 pher 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 char- 
 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 ex- 
 press 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 
 .hose principles would effect this modification, it ought 
 to be effected ; so that the very last idea within th« 
 compass of speculation which would have a differoni
 
 298 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 cast as a ray of the gospel falls, or does not fall, upon 
 it, should be faithfully presented in that light. The 
 ch'istian 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 gospel 
 can go, and does by such relation with things claim to 
 go, with a modifying action, it cannot be a -matter of 
 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 
 condition, must therefore, separately from it, be incor- 
 rect. He who has sent a revelation to declare the the- 
 ory of sacred truth, and to order the relations of all 
 moral sentiment with that truth, cannot give his sanc- 
 tion 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 sen- 
 timents 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 ele- 
 gant literature, as far as I am acquainted with it, I can- 
 not help thinking that much the greater part falls under 
 this condemnation. After a comparatively small num 
 ber 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 at- 
 tained that rank, present an immense vacancy of chris- 
 tianized sentiment. The authors do net give signs of 
 having ever deeoly studied Christianity, or of having
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 299 
 
 boen aware that any such thing is a duty. Whatever 
 has strongly occupied a man's attention, LfTtxted his 
 feelings, and filled his mind with ideas, will even un- 
 intentionally 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 
 oy the special views unfolded in the evangelic dispen- 
 sation. Of their coming from the contemplation of 
 these views you discover no notices analogous, for in 
 stance, to those which appear in the writing or dis- 
 course of a man, who has been passing some time 
 amidst the wonders of Rome or Egypt, and who shows 
 you, by almost unconscious allusions and images oc- 
 curring in his language even on other subjects, how 
 profoundly he has been interested in beholding tri- 
 umphal 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 ob- 
 jects. They are somewhat like •the inhabitants of those 
 towns within the vast salt mines of Poland, who, see- 
 ing 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 
 
 ♦ Except perhaps in respect to humanity and benevolence, on 
 which subject his instructions have improved the sentiments of 
 infidels themselves, in spite of the rejection of their divine author* 
 ity.
 
 300 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 arguments. And where so little of the light and reo 
 tifying influence of these communications has been ad« 
 mitted into the habits of 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 Afriea, or 
 Arabia, comes to a spot of green vegetation in the desert. 
 You might have read a considerable number of vol- 
 umes, without becoming clearly apprised of the exist- 
 ence of the dispensation, or that such a sublime Min- 
 ister of it had ever appeared among rhen. 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 al- 
 luding 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 lelt us. as the others have left us, to fol- 
 low 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, 
 producing their philosophers, of various degrees and 
 modes of illumination, for the honour cif their respec- 
 tive countries and periods, and for the concurrent pro- 
 motion of human intelligence. All the information 
 which they would have supplied to your understanding, 
 and all the conjectures to which they might have ex- 
 cited your curiosity, would h.ive left you, if not instruct-
 
 TO EVANGELICAX RELIGION. 301 
 
 ed from other sources, to meet the real religion itselfj 
 when at length disclosed to ycu, as a thing of which 
 you had but slight recognition, further than its name ; 
 as a wonderful 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, is the actual and sole economy by the pro- 
 visions 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 therefore of 
 infinite consequence to you, and to them, and to all 
 their readers, as fixing the entire theory of the condi- 
 tion and destinies of man on the final principles, to 
 which all theories and sentiments are solemnly required 
 to be " brought into obedience." 
 
 Now, if the fine spirits, who have thus preset ved 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 natuial 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 
 ligl«ts of sublimity and beauty, with every fiscination 
 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 intellec- 
 tual order, that we feel, as inhabitants of the material 
 world, in the great arrangement of nature, iri the green 
 blooming eiith, and ihe splendid hemisphere of heaveo 
 
 26
 
 , 802 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 LETTER Vni. 
 
 It will be proper to specify, somewhat more dia» 
 linctly, several of the particulars in which 1 considet 
 the majority of our fine writers as at variance with 
 the tenour of the christian revelation, and therefore 
 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 per- 
 ished ages since ; and it might have been a fine spec- 
 tacle, but of no striking peculiarity. It has no such 
 complexion and aspect as would have appeared foreign 
 and unaccountable 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 con- 
 formation 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 as Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Anto- 
 ninus, and Seneca, selecting what in any of them ap- 
 peared 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 character of his school, under tha 
 broad impression of some other mightier influence ?" 
 
 The good man of our polite literature never talka 
 With affectionate devotion of Christ, as the great High 
 Priest of his prolession, as the exalted friend and lord,
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 303 
 
 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 ex- 
 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 
 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 utmost 
 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 rela- 
 tions 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 re- 
 gions. Would not that determination of the apostle's 
 mind, by which there was a continual intervention of 
 ideas concerning 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 hxve listened to the emphatical expressions 
 respecting the love of Christ constraining us, living not 
 to ourselves, but to him that died for us and rose again, 
 counting all things but loss for the knowledge of 
 Christ, being ardent to win Christ and be found in 
 bim, and trusting that Christ should be magnified in
 
 304 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 our body, whether by life or by death ? Perr.ap i 
 Paul's energy of temperamen,, evidently comb ie». 
 with a vigorous intellect, might have awed him jnta 
 silence. But amidst that silence, he must have decided, 
 in order to defend his self-complacency, that the apos- 
 tle's mind had fallen, notwithstanding its strength, un- 
 der the dominion of an 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 indubi- 
 tably 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 feelings was not 
 necessary to that character. But if the apostle's sa- 
 gacity had detected the cause of this reserve, and the 
 nature of his associate's reflections, he would most cer- 
 tainly have declared to him with emphasis that both 
 these things were necessary — or that he had been de- 
 ceived by inspiration ; and he would have parted from 
 this self-complacent man with admonition and compas- 
 sion. 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 essentially 
 unsound ? 
 
 Again, moral writings are instructions on the sub- 
 ject of happiness. Now the doctrine of this subject is 
 declared in the evangelical testimony : it had been 
 «itrange 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 j
 
 TO EVANGELICAZ. RELIGION. 305 
 
 witl.out 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 assu- 
 rance of the pardon of sin through Jesus Christ, a 
 habit of devotion approaching so near to intercourse 
 with the Supreme Object of devotion that revelation 
 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 ? Is 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 
 SQ 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 
 
 26*
 
 306 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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, 
 as to be 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 na- 
 ture in the exercise of benevolence, 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 expres- 
 sions of a specific hope, or even solicitude, with regard 
 to the termination of life and to all futurity. Now, 
 notwithstanding a partial coincidence of this description 
 with the christian theory of happiness,* it is evident 
 
 * No one can be so absurd as to represent the notions which 
 porvade the works of polite literature ai totally, and at all points^
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 307 
 
 Jiat on the whole the two modes are so difftrent that 
 no man can realize them both. The consequence is 
 clear ; the natural effect of incompetent and fallacioua 
 schemes, prepossessing the mind by every grace and 
 force of genius, will be an aversion to the christian 
 scheme ; which will be seen to place happintss 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 chris- 
 tian revelation, that having declared this life to be but 
 the introduction to another, it systematically preserves 
 the recollection of this great truth through every rep- 
 resentation 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, imme- 
 diately near, should glance every moment toward some 
 great spectacle appearing on the distant horizon. He 
 seems to talk to his friends in somewhat of that man- 
 ner of expression with which you can imagine that 
 Elijah spoke, if he remarked to his companion any 
 circumstance in the journey from Bethel to Jericho, 
 and from Jericho to the Jordan ; a manner betraymg 
 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 
 
 opposite to the principles of Christianity; what I am asserting is, 
 that in some imijorlant points they arc substAntially and essentially 
 different, and that in others they disown the christian modification.
 
 308 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 present and familiarized 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 specula- 
 tions ; and that it should mingle a certain noblenes? 
 with every thing which it permitted to occupy oui 
 time. Now, how far will the discipline of modern po- 
 lite literature coincide ? 
 
 I should be p-leased to hear a student of that litera- 
 ture seriously profess that he is often and impressively 
 reminded 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 effect 
 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- 
 ingl}'- 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. Ill these instances, however, it is seldom 
 found that the idea is presented in that light which, 
 while displaying it prominent in its individual gran- 
 deur, 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 
 m a solitary scene, no longer surrounded by the great 
 assemblage of buildings, the ample city, of which it 
 was raised to be the centre, the strength, and the orna- 
 ment. Immortality has been had recourse to in one 
 page of an ingenious work as a single topic of sublim- 
 ity, in the same manner as a magnificent phenomenoa, 
 or a brilliant achievement, has been described in an-
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGAJN. 309 
 
 Other. The author's object might rather seem to have 
 been to supply an occasional gratificaiioii. to taste, than 
 to reduce the mind and all its feelings under the do 
 minion of a grand practical principle. 
 
 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 systemat- 
 ically on morals, have inculcated high moral principles, 
 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 pusil- 
 lanimous anxiety not to offend those readers who would 
 think it too directly religious. It is sometimes ad- 
 verted to as if rather from a compelling sense, that if 
 there is a future slate, moral speculation must be de-, 
 fective, even to a degree of absurdity, without some 
 allusions to it, than from feeling a profound 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 ap- 
 pear like a somewhat reluctant acknowledgment 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 doc- 
 trines which he taught in immediate connexion with 
 this great truth. There aeems reason to suspect the
 
 310 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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 in the con- 
 jectures and speculation of the heathen sages, that he 
 may mention it without therefore so expressly recog- 
 nising the gospel, as he must in the case of introducing 
 some truth of which not only the evidence, but even 
 the first explicit conception, was communicated 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 portion 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 livipg 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 to 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- 
 viduals bear to one another, i.« mainly the ground on 
 which their considerations of duty proceed and con- 
 clude. 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 they will properly but begin to live. They 
 endeavour to raise the groves of an earthly pa-adise, to
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 311 
 
 shade from sight that vista which opens to the distance 
 of eternity. 
 
 Another article in which the anti-christian tendency 
 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 portion of the lot of humanity, 
 that it is impossible for writers who take human life and 
 feelings for their subject to a^^oid, (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 
 instructions with the religion of Christ ; since consola- 
 tion 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 but to mock it, and 
 deceptive 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 
 inestimable promi.ses 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 mischiev- 
 ous, if it were not inefficacious. What are the princi- 
 pal sources of consolation to the pioiis, is immediately 
 apparent. 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 regarda 
 their weakness and pains, and will not let them suffer
 
 312 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 beyond what they shall be able to bear ; that their 
 great Leader has suffered for them more than they can 
 suffer, and compassionately sympathizes wii'h them still j 
 that this short life was far less designed to confer a 
 present happiness, than to mature them to a fitness for 
 bein? happy for ever ; and that patient constancy shall 
 receive a resplendent crown. An aged christian is 
 sooihed 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 sacri- 
 fice 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 verv 
 confine of paradise, the immediate access to the region 
 of eternal life. 
 
 Now, in the greater number of the works under re- 
 view, 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 un- 
 happy now, he has been happy, and he could not ex- 
 pect 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 pos- 
 sible, to be any person else? — The sympathy of each 
 icmd relation and friend will not be wanting. Hit
 
 TO EVA VibLItoAL RELIGION. 313 
 
 condition may probably change for the better ; there is 
 hope in every situation ; and meanwhile, it is an oppor- 
 tunity for displaying manly fortitude. *A strong mind 
 can proudly triumph over the oppression of pam, the 
 vexations of disappointment, and the tyranny of for- 
 tune. If the cause of distress is some irreparable depri- 
 vation, it will be softened by the lenient hand of time.* 
 
 The lingering months of an aged man are soothed 
 almost, it is pretended, into cheerfulness, by the re- 
 spectful attention of his neighbours ; by the worldly 
 prosperity and dutiful regard of the family he has 
 brought up ; by the innocent gaiety and amusing activ- 
 ity of their children ; and by the consideration of his 
 fair character in society. If he is a man of thought, 
 he has the added advar'age of some philosophical con- 
 siderations ; 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 act/ul his. part, and may retire with 
 applause. 
 
 As to the means sustaining the spirit in death, the 
 general voice of these authors asserts the chief and only 
 all-sufficient one to be the recollection of a well-spent 
 life Some minor repellents of fear are added ; as for 
 instance, that death is in fact a far less tremendous 
 hing than that dire form of it by which "magination 
 
 ♦ Can it be necessary to notice here again, that every system of 
 moral sentiments must inevital.ly 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 rankl But the enumeration taken altogether, and 
 exclusively of the grand christian principles, forms a scheme of 
 consolation essentially different from that so beneficently displayed 
 «a the religion of Christ. 
 
 27
 
 314 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTK 
 
 and superstition are haunted ; that the sufTerings in 
 death are less than men often endure in the course of 
 life ; that it is on!y 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 con: 
 modious vehicle and habitation. It would seem almost 
 unavoidable to glance a thought toward what revela- 
 tion 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 evil' of the present life ; the necesisity 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 world, 
 
 * I am very far from disliking philosophical speculation, or da- 
 ring flights of fancy, on this high subject. On the contrary, it ap- 
 pears to me strange that any one firmly holding the belief of a life to 
 come, should not have both the intellectual fxculty and the imagina • 
 tion excited to the utmost effort in the trial, however unavailing 
 to (rive some outlines of definite form to the unseen realities. What 
 I mean to censure ir. the mode of referring to another life, is, the 
 care to avoid any direct resemblance or recognition of the ideas 
 which the Nevp Testament has given to guide, in some s'aaH, veij 
 ■mall degree, our conjecturee.
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION 315 
 
 than to conduct him to the celestial felicity. Let ua 
 but see him embarked on his unknovn voyage in fair 
 weather, and we are not accountable for what he maj 
 meet, or whither he may be carried, when he is gon* 
 out of sight. They seldom present a lively view of the 
 distant happiness, especially in any of those images in 
 which the christian revelation has intimated its nature. 
 In which of these books, and by which of the real or 
 fictitious characters whose last hours and thoughts they 
 sometimes 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 ab- 
 sent from the body, and present with the Lord 1" The 
 very existence of that sacred testimony which has given 
 the only genuine consolations in de^th, and the only 
 just conceptions of what is beyond it, seems to be scarce- 
 ly recollected ; while the ingenious moralists are search- 
 ing the exhausted common places of the stoic philosophy, 
 or citing the treacherous maxims of a religion pervert- 
 ed 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 concerninrr 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 solen.n reflections 
 when no danger or calamity immediately threatened, 
 but often in the conscious approach towards a fatal ca- 
 tastrophe. Many writers of later times have exerted 
 their whole strength, and have even excelled themselves 
 in representing the high sentiments in which this de-
 
 316 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN .F TASTE 
 
 sire has displayed itself; genius has found its very 
 gold mine in this field. Tf 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 ge- 
 nius, aiding to inspire a christian triumph in the pros- 
 pect of death, might be revered as a prophet, might be 
 almost loved as a benignant angel. Few men's emo- 
 tions 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 en- 
 chantments 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 enthu- 
 siast is elated with such an emotion, nothing may ap- 
 pear 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 lib- 
 erty.* 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 bj 
 which they illuminated the gloom of death. The 
 reader has loved to surround himself in imaginatior* 
 with that gloom, for the sake of irradiating it with that 
 sublimity. All other greatness has been for a while 
 eclipsed by the greatness of thought displayed by these 
 
 * PDctry will not easily exceed many of the expressions which 
 Oiere history has recorded. I should little admire the capability of 
 feeling, or greatly admire the christian temper, of the man who 
 could without emotion reac , for instance, the short observations of 
 Brutus to his friend, (in contemplation even of a self-iiiflicted 
 death,) on the eve of the k ttle which extinguished all hope of free- 
 dom : " We shall either be victorious, or pass away beyond the 
 power of those that are so. We shall deUver our country by vio« 
 lory, or ourselves by death."
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 317 
 
 contemplative and magnanimoas spirits, though uii* 
 taught 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 dyinf 
 can be the only right and noble one, and to conside 
 whether these examples be not exceedingly different. 
 Have not the most enlightened and devout christians, 
 whether they have languished in their chambers, o 
 passed through the fire of martyrdom, manifested the 
 elevation of mind in another strain of eloquence ? Tl. 
 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 
 of meeting the Judge, with which a christian contem- 
 plates his approaching end. Their expressions of in- 
 trepidity and exultation have no analogy with the lan- 
 guage of an incomparable saint and hero, " O death, 
 where is thy sting ? O grave, where 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 ot 
 being, as monarchs would talk of a distant part of their 
 empire which they were going to enter ; the proud 
 apostrophes to the immortals, to prepare for the great 
 and rival spirit that is coming ; their manner of con* 
 sio-ninsf to its fate a ffood but fallintr cause, which will 
 sink when they are gone, there not being virtue 
 enough on earth to support, or in heaven to vindi- 
 cate it ; their welcoming the approach of death in an 
 e.Kultation of lofty and bitter scorn of a hated world and 
 a despicable race — are not the humility, nor the benev 
 olence, nor the reverential 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 
 ihese high spirits in being weary of ;\ world of dust 
 
 27*
 
 318 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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 commitment of himself to the divine 
 mercy, which they forget, or were never instructed, to 
 implore. And as to the vision of the other world, you 
 will observe a great difTerence between the language of 
 sublime poetry and that of revelation, in respect to the 
 nature of the sentiments and triumphs of that world, and 
 iStill more perhaps in respect to the associates with 
 whom the departing spirit expects soon to mingle. 
 The dyingmagnanimity of poetry anticipates high con- 
 verse with the souls of heroes, and patriots, and per- 
 haps philosophers ; a christian feels himself going, (1 
 may accommodate 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 exhibit in the 
 contemplation of death, or in the approach to it, were 
 necessarily, from the age or country in which they 
 lived or are feigned to have lived, unacquainted with 
 Christianity ; and that therefore it would have been ab- 
 surd to represent them as animated by christian senti- 
 ments. Certainly. But then I ask, on what ground 
 men of genius will justify themselves for choosing ^\v\{\\ 
 a view to the improvement of the heart, as they will 
 profess, examples of which they cannot preserve the 
 consistency, without making them pernicious? Where 
 is the conscience of that man, who is anxiously careful 
 that every sentiment expressed by the historical or fie 
 titious personage, in the fatal season, f^hould be harmo- 
 nious with every principle of the character, — but feels
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 319 
 
 not the smallest concern about the consistency of select- 
 ing 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 de 
 part in a splendour of moral dignity. Would it no 
 therefore be a dictate of conscience to warn his readeis 
 that he expects to display the exit with a commanding 
 sublimity, of which the natural effect is to be, a com- 
 placency, 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 ? Miglii 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 
 can you endeavour to infect your reader with senti- 
 ments 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 in- 
 troduce 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 fru.strated in the great 
 object and demand of fixing its own ideas of death, 
 clearly and alone, in the minds of beings whos6 man- 
 ner 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 greatness in death. 
 Are not then the preference of examples adverse to 
 Christianity, and that temper of the poet's mind which 
 8 in such full sympathy with them, empowering him
 
 320 ON THF AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 to personate theri with such entireness and animation, 
 and to express for them all the appropriate feelings, a 
 worse kind of infidelity, as it is far more injurious, than 
 that of the cold d^ahr in cavils and quibbles against 
 the gospel ? What h the christian belief of that poet 
 worth, who would not on reflection feel self-reproach 
 for the affecting scenft, which may for awhile have be- 
 trayed some of his readers to regard it as a more dig 
 nified thing to depart in the character of Socrates o^ 
 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 whict 
 he believed to be of conclusive authority, and which 
 asserted or clearly implied that this alone was great- 
 ness in death, should have taken the first occasion tr 
 expatiate with enthusiasm on the closing scene of r 
 philosopher, or on the exit of a rtern hero, that, ac- 
 knowledging within the visible ci3atiop no object for 
 either confidence or fear, departed with the aspect of ?■ 
 being who should be going to summon his gods tr> 
 judgment for the misfortunes of his liff; ? And how 
 will these careless men of genius give thijir account t(? 
 the Judge of the world, for having virtually taugh* 
 many aspiring minds thaj, notwithstanding his first 
 coming was to conquer for man the king of terrors 
 there needs no recollection of him in order to look to 
 ward death with noble defiance or sublime desire ? 
 
 Some of their dying personages are so consciously 
 uninformed of the realities of the invisible state, thai 
 *he majestic sentiments which they disclose on thA 
 verge of life, can only throw a faint glimmering on 
 unfathomable darkness ; but some anticipate the othej 
 world, as I have already observed, in very defined im- 
 ages I recollect one of them, after some just reflections
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 321 
 
 en the vanity and wretchedness of life, thus expressing 
 hia complacency in view of the great deliverer: 
 
 " Death joins us to the great majority ; 
 'Tis to ub born to Platos and to CiEsars ; 
 'Tis to be great for ever. 
 'Tis pleasure, 'tis ambition then, to die." 
 
 A lother, 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 I 
 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 joined 
 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 clioose 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 1 
 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 1 
 
 Oh to be there!''* 
 
 You will recollect to have read many equally iro 
 
 * This is not perhaps on<! of the best specimens : it is the last 
 that has come under my notic e. I am certain of having read manj, 
 bat have not recollection enough to know where to find them.
 
 322 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTi 
 
 proper to engage a christian's full sympathy, and there* 
 fore, 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 im- 
 plicated with those general sentiments of anticipation, 
 those emotions aspiring to greatness and felicity in in- 
 definite terms, which a dying christian may energeti- 
 cally express ; so that through the animated sympa- 
 thy with the general, and as it were elementary sen- 
 timents, the reader's mind is beguiled into complacency 
 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 horror 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 prospect 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- 
 f'-'Aness to the religion which condemns such magna- 
 liimity as madness. It is no justificaticn to say that 
 such instances have been known, and therefore such 
 reprea^ntations are only vividly reflected images of real
 
 TO EVANGELICAL UELIGION. S23 
 
 ity ; for if the laws of criticism do not enjoin, in works 
 of genius, a careful adaptation of all examples and sen- 
 timents 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 verisimili- 
 tude, content themselves with the office of mere histori- 
 ans, 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, ia 
 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 
 last day of life, by a class of ideas which that eloquent 
 writer would have been ashamed to introduce
 
 3'<i4 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTK 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 Does it not appear to you, ray deai 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 ruk 
 of judgment. And this is pronounced not only of vi 
 cious individuals, who are readily given up to condem- 
 nation by those who entertain the most partial or the 
 proudest estimate of human n-^i.ture, but of the constitu- 
 tional quality of that nature itself The moral part of 
 the constitution of man is represented as placing him 
 immensely below that rank of dignity and happiness 
 to which, by his intellectual powers, and his privilege 
 of 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 immeasurable depth, into depravation and misery. 
 In this state man is represented as loving, and there- 
 fore practically choosing, the evils which subject him 
 to the condemnation 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 condemnation with its formidable con- 
 Bequences. 
 
 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 evilj will
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIO. jON. 325 
 
 fail. But even if a new revelation were given to turn 
 this dark inquiry into noonday, it would make no dif 
 ference in the actual state of things. An extension of 
 knowledge could not reverse the fact, that the human 
 nature has displayed, through every age, the most 
 aggravated proofs of being in a deplorable and hateful 
 condition, whatever were the reasons forgiving amoral 
 agent a constitution which it was foreseen would soon 
 be found in this condition. Perhaps, if there were a 
 mind expanded to a comprehension so far beyond all 
 other created intelligences, that it could survey the gen- 
 eral 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 econo 
 my of interests, and stands in its own relation and ac 
 countableness to the righteous Governor ; and that 
 regarded in this exclusive view, it is an awful spccta 
 cle. Now, to this exclusive sphere of our own condi 
 tion 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 tlian Nineveh or Babylon in ruins; 
 and an infinite ao-o-rccfate of obvious facts comfirins the 
 doctrine This doctrine then is absolute authority in 
 
 28
 
 326 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 our speculations on human nature. But to this au- 
 thority the writers in question seem to pay, and to 
 teach their readers to pay, but little respect. And un- 
 less those readers are pre-occupied by the grave con- 
 victions 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 cen- 
 sure the follies and vices of mankind ; but many of 
 these, they maintain, are accidental to the human 
 character, rather than a disclosure of intrinsic quali- 
 ties. Others do indeed spring radically from the na- 
 ture ; 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 Crea- 
 tor. The measure of virtue in the world vastly ex- 
 ;eeds that of depravity ; we should not indulge a fa- 
 aatical rigour in our judgments of mankind ; nor be 
 ilways reverting to an ideal perfection ; nor accustom 
 ourselves to contemplate the Almighty always in the 
 dark majesty of justice.— None of their speculations 
 %eem. 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 of Jesus Christ (if any 
 allusion to it should occur,) can but appear with equivo- 
 cal import, and " shorn of the beams" which constitute 
 the peculiar light of his own revelation. While man
 
 TO EVANGELICAL F.ELIGIOX 327 
 
 js not considered as lost, the mind cannot ao justxe 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 lecol- 
 lected as the most illustrious instance of the beneficence 
 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 in 
 which our world is enveloped. No thankful joy seems 
 .0 awake at the thought of so mighty an interposition, 
 md of him whose sublime appointment it was to under- 
 take 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 with- 
 out which all the rest were in vain ; rather as having 
 made the passage to a happy futuritj' 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 inconsiderable favour, which a less glori- 
 ous messenger might have brought, which a less mag- 
 nificent language than that dictated by inspiration 
 n'.ight have described, and which a less costly sacrifice 
 Dfiight have secured. 
 
 It is consistent with this delusive idea of humaa
 
 S28 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN 1>F TASTE 
 
 nature, and these crude, and faint, and narro^v con- 
 ceptions of the christian economy, that these writers 
 commonly represent felicity hereafter as the pure re- 
 ward 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 sometimes 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 ac- 
 tion which are sanctioned and inspirited by many of 
 these authors : I will only notice one, the love of glo- 
 ry ; 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 
 observtJi'.ion, 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 heaveUj 
 while he would be equally gratified that any othe' 
 man, in whose hands this mean would have e.vactly
 
 TO EVANGELICAL REI FGION. 329 
 
 the same cfTect, should obtain the admiration instead of 
 himself, this would be something eminently more than 
 innocent ; it would be the apotheosis of a passion 
 which in its ordinary quality deserves no better denom- 
 ination than vanity. But where is the example 1 
 
 In the third place, as the Creator has included thia 
 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 
 whoJe continent applauding or admiring has not satis- 
 fied some 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 in- 
 troduce its evil accessories, envy, or ungenerous compe- 
 tition, or resentful mortification, or disdainful compari- 
 son, 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 consid 
 erably 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 altogether. In wishing to prohibit an 
 txcess of its indulgence, he has perceived that even 
 
 28*
 
 330 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 what had seemed to him a small degree has amounteii, 
 or powerfully tended, to that excess — except when the 
 desire has been operating under the kindly and ap- 
 proved 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 de- 
 sire of human applause, indulged in only such a de- 
 gree as he had not, for a while, suspected of being im- 
 moderate, 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 pui ■ 
 suit or performance in which he has excelled, or en- 
 deavoured 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 de- 
 sire of human applause, if it could be a calm, closely 
 limited, and subordinate feeling, would be consistent 
 with christian virtue ; yet, since it so mightily tends to 
 an excess, destructive of the very essence of that virtue.
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELGION. 331 
 
 It ougnt, (excepting- in the cases where human estima- 
 tion is sought as a mean toward some valuable end,) 
 to be opposed and repressed in a manner not much 
 LESS general and uaconditional 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 contrary, 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 
 emphatically cogent representations, both of its per- 
 nicious influence when it predominates, and of its pow- 
 erful tendency to acquire the predominance. The hon- 
 est disciple of that divine school, being at the same time 
 a self-observer, will be convinced that the degree be- 
 yond which the passion is not tolerated by the chris- 
 tian law, is a degree which it will be sure to reach and 
 to exceed in his mind in spite of the most systematical 
 opposition. The most resolute and persevering repres- 
 sion will still leave so much of this passion as Christi- 
 anity will pronounce 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 
 preceding representation be just, places them in point- 
 ed hostility to the christian religion. Sometimes, in- 
 deed, when it was the planetary hour for high phi-
 
 832 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 losophy, or when they were in a splenetic mood, 
 occasioned perhaps by some chagrin of disappointed 
 vanity, they have acknowledged, and even very rhe- 
 torically 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 denomiuates 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 la- 
 boured 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 worthi- 
 est reward ; by placing the temple of virtue (proud sta- 
 tion of the goddess) in the situation to be a mere intro- 
 duction to that of Fame ; by lamenting that so few, 
 and their 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 deeds calculated and 
 designed to pitch them aloft in gazing admiration. If 
 sometimes the ungracious recollection strikes them, and 
 seems likely to strike their readers, that this admiration 
 is provokingly capricious and perverse, since men have 
 gained it vvithout rightful claims, and lost it without de- 
 merit, 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 ignorant multitude, and seek applause by none but 
 worthy actions, and from none hut worthy judges. Al- 
 most every one of these writers will sometimes, perhaps, 
 advert to the approbation of the Supreme ^eing, as
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 333 
 
 •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 animadver- 
 sion on our popular fine writers, there can be no ques- 
 tion whether they be likely to animate their readera 
 with christian motives of action. 
 
 I will 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 ridicu- 
 ling 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 tho 
 smallest care to preserve a clear separation between 
 what 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 gone 
 into the fire, instead of coming into their hands. Many 
 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.
 
 334 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OP TASTE 
 
 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 refer- 
 ences than the continual repetition of the expressions, 
 " elegant literature," and " these writers." It mio-ht 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 centurv 
 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 particulat 
 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 anx- 
 ious to avoid everything 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, 
 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 
 
 » When it happens sometimes, that a moral topic hardly can be 
 disposed of without some recognition of its involving, or being in- 
 
 imately connected with, a theological doctrine, it is curious to no- 
 tice, with what an air of indilTerence, somewhat partaking of con- 
 
 empt, one of these writers will observe, that that view of the mat- 
 ter is the business of the divines, with whose department he dots 
 not pretend to interfere.
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 335 
 
 Testament has so luminously foreshown, brings evi- 
 dently the greatest of sanctions. To make nc reference 
 in the course of inculcating moral principles, to a judg- 
 ment to come, if there be an understood admission that 
 it is actually revealed, would look like systematic ir- 
 religion. But still it is striking to observe how small 
 a portion of the ideas, (relative to this and other points 
 cf the greatest moral interest.) which distinguish the 
 New Testament from other books, many moral philoso- 
 phers have thought indispensable to a theory in which 
 they professed to include the sum of the duty and inter- 
 ests 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 in- 
 terest 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 con- 
 siderations of the divine mercy, the compassion of the 
 Redeemer, the assurance of aid from heaven in the diffi- 
 cult strife to be what the best principles prescribe, the re- 
 lationship 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 mor- 
 als, as placed in the temperature of such considera- 
 tions, has the character and effect of a different zone. 
 Thus, while any given virtue, equally proscribed in the 
 treatise of the moral philosopher 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 '\i another diflTerence also of momentous conso-
 
 ^36 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 queiice, if it be found that the christian doctrine d« 
 dares the vir.ues of a good mar. nut to be the cause of 
 his acceptance with. God, and that the philosophic mor- 
 aliits 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 acknowledgment of the religion of Christ, and 
 tak?3 so little of its peculiar character. The philoso- 
 phers 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 ; 
 bvt 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 pres- 
 ence of the evangelical system and in its absence. In- 
 depently of that system, it were easy to illustrate the 
 utility of virtue, the dignity which it confers on a ra- 
 tional 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 sys- 
 tem. And if it should be asked, Why may not some 
 writers employ their speculations on those parts and 
 "•ews of moral truth which are thus independent of the 
 gospel, leaving it to other men to christianize the whole 
 by the addition of the evangelical relations, motives, 
 and conditions? — I readily answer, that this may sonrie- 
 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
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 337 
 
 in its effect on the prosperity of states, of smaller commu- 
 nities, 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 tha» 
 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 considera- 
 tions, of the highest importance, recognising, in all our 
 obHgations 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 limit- 
 ed scope, but assuming the office of morahst in its most 
 comprehensive character, and making themselves re- 
 sponsible 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 kmd. 
 But may not many others, who would have repelled 
 
 ne imputation of being enemies to the christian cause, 
 •>e arraigned of having forgotten what was due from 
 
 jS friends? The historian intends his work to ha^o 
 the effect of a series of moral estimates of the persons 
 whose actions he records ; now, if he believes that a 
 Judge of the world will, come at length, and pronounce 
 on the very 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 coincideo/ 
 
 20
 
 338 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF "^ASTE 
 
 with the judgment which may be expected u.timatelj 
 from that supreme authority. Those distinctions of 
 character which the 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 lan- 
 guage, the decision, and the judges, will be equally 
 the objects of contempt before Him, whose intelligence 
 will instantly distinguish and place in light the right 
 and the wrong of all time. What a wretched abase- 
 ment 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 per- 
 petual honour or infamy, if they shall find many of 
 the questions and th'e 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 confounded, if some of the men whom 
 fhey had extolled, are consigned to ignominy, and some 
 that they had despised, are applauded by the voice at 
 which the world will treinble 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 re- 
 mark and decide on actions and characters, 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 christian de- 
 nominations of good and evil ; nor do I need to recount 
 the specious and falla/uous terms which they have em 
 ployed in their place How ,hen can a mind which
 
 TO EVANGELICAL REI.IGION 335 
 
 learas to think in their manner, learn at the sam* 
 time to think in his from whom it will, however, be 
 found no light matter to have disse .ted, 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.* 
 
 ♦ Within the thirty or forty years antecedent to the date of the 
 present edition, and even within the shorter interval since the sUght 
 remarks in the text were written, there has been a surprising 
 change in the tone of our Hterature, and in the pubHc 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 developement 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 continually 
 augmenting operation till the condition of the world be changed. 
 This new spirit of our hterature is a great advantage gained ; but 
 gained at a grievous cost ; for we have in its train an immense 
 quantity of aflfectation : all sorts and sizes of authors must be 
 aiming at vigour, point, bold strokes, originaUty. 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 Kalf-drunken rant. One won- 
 ders to sec 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 intellectual [Miwer, and 
 apuiled conijM>i>iuon6 admirable tor vji^ roue thinking by a contior
 
 i ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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 
 troduce, excepting what is strictly termed science, a 
 little of every subjec- 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 aspect and importance which it bears in the chris- 
 tian revelation, with the directness and emphasis of 
 apostolic fidelity ? Why should not a k\v of the most 
 peculiar 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 
 evangelical lesson with incomparably more candour 
 than from any professed divine? A pious and benev- 
 olent man, such as the avowed advocate of Christianity 
 ought to be, should not have been contented that so 
 many thousands of minds as his writings were adapted 
 to instruct and to charm, should have been left, for any 
 thing that he very unequivocally attempted to the con- 
 trary 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 sub- 
 
 ual affectation, which carries them along in a dashing capering 
 ■ort of style, as if determined that the " march of intellect" shall 
 be a daniCe to a fiddle.
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 34 
 
 jects, It might at least h&ve been expected, that some 
 of the many serious essays scattered through the Spec- 
 tator should iiave more of a christian strain, more rec- 
 ognition of the great oracle, in the speculations con- 
 cerning the Deity, and the gravest moral subjects. 
 There might, without hazard of symbolizing with the 
 dreaded fanalicism of the preceding age, havs 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 
 diflferent 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 unfortunate, for any thing like jus 
 tice to 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 ;i 
 general conformity of sentiment Oi e can inia^rme 
 with what a perfect storm of ridicule he would have 
 been greeted, on entering one of his celebrated cofTea- 
 
 29 •
 
 342 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 houses of wits on the day after he should have pub- 
 lished in the Spectator a paper, for instance, on the ne« 
 cessily 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 de»p and 
 simple consideration of christian truth, and the cultiva- 
 tion of christian sentiment. Might not even his im- 
 posing and unchallenged ascendency itself betray him 
 to admit, insensibly, an injurious influence on his mind? 
 He associated with men of whom many were very learn- 
 ed, some extremely able, but comparatively few made any 
 decided profession of piety ; and perhaps a consider- 
 able number were such as would in other society have 
 shown a strong propensity to irreligion. This, how- 
 ever, 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 judgment 
 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 take no rig-, 
 orously judicial account of the internal character of 
 those who brought so finely into play his mental pow- 
 ers and resources, in conversations on literature, moral 
 philosophy, and general intelligence ; and who could 
 enrich every matter of social argument by their learn- 
 ing, their genius, or their knowledge of mankind. 
 But if, while every thing unequivocally hostile to chris- 
 tian .ty was kept silent in his company, there was nev*
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION 343 
 
 ertheless i latent impiety in possession of the heart, it 
 would inevitably, however unobvious/y, infuse some- 
 thing of its spirit into the communications of such men. 
 And. through the complacency which he felt in tha 
 high intellectual intercourse, some infection of the nox- 
 ious element would insinuate its way into his own ideas 
 and feelings. For it is hardly possible for the strong- 
 est 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 assimilation ; especially if there 
 should happen to be, in addition, a conciliating exterior 
 of accomplishment, grace, and liberal manners. I'hus 
 the very predominance by which Johnson could repress 
 the direct irreligion of statesmen, scholars, wits, and ac- 
 complished men of the world, might, by retaining him 
 their intimate or frequent associate, subject him to 
 meet the influence of that irreligfion actinsf in a man- 
 ner too indirect and refined to excite either hostility or 
 caution. 
 
 But indeed if his caution were excited, there miffht 
 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 at 
 least, wherever he was present, might tend to make 
 himself feel satisfied with that order of sentiments, 
 hough 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
 
 244 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN CF TASTE 
 
 of true Christianity. It is hard for a man to suspec« 
 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, even 
 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 him a decent 
 neutrality, or a semblance of slight partial assent, in 
 other words 4 forbearance of hostility, to that divine 
 law of faith and morals, which is set up over that so- 
 ciety and all mankind, as the grand distinguisher be- 
 tween those who are in light and those who are ia 
 darkness, those who are approved and those who are 
 condemned ; and which has been sent on earth 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 
 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 ot 
 either of these classes of authors. His speculations tend 
 in a far less degree to beguile the approving and ad- 
 miring reader into a spirit, which feels repelled in 
 estrangement and disgiast on turning to the instructions 
 of Christ and his apostles ; and he has more explicit 
 and solemn references to the grand purpose of humau
 
 TO EVANGELIC.^ REL.GICiN, 34o 
 
 Afe, 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 co-operates 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 consola- 
 tions 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 la 
 such a writer he cannot but deem such deviations a 
 matter of grave culpability. 
 
 Omission is his other fault. Though he did intro- 
 duce 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 requisite 
 for a consistent entireness of character, than in the 
 moral writings of Johnson. No writer ever, more com- 
 pletely exposed and blasted the folly and vanity of the 
 greatest number of human pursuits. The visage of 
 Medusa could not have darted a more fatal glance 
 against the tribe of gay triflers, the competitors of am- 
 bition, the proud exhibiters in the parade of wealth, the 
 rhapsodists on the sufficiency of what they call philoso- 
 phy for happiness, the grave consumers of life in useless 
 speculations, and every other order of " walkers in a 
 vain show." Hi.? judgiial sentence is directed, as with 
 a keen and mephitic bia'st, on almost all the most fa- 
 vourite pursuits of mankind. But it was so much the 
 more peculiarly his duty to insist, with fulness and 
 emphapis, on tliat one model of character, tliat one
 
 346 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASrB 
 
 grand employment of life, which is enjoined by heaven, 
 and will stand the test of that unshrinking se'ierity 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 exulta- 
 tion 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-dvi^elt 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 indispensable 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 hu- 
 man effortSj in the contest with corrupt propensity, evil 
 habit, and adapted temptation ; why did not this mel- 
 ancholy observation and 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 warn- 
 ing that our labours will fail? 
 
 In extending the censure to the Poets, it is gratify- 
 ing to meet an exception in the most elevated of all 
 their tribe. Mikon's consecrat'ed genius might harmo- 
 niously 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;
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELI HON. 347 
 
 might have sharrijd 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 popu 
 lar 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 that should be thus faithful to true re- 
 ligion, might be regarded as trees by the side of that 
 " river of the water of life," having in their fruit and 
 foliage a virtue to contribute to " the healing of the na- 
 tions." — 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 kind of reli- 
 gious system, and what account of the state of man, is 
 viewed under moral estimate, and in relation to the 
 future destiny, would be afforded by a digested assem- 
 blage 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 be ex- 
 ceedingly amusing to observe the process and the fan- 
 tastic result, it would in the next place be very sad 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 
 oerious attention to the gospel, than confirmed them 
 in a habitual dislike of it, and finally operated to be- 
 tray 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 impresa 
 reluctant genius into an appearance of favouuing Chris- 
 tianity, has credulously seized on any occasional verse,
 
 348 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 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 reli- 
 gion 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 associa- 
 hons. "Off, ye profane!" 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 
 ^are the outline and general principles of the work, i* 
 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 im- 
 posed on it by an unphilosophical revelation from 
 heaven. And in the happy riddance of this despised 
 though celestial light, it exhibits a sort of moon-light 
 vision, of thin impalpable abstractions, 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 ex- 
 change 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 afTectionate domestic associates, on his awaking 
 from the fantastic succession of vain efforts and perplexi- 
 ties, among strange objects, incidents, and pe9ple, in a
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 349 
 
 bewildering dream. — But what deference to chnsli.inity 
 was to be expected, when such a man as Bolingbroke 
 was the genius whose imparted splendour was to i.Uu' 
 minate, and the demigod* whose approbation was to 
 crown, the labours which, according to the wish and 
 presentiment of the poet, were to conjoin these two 
 A'enerable names in endless fame? 
 
 If 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 ab- 
 straction 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 pur- 
 port and relation, are imposed in substitution for the 
 higher and more general and abstracted truths — I an- 
 swer. 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. 
 
 A serious observer must acknowledge with regret, 
 that such a class of productions as novels, in which 
 folly has tried to please in a greater number of shapes 
 than 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 probably of too slight and insipid 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 oc- 
 casionally contribute their mite of mischief, by alluding 
 to a christian profession, in a manner that identifies if 
 with the cant by which' hypocrites have aped it, or tha 
 extravagance with which fanatics have inflated or dis- 
 torted it. But a great and direct force of counteracting 
 
 ♦ He is so named somewhere in Pope's Works 
 30
 
 350 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 
 
 influence is emitted from those, which eloquei tly dia 
 plaj' characters of eminent vigour and virtue, when i 
 is a virtue having no basis in religion ; a factitious tiling 
 resuiiing from the mixture of dignified pride with gen 
 erous feeling ; or constituted of those philosophical prin 
 ciples which are too often accompanied, in these works, 
 by an avowed or strongly intimated contempt of the 
 interference of any religion, especially the christian. 
 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 and de- 
 fend, against the cavils and scorn of infidels, a religion 
 \i 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 in- 
 troduced probably among libertine lords and giddy 
 girls, to maintain the sanctity of terms, and attempt the 
 illustration of doctrines, which these well-meanmg wri- 
 ters do not perceive that the worthy gentleman's col- 
 lege, 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 re- 
 jgion. as the writer of a fashionable novel would deem
 
 TO EVANGELICAL RELIvxION, 35x 
 
 a graceful or admissible expedient for filling up hia 
 plot. 
 
 One cannot close such u review of our fine writers 
 without melancholy reflections. That cause which will 
 raise alJ 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 lime. 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 h"ving employed their genius, as 
 the magicians their eachantments against Moses, to 
 counteract the Savio-r of the world. 
 
 Under what restrictions, then, ought the study 
 of polite literature to oe 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 answer to give than before, when the question 
 came in the way, inconveniently enough, t© perplex 
 the conclusion to be drawn from the consider-^Uons on 
 the tendency of the classical literature. Polite litera- 
 ture will necessarily continue to be a large department 
 of the grand school of intellectual and moral cultiva- 
 tion. The evils therefore which it may contain, will 
 as certainly aflfect in some degree the minds of the suc- 
 cessive pupils, and teachers also, as the hurtful influ- 
 ence of the climate, or of the seasons, will aflfect 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 inevi- 
 table to incur the evil.' The means of counteraction 
 will amount, it is to be feared, to no more than pallia'
 
 352 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OP TASTE, ETt?. 
 
 tives. Nor can these be proposed in any specific meth 
 od. All that I can do, is, to urge on the reader of taste 
 the very serious duty 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 an inviolable adheren.ee to it 
 
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