little to interest a taste rendered fastidious by critical accuracy and elegant refinement? Without presuming to condemn the conduct of those, who are in every respect so competent to form their own plans according to their own judgment, I would mention some considerations which, even to them, may present it in a light not unworthy their attention. It It is, in the first place, an act of homage, and as such equally incumbent on all. It is a profession of faith, less dubious even than the performance of moral duties, which may proceed from a well directed prudence, or the harmony of a happy temperament. It is right and proper, that religion should have the honour of those who are calculated to do her honour. is likewise useful for a pious man to be connected with pious people as such. Various associations are formed upon the ground of something, which men wish to improve or to enjoy in common. Literary men associate, musical men associate, political men associate together; and as there is a great deal of the commerce of the world, in which it would be impossible to introduce religion, there ought by way of balance to be some society of which that is the ground and principle; otherwise, from the very nature of our connexions with each other, we shall find religion less in our thoughts, than almost anything else in which we have an interest, and insensibly it will waste and die away for mere want of aliment. But the attendance of men of literature and knowledge is perhaps most important from its effect upon others. The unenlightened worship with most pleasure, where those worship whose opinions they respect. A religion that is left for the vulgar will not long satisfy even them. There is harshness in saying to the bulk of mankind, Stand aside, we are wiser than you. There is harshness in saying, Our affections cannot move in concert; what edifies you, disgusts us; we cannot feel in common, even where we have a common interest. In the intercourses of life, the man of urbanity makes a thousand sacrifices to the conciliating spirit of courtesy, and the science of attentions. The exercises of devotion, Mr Wakefield says, are wearisome. Suppose they were so, how many meetings do we frequent, to how many conversations do we listen with benevolent attention, where our own pleasure and our own improvement are not the objects to which our time is given up? He who knows much, must expect to be often present where he can learn nothing. While others are receiving information, he is practising a virtue. He, who in common life has learned to mix a regard to the feelings and opinions of others with the pursuit of his own gratifications, will bear, in the spirit of love and charity, the instruction which to him is unnecessary, the amplification which to him is tiresome, the deficiencies of method or of elocution, to which his ear and his judgment are acutely sensible; the imperfections, in short, of men or of societies inferior to himself in taste or knowledge; as in conversation he bears with the communicative overflowings of self importance, the repetition of the well known tale, and the recurrence of the numerous, burdensome forms of civilised society. It becomes us well to consider what would be the consequence, if the desertion of men of superior sense should become general in our assemblies. Not the abolition of public worship; it is a practice too deeply rooted in the very propensities of our nature; but this would be the consequence, that it would be thrown into the hands of professional men on the one hand, and of uninformed men on the other. By the one it would be corrupted, it would be debased by the other. Let the friends of moderation and good sense consider whether it is desirable, whether it is even safe, to withdraw from the public the powerful influence of their taste, knowledge, and liberality. Let them consider whether they are prepared to take the consequences of trusting in the hands of any clergy, so powerful an engine as that of public worship and instruction, without the salutary check of their presence who are best able to distinguish truth from falsehood, to detect unwarrantable pretensions, and to keep within tolerable bounds the wanderings of fanaticism. Attentive to the signs of the times, they will have remarked, on the one hand, a disposition to give into deception, greater than might naturally have been presumed of this age, which we compliment with the assume. epithet of enlightened. Empiric extravagancies have been adopted, which violate every sober and consistent idea of the laws of nature, and new sects have sprung up distinguished by the wildest reveries of visionary credulity. On the other, they will have observed indications of a desire to discourage the freedom of investigation, to thicken the veil of mystery, and to revive every obsolete pretension of priestly power, which, in the most ignorant periods, the haughtiest churchman has ever dared to They will have read with astonishment an official exhortation to the inferior clergy, it was not fulminated from the Vatican, it was not dragged to light from the mould and rust of remote ages. It was delivered by an English divine of the eighteenth century, brilliant in parts and high in place. He knew it was to meet the notice and encounter the criticism of an enlightened and philosophic people, and he has not scrupled to tell them, that good works of a heretic are sin; and that such a one may go to hell with his load of moral merit on his back. He has not scrupled to rank the first philosopher of this kingdom, and the man in it perhaps of all others most actively solicitous for the spread of what he at least believes to be genuine Christianity, with infidels and atheists; and thus by obvious inference has piously consigned him to the same doom. He has revived claims and opinions, which have upon their heads whole centuries of oblivion and contempt; and by slandering morality, has thought to exalt religion. Reflecting on these things, they will consider whether the man of judgment does not desert the post assigned him by Providence, when he withdraws from popular assemblies both the countenance of his example, and the imposing awe of his presence; they will conceive themselves as invested with the high commission to take care nequid respublica detrimenti capiat; they will consider themselves as the salt of the earth, the leaven of the lump, not to be secluded in separate parcels, but to be mingled in the whole mass, diffusing through it their own spirit and favour. The author of the Enquiry chooses to expatiate, it is not difficult to do it, on the discordant variety of the different modes of worship practised amongst men, and concludes it with characterising this alarming schism by the comparison of the poet; One likes the pheasant's wing, and one the leg; But might we not venture to ask,-Where, pray, is the harm of all this? Unless indeed I will not allow my neighbour to boil his egg because I roast mine. Eggs are good and nutritious food either way; and in the manner of dressing them, fancy and taste, nay caprice, if you will, may fairly be consulted. If I prefer the leg of a pheasant, and my neighbour finds it dry, let each take what he likes. It would be a conclusion singularly absurd, that eggs and pheasants were not to be eaten. All the harm is in having but |
