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1194 THE LEADER. [Saturday
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We should do cur utmost to encourage the...
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[The Jesuit who appears in this dialogue...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
1194 The Leader. [Saturday
1194 THE LEADER . [ Saturday
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We Should Do Cur Utmost To Encourage The...
We should do cur utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itself . —Goetiie .
[The Jesuit Who Appears In This Dialogue...
[ The Jesuit who appears in this dialogue lives in Derbyshire , and if he sees this , must be struck by the fidelity of our report of the conversation which we had with him . We confess to having behaved so far jesuitically ourselves , as to have trotted him out on the subjects treated of ; to having feigned ignorance on some points , and hopes and fears on others , in order to reach his sense of them . We cannot let pass this opportunity of expressing our high opinion of him as a boon companion ; of mentioning the excellence of his cigars , and unexceptionable quality of his sherry . If we are not yet prepared to give tip sense , reason , and conscience , let him not grieve on our account ; we are prepared for the consequences . ]
" Tom Aquinas ! My dear sir , you speak irreverently ; you should call him Doctor Thomas Aquinas ; he was a doctor of the church . Have a cigar ? Ha ! you are right : reverence cannot be lost between men with weeds in their months ! But indeed I am not surprised at your way of speaking : yon have no reverence in your nature . The fact is , reverence is dying out of the world , —thanks to Protestantism ! Irreverence is the offspring of reason and conceit , an incestuous fruit , for they are brother and sister . To curse priests , despise parents , and forget God , is the law of Protestant progression . I met a young American and his father the other day in Manchester . Watching the smoke from his meerschaum ,
as he stood between his ' governor' and the fire with the lappets of his coat divided , he asked the ' old boy' what he had been ' up to' all the morning ? These Americans are truer Protestants than you English ; reverence is dead in America , and is but dying here . Forty j ^ ears ago , I remember , children used to stand up when their parents entered the room . That last relic of an age of veneration is now gone . The priest is pointed out as a sneaking scoundrel , and the parent as a muff behind his age ! I asked a youth from Cambridge the other day what evidences of Christianity were used at the University ? ' Christianity ! ' said the boy , yawning , ' I thought that was exploded ! ' When a man gives up the teaching of the Church , he can see God by half pencils at best : with the eye of irreverent reason he cannot see him at all .
" It is nonsense , my dear sir , to say that the Reformation put an end to priestcraft ; it merely changed its denomination . Men have always had priests , and , I tell you , they can't do without them . The priest is the man ' s supplement ; and the man is the priest ' s supplement . If one devotes himself wholly to earth he loses heaven ; if wholly to heaven he gets there too soon . Division of labour , my dear sir , is in this , as in everything else , the best policy . All would be priests if all could find congregations ; but if all must not preach , they are well contented to be preached to . When the priest has prayed , the people say Amen ; and vrhen the congregation is dismissed , each man commences his own sermon . I know no greater folly than to expect that any set of men wilf long
continue without priests and a papa . If they wont have one pope , they must exchange him for a thousand . England got wearied of the pope , and now each of her doctors of divinity is pope in his own department . Her church system is , in consequence , become as chaotic as her railway system , and hurries souls about in as many different directions , with collisions constantly occurring , and travellers by the score sent phizzing in fractions off the lines into chaos ! I tell you , if men can't have their gods hero , they will have their representatives . Cast out tho god , and in comes the papa ; east out the papa , and in coition chaos ; and then it is time for the spirit to move once more on the face of the deep ! The Grand Llama
continues on the earth to look after his own interests ; the brother of Jesus is now engaged in re-modeling the Celestial Empire ! Mahomet would not have been duly accredited had he not ridden to heaven on a donkey ; nor would Joseph Smith have succeeded were it not ; for his intimacy with the Almighty . Abolish Zeus , ami in walks St . Socrates ; abolish Socrates , and Plato becomes God to the academy . Send Jove to the summit of Olympus , and behold hero is the l ^ ntifex Mnxinms ! pass by the x > 'itf pontilice . s , and lo ! lie re are the episcopi ; pass the Pa va and episcopi , and hark !—Pope Parsonpower thunders in every parish ! Pope led Scotland with
Knox peop papas ; when the parson isn ' t pope , he waits on the ruling elder . Pope -John of the WoHleyans , when dying , threw the reins to an inquisition . Pope Prim , of the ( Quakers , introduced the E very-ma n-his-own-priost principle , and immediately every one became hin neighbour ' s inquisitor ! When infidelity was established in France , Voltaire became pope to the infidels . Is not . Jaboz Hunting the po } : e of the Weslryan . s ? Young of the JVIonnoiiH ? Cuniming of tho praine-bo-toyou-ariunH ? Down with the ? genuine Papa , and up with the Papal hydra ! A has the Vatican , and vivc IIolywell-Htreet ! Chaos against ; CoHinoH . any day ! Hurrah for Protestantism !
" You lire altogether wrong in thinking theChureh impatient of human reason ; the Church haw always been the nursery of true thinkers . Toll me what in the one fact to 1 x 5 learnt ; from tin * history of philosophy ? That philosophy is impossible ! Truly . Now , more than Unit , , t he Church never asserted . JUnoIosh Htniggles to obtain tho unattainable have never met with her encouragement ; but she has always fostered thought within proper limits . If philosophy were , possible , what , my dear . sir , wore the use of the Church P It is " because philosophy is impossible that there is a Church . " I wish men were done of their twaddle about reason . What
is tho uho of howling about reason ' s being one , and unerring , when tho roaHOiiei-H are twelve hundred million ignoraniuseH ! So many men , ho many miiidH ; ho many minds , ho many rcligionw ; ao many
religions!—religion must be nonsense!— -this is , and ever will be the conclusion of your true Protestant . But your Protestants are not true ; they are more chary of the exercise of reason than we are for they have more to fear from it . The Church forces Reason to ' work in chains ; and rightly , for since the fall , he is a proud , untameable atheistic scamp , fit only for the hulks . Protestants unchained him but were not long in his company till they were frightened by him , and cast him out . It is the pride of Protestants , however , that he is free- it jV
also their terror , for he preys like a wild beast on their folds . Let him be free , they say , but let us be free of him ! When he approaches , they fly at him , combining , their forces , their' curses , their futile prayers , to scare him away . Those whom he induces to follow him go Only a s hort distance in his company , when they frighten in turn , and drive him out . He is the Will-o ' -the-Wisp of every metaphysical and theological morass no religion that was ever invented could exist for a year if it tolerated him .
" Nonsense , my dear sir , get on by the light of reason alone !—nonsense Reason can be of no more use to your soul as a guide , than a country bumpkin with a link in a London fog , to a traveller in the streets when neither knows which turning to take . I tell you it is absurd to speak of reason and the soul in the same breath . If Protestantism stands it is because it is not what it professes to be . But look at those who have taken reason for a guide . The Happist is the [ Rationalist on the other side of Atheism , believing in things which arc neither deductions from the laws of force and motion , ifbrtestimonies in favour of what is commonly called religion . While , among the Rocky Mountains of the West , Protestantism passing into a new papacy , and has its prophecies , revelations , and dispensations , the calculating East is being organized into circles , believes in
spheres , inquires by tables and hats , and holds meetings of defunct friends . This is what comes of the right of private judgment , and of the light of reason ! Our language and creeds yield rapidly to these blessed nonsenses . That all right feeling and action have not disappeared is due to the existence of the Church . On my word , since you are not a member of the church , it puzzles me to understand why you do not quit the world altogether . By the way , have you ever seriously thought of joining us ? You see , my dear sir , it is merely the question of giving up your reason , and the so-called right of private judgment . What is that right worth to one who cannot judge ; or to any one in matters in which judgment is useless ? I find the consolations of religion more satisfactory than those of conceit : . / have resigned my right of judgment in many things , yet I am not a muff , — am I ? Think over it , my dear sir ; you will agree with me that the consolations of religion are worth the
sacrifice ! "Why do you talk of the terrors of religion ? I tell you its consolations are paramount , and its terrors nil . Here is another blessed fruit of Protestanism ! The Protestants couldn't rest satisfied till they had knocked the bottom out of purgatory : I fear they shall have the advantage of the extension ! Purgatory is heaven ' s antechamber , where men must prepare themselves before entering into the presence . I know all that talk about the tree lying as it falls ; it is quite true , but the tree does not long lie so . Did you never notice a new life and growth springing from the old roots ? You must agrees with me that there was more meant by the figure than is and it alonhas
perceived by the vulgar . So at least the Church thinks , e a right to a voice on the subject . You say the notion of purgatory and of hell , of purification and punishment by fire , is repulsive to your reason . P / on't I tell you that reason has no business to interfere in this matter . Perhaps it would offend you less , if it frightened you less . Let me give you another cigar . I like you , and hope for the best ; but you should expect the worst . No ; I deny it : I am not holding out the terrors of religion over you : you hold them over yourself . 1 ou are exposed to the storm and refuse to take shelter . But come , come ; help yourself to sherry ; all arc safe within the pale ; I would adviso you to think about it , my dear sir !
"It is not merely by reason that Protestants test points in theology ; they bring their rebellious noses , and eyes , and ears , and finger points to bear upon doctrines ! Were there over such idiots ? That fool , Pope dimming , paraded in the papers , the other day , his disproof of the doctrine of transubstnntiation , —that it was contradicted by four of his senses ! His senses may be good , but I appeal to you if ho is not wanting in reason ,- —another proof that that arch enemy of religion lias been rejected by Protestants . How many things are true that contradict the flenses . J ^ aet al w ay s transcends appearance . A hnost every proposition in optics and astronomy contradicts sight : yet he believes in them . The cholera , " " bus contradicts every sen no in his system , by putting a final extinguisher on them , and yet he believes in it ; , and m vastly frightened ntits approach-Iiiim
Sense , I . tell you , has no more to do with revelation than reason . - - pretty thing , indeed , if hoiiho' and , experience wire permitted to benrbiu'ifl of doctrines ! Try them on tho Trinity ; try , by them , to ascertain tho influence of baptism , of the laying-on of hands , of the Sacrament or the Supper . Is not , universal experience contradicted by almost evoiy fact in theology ? Many men leave the world under tho influence <> i terrestrial gravitation , but who c \ or saw one lesrvo it inVpite of that influence , hh did Enoch , Elijah , the dead Mtwt-s , and Christ ? Who over heard of a virgin hearing a son ? Or , coining to thifl question of tm > Haemment , let dimming apply his hoiisoh to tout the effect ; of hin ° V ^ }) rayei \ s over tho broad and wine , in imparting holinenn to ( hem ; he ^ ^ iiul , by weighing , smelling , tasting , viewing , analyzing , eating , digesting that no influence has been imparted . Such things admit of no mater ^ tests . What the Church wantn i . s nolmen with oyon , ears , noses ,
, bminn , but men with houIs . And pockets , do you say ? My dear fl < that Hiioor ifi wholly unworthy of you . . . i . " I wonder to hear you nay that the Church has brought no light into i . world . Why , it has solved the unsolvablo problem of humanity ! -A-1 ?* losophy iH impossible ; but , a Church is a fact . I have heard you . fl P " j three or four times , an if you believed in a nyntom of in [ , ^' f-j , nt purely Bonthamee . I . should like to know what it in . I tell X , _ outHido tho Church there neither in , nor can there over bo , an otJiiciu nv
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 10, 1853, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10121853/page/18/
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