On this page
-
Text (3)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Untitled Article
love of God , though they knew it -not ; though they denied it . No man ever has a complete and perfect intellectual consciousness of all his active nature ; something instinctive germinates in us , and grows under ground , as it were , before it bursts the sod and 6 hoots into the light of self-consciousness . Sheathed in unconsciousness lies the bud , ere long to open a bright , consummate flower . These philosophers , with a real love of truth , and yet a scorn of the name of God , understand many things , perhaps not known to common men , but this portion of their nature has yet escaped their eye ; they have not made an exact and exhaustive inventory of the facts of their own nature . Such men have unconsciously much of the intellectual part of piety . "
Most true ! They war on the arrogance of i gnorance , they war on the false conceptions men frame of God , they war on the wickedness cloaked by his name—not on the feeling itself ! They feel God—feel his presence equally in the grander reaches of Science and in the impassioned depths of Love—in the Beauty that enchants them—in the Good that is done , and that they do . The presence of a Highest and Best is never unacknowledged by their souls in the strong heroism of a noble act , or in the gentleness of a kind one , although the ravings of one class and the absurdities of another may rouse a spirit of antagonism which , in denying the names , seems to deny the thing . They are driven into blasphemy by bigotry . It is Exeter Hall makes Atheists .
Set aside Churches for awhile , and consider whether it be not truly said , Man when he loves truth , love , and justice , loves God under these special forms , and should unite them therefore in one total act of piety . In proportion as he loves these , he is religious . In proportion as he disregards them , he is practically atheistic * let his belief in " evidences" be of the strongest . For , truly , Christianity is a belief in Christ , not a belief in the " evidences" of his having lived , and done , and said , such and such things ; and a belief in Christ which undoubtingly accepts every word recorded in the Testament as God ' s truth , yet nevertheless practically disregards the plainest of its teachings , setting collaterals above essentials , orthodoxy above sincerity , is demonstrably irreligious : —
" Nobody thinks it necessary or beautiful for the accomplished scholar to go back to his alphabet , and repeat it over , to return to his early arithmetic and paradigms of grammar , when he knows them all ; for this is not needful to keep an active mind in a normal condition , and perform the mental work of a mature man . Nobody sends a lumberer from the woods back to his nursery , or tells him he cannot keep his strength without daily or weekly sleeping in his little cradle , or exercising with a hoop , or top , or ball , which helped his babyhood . Because these little trifles helped him once , they cannot help him now . Man , reaching forward , forgets the things that are behind .
" , the mischief is , that , in matters of religion , men demand that he who has a mature and well-proportioned piety should always go back to the rude helps of his boyhood , to the ABCof religion and the nursery-books of piety . He is not bid to take his power of piety and apply that to the common works of life . The Newton of piety is sent back to the dame-school of religion , and told to keep counting his fingers , otherwise there is no health in him , and all piety is wiped out of his consciousness , and he hates God and God hates him . He must study the anicular lines on tlie school-dame ' s slate , not the diagrams of God writ on the heavens in points of fire . We are told that what once thus helped to form a religious churacter must be continually resorted to , and become the permanent form thereof .
" This notion is exceedingly pernicious . It wastes the practical power of piety by directing it from its natural work ; it keeps the steam-engine always fanning and blowing itself , perpetually firing itself up , while it turns no wheels but its own , and does no work but feed and fire itself . This constant firing up of one ' s self is looked on as the natural work and only form of piety . Ask any popular minister , in one of the predominant sects , for the man most marked for piety , and he will not show you the men with the power of business who do the work of life , —the
upright mechanic , merchant , or limner ; not the men with the power of thought , of justice , or of love j not him whose whole life is one great act of fourfold piety . No , lie will show you some men who arc always a dawdling over their souls , going back to the baby-jumpers and nursery-rhymes of their early ( lays , and everlastingly coining to the church to fire fheinselves up , calling themselves miserable offenders , ' and saying , ' Save us , good Lord . ' If a man thinks himself a miserable offender , let him away with the offence , and be done with the complaint at once and for ever . It is dangerous to reiterate . so sad a cry .
" You sec this mistake , on a large scale , in the zeal with which nations or sects cling to their religious institutions long after they are obsolete . Thus the Hebrew cleaves to bis anfcient ritual and ancient creed , refusing to share the religious science which mankind has brought to li ^ ht since Moses and Samuel went homo to their ( Sod . The two great sects of Christendom exhibit the- snme thing in their adherence ; to ceremonies and opinions which once were the- greatest helps and the highest expression of piety to mankind , but which have long binco lost all virtue except as relics . The same error is repeated on a small sculo all about us , men trying to believe what science proves ridiculous , and only succeeding by the destruction of reason . It- was easy to make the mistake , but when made , it need not be mado perpetual . "
In reference to this Pharisaic caro for one ' s soul , and disregard for activo piety , we quoted a charming passage last week from Ruth , to which we beg to call the reader ' s attention . It is a most pernicious habit . It coddles the mind into insincerity . ItniakoH " seriousness" equivalent to religiousness ; , whereas Truthfulness and Love are real religiousness . . Life is not a mood ; and the mind of man cannot , sincerely preserve one unvarying attitude . We may bo very frivolous without endangering our seriousness ; and to be serious on frivolous occusions in the worst frivolity . ! 3 o that when we pluce Iteligion in " seriousness , " and not in active piety , we invariably become hypocrites—we act a part , wo tlo not live a life . Moreover , as Parker says : —
Ihen thin method of procedure disgusts well-educated and powerful men with piety itself , ami with all that bears the name of religion . ' ( Jo your ways , ' Hay they , ' mid cunt , your canting an much an you like , only come not near us with your grimace . ' Many u mini sees this misdirection of piety , and tliu bigotry which environs it , ami tuniH oil" from religion itself , and will have nothing to do with it . Philosophers always Imve hud n bad nnmo in religious matters j many of thorn Imvo
turned away in disgust from the folly which is taught in its name . Of all the great philosophers of this day , I think no one takes any interest in the popular forms of religion . Do we ever hear religion referred to in politics ? It is mentioned officially in proclamations and messages ; but in the parliamentary debates of Europe and America , in the state papers of the nations , you will find hardly a trace of the name or the fact . Honest men , and manly men , are ashamed to refer to this , because it has been so connected with unmanly dawdling and niggardly turning back , —they dislike to mention the word . So religion has ceased to be one of the recognised forces of the state . I do not remember a good law passed in my time from an alleged religious motive . Capital punishment , and the laws
forbidding work or play on Sunday , are the only things left on the statute-book for which a strictly religious motive is assigned . The annual thanksgivings and fastdays are mementoes of the political power of the popular religious opinions in other times . Men of great influence in America are commonly men of little apparent respect for religion ; it seems to have no influence on their public conduct , and , in many cases , none on their private character ; the class most eminent for intellectual culture is heedless of religion throughout all Christendom . The class of rich men have small esteem for it ; yet in all the great towns of America the most reputable churches have fallen under their control , with such results as we see . The life of the nation in its great flood passes by , and does not touch the churches , — « the institutions of religion . ' Such fatal errors come from this mistake .
Untitled Article
112 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
Untitled Article
" The age requires a piety most eminent . What was religion enough for the time of the Patriarchs , or the Prophets , or the Apostles , or the Keformers , or the Puritans , is not enough for the heightened consciousness of mankind to-day . When the world thinks in lightning , it is not proportionate to pray in lead . The old theologies , the philosophies of religion of ancient time , will not suffice us now . We want a religion of the intellect , of the conscience , of the affections , of the soul , —the natural religion of all the faculties of man . The form also must be natural and new . " . We anticipate the response these passages will call forth from our readers , and close this first article with the following : —
" We must possess all parts of this piety , —the intellectual , moral , affectional , — yea , total piety . This is not an age when men in religion ' s name can safely sneer at philosophy , call reason ' carnal , ' make mouths at immutable justice , and blast with their damnations the faces of mankind . Priests have had their day , and in dull corners still aim to protract their favourite and most ancient night ; but the sun has risen with healing in his wings . Piety without goodness , without justice , without truth or love , is seen to be the pretence of the hypocrite . Can philosophy satisfy us without relig ion ? Even the head feels a coldness from the want of piety . The greatest intellect is ruled by the same integral laws with the least , and needs this fourfold love ' of God ; and the great intellects that scorn religion are largest sufferers from their scorn . "
Untitled Article
NEW XIGHTS ON SHAKSPEARE . Notes and Emendations to the Text of SJiakspeare ' s Plays . From early ' Manuscript corrections in a copy of the folio oflQS 2 . Forming a Supplemental Volume to the Edition of Shakspeare . By J . Payne Collier , Esq . Whittaker & Co . If there be any approximation to truth in the current belief of a worship of Shakspeare on the part of reverent Englishmen , this volume will have a prodigious sale . Perhaps the reverent admirers will grow red at the mention of " sale" in any way affecting the question . Yet this vulgar consideration we find put forward in the preface to the first folio of Shakspeare . The editors beg tho public " to censure" if the public pleases , but at any rate to huy . " That doth best commend a book , the stationer says . " We will not be more lofty than his loving editors . Sale or no sale , there can be no dispute as to the value and interest of this volume , which forms not only a supplement to Mr . Collier ' s edition , but ought to stand on the shelf beside every other edition . To literary historians and critics better versed in Elizabethan lore than we can pretend to be , must be left the task of deciding on the age , position , and authority of tho emendator . On such matters we are but one of the public ; and as one of the public we can only speak of the intrinsic value of these emendations , which is indubitable . The unknown emendator may have been one in authority , or merely a writer of conjectures like those who succeeded him ; the simple fact remains , that his emendations are of irresistible plausibility in most cases , and that his stage directions are not to be despised . Let us first hear Mr . Collier narrate his story of the folio : — " I was tempted only by its cheapness to buy it , under tho following circumstances : —In the spring of 1849 I happened to be in the . shop of the late Mr . Rodd , ot Great Newport-street , at the time when a package of books arrived from tho country : my impression is that it came from Bedfordshire , but 1 am not at all certain upon a point which L looked upon as a matter of no importance . He opened the parcel in my presence , as bo had often done before in the course of my thirty or forty years' acquaintance with him , and looking at the backs and titlepages of several volumes , 1 kuw that they were chiefly works of little interest to me . Two folios , however , attracted niy attention , one of them gilt on tho sides ? , and the other in rough calf : the lir . st was an excellent copy of Florio ' s ' New World of Words , ' 1 ( 511 , with the name of Henry Osborn ( whom 1 mistook at the moment for his celebrated namesake , Francis ) upon the first leaf ; and the other a copy of the second folio of Shakespeare's Plays , much cropped , the covers old and in-easy and , as I saw at a glance on opening them , imperfect at the beginning and end ! Concluding hastily that the latter would complete another poor copy of tho second folio , which 1 had bought of the same bookseller , and which 1 hail had for some years in my possession , and wanting the former for my use , I bought them both , the Klorio for twelve , and the Shakespeare for thirty shillings . "Ah it turned out , I at first repented my bargain as regarded tho Shakespeare , because , when I took it home , it appeared that two leaves which I wanted wereunlit ^ for my purpose , not merely by being too short , but damaged and defaced : thus disappointed , I threw it by , and did not we it again , until I made a selection of books I would take with me on quitting I ,,,,,, ! , ) ,,. ] n fl 1 ( , „„ . „„ time , finding that r could not readily remedy the deficiencies in my other copy of the folio , 1 . ( 532 , I had parted with it ; and when 1 removed into the country , with my family , in the sprint ? of lBHO , in order tliat I mi ght not be without some copy of the second folio for the purpose of referenco , I took with mo that which is t \) v foundation of tho present work .
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 29, 1853, page 112, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1971/page/16/
-