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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.
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We should do cur utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itself . —Goethe .
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. & . JBS 3 JBT B * B 3 BIft 8 S ® Pi ! i ; SI * - . . [ 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 jcsuitically 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 up 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 4 you are right : reverence cannot be lost between men with weeds in their mouths ! But indeed I am not surprised at your way of speaking : you 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 years ago , I remember , children used to stand up when their parents entered the room , Th , at last relic of an age of veneration is now gone . The priest is pointed out as asneaking 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 tfie teaching of the Church , he can see God by half pencils at best : with the eye of irreverent reason he cannot sec 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 when the congregation is dismissed , each man commences his own sermon . I knovr no greater folly than to expect that any set of men will 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 here , they Avill have their representatives . Cast out the god , and in comes the papa ; cast out the papa , and in comes 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 lie not ridden to heaven on a donkey ; nor would Joseph Smith have succeeded wore it not for his intimacy with the Almighty . Abolish Zeus , and in walks St . Socrates ; abolish
Socrates , and Plato becomes Cod to tlie academy . Send Jove to the summit of Olympus , and bcliold here is the Pontifex Maxiinus ! pass by the pagan pontiiiiecs , and lo ! here arc the episcopi ; pass the Pai > a and episeopi , arid hark !—Pope Parsonppwer I bunders in every parish ! Pope Knox peopled Scotland with papas ; when the parson isn ' t pope , he waits on the ruling elder . Pope John of the Wesleyuns , when dying , threw the reins to an inquisition . Pone Prim , of the Quakers , introduced the Every-mnn-his-own-priest principle , and immediately every one became his neighbour ' s inquisitor ! When infidelity wan established in France , Voltaire became pope to the infidels . Is not -laliez Bunting the pope of the Wesleyans F Young of the Mormons ? Cuininiiig of the praise-be-towith the
you-ariansP Down genuine Papa , and up with the Papal hydra ! A has the- ' Vatican , mid viva Holy well-street ! Chaos against Cosmos , any day ! Hurrah for Protestantism ! "' " You arc altogether wrong in thinking the Church impatient of human reason ; the Church has always been the nursery of true thinkers . Tell ino w hat is the one fact to |> o learnt fro in 1 . 1 le history of philosophy P x That philosophy is impossible ! Truly . . ' Now , more limn that , I lie Church '' jlever asserted . UncIosm struggles to obtain the unattainable have never Jniet with . her encouragement ; hut , she has always fostered thought , within proper limits . . 1 . 1 ' philosophy ¦ mere possible , what , my dear sir , were the ' luro of the Church r it . is because philosophy in impossible that , there 5 h a Church .
' "' * ' I wish men were done of their twaddle about , reason . What % ( jho uho of howling aboul , reason ' s being one , and unerring , whon ih ' o reasonerri are twelve hundred million ignoramuses ! So many ihuii , ho many minds ; ho many minds , ho many roligioun ; ho 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 fbr the hulks . Protestants unchained hirh , 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 is 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 short 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 .
" JSTonsense , my dear sir , get on by the light of reason alone!—nonsense Heason 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 . 13 ut look at those who have taken reason for a guide . The Happist is the nationalist on the other side of Atheism , believing in things which are neither deductions from the laws offeree and motion , nor testimonies 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 bats , 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 Avith 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 mil . 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 agree with me that there was more meant by the figure than is perceived by the vulgar . So at least the Church thinks , and it alone has
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 . Don'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 yoii another cigar . I like yon , 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 . \ ou are exposed to the storm and refuse to take shelter . But come , come ; help yourself to sherry ; all are safe within the pale ; 1 would advise 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 boar upon doctrines ! Were there ever such idiots ? That fool , Pope dimming , paraded in the papers , the oilier day , his disproof of the doctrine of transubstantiation , —that it was contradicted by four of his senses ! His senses may be good , but I appeal to you if he is not wanting in reason , —another proof that that arch enorny of religion has been rejected by Protestants . How many things are true that contradict the senses . E \ 'iet always transcends appearance . A hno » t e very proposition in optics and astronomy contradicts sight : yet he believes in them . The cholera niorbus contradicts every sense in his system , by putting a final extinguisher on them , and yet he believes in it , and is vastly frightened { it its approach . Sense , 1 tell you , him no more lo do with revelation than reason has . A pretty thingindeedif sense and experience were permitted to bo arbiters
, , of doctrines ! Try them on the Trinity ; iry , by them , to aseertnin tho influence of baptism , of the lirying-on of hands , of the Sacrament or the Supper . In not ; universal experience contradicted by almost every fact in theology ? Many men leave the world under tho influence of terrestrial gravitation , but who ever saw one leave it in spite of that influence , HH did Enoch , Elijah , the dead Moses , and Christ ? Wliocv « r heard of a virgin bearing a . boh ? Or , coming to this ( question of ( h « sacrament , -let Ciunming apply his senses to test , tho eflect of bin own prayers over the bread and wine , in imparting holiness to them ; he will , find , by weighing , smelling , tasting , viewing , analyzing , enting , digesting , that no influence has been imparted . ftueh things admit , of no innteria tests . What the Church wants is not men with eyes , oars , nones , ami brains , but men with . souls . And poekels , do you nay ? My dear fur ,
that sneer iR wholly unworthy of you . . . " I wonder to hear you Hay thai , the Church has brought no light , into tlic world . Why , it Iiuh solved" the unsolvablo problem of humanity ! A philosophy is impossible . ; but , a Church is a fact ,. I htwo heard you npoaK , throe- or four times , as if you believed in a nystoin of morality , j » ° purely BenthaTneo . I should like to know what ; * it ; in . I toll you Uini outside tho Church there neither ifl , nor can there ever bo , an ethical aye-
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1194 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 10, 1853, page 1194, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2016/page/18/
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