THE WORKS OF HANNAH MORE. costly to our peace that we should find it more cheap to forgive even were it not more right. If this estimate be fairly made, then is the balance clearly on the side of Religion, even in the article of pleasure. a scene of trial, but the glory of the triumph It is an infirmity not uncommon to good kind of people, to comfort themselves that they are living in the exercise of some one It has been said that worldly good sort of natural good quality, and to make a religious merit of a constitutional happiness. They people are a greater credit to their profeshave also a strong propensity to separate sion, by exhibiting more cheerfulness, gayewhat God has joined, belief and practice; ty, and happiness, than are visible in serious the creed and the commandments; actions Christians. If this assertion be true, which and motives; moral duty and religious obe- I very much suspect, is it not probable that dience. Whereas, you will hardly find, in the apparent ease and gayety of the former all the New Testament, a moral, or a social may be derived from the same source of convirtue, that is not hedged in by some reli- solation which Mrs. Quickly recommends gious injunction: scarcely a good action to Falstaff, in Shakspeare's admirable picenjoined towards others, but it is connected ture of the death-bed scene of that witty with some exhortation to personal purity. profligate? He wished for comfort, quoth All the charities of benevolence are, in gen- mine hostess, and began to talk of God; eral, so agreeable to the natural make of the now I, to comfort him, begged him he should heart, that it is a very tender mercy of God not think of God; it was time enough to to have made that a duty, which, to finer trouble himself with these things.' Do not spirits, would have been irresistible as an in- many deceive themselves by drawing water clination, and to have annexed the highest from these dry wells of comfort? and patch future reward to the greatest present pleas- up a precarious and imperfect happiness in ure. But in order to give a religious sanc- this world, by diverting their attention from tion to a social virtue, the duty of visiting the concerns of the next? Another obstruction to the growth of piethe fatherless and widow in their affliction,' is inseparably attached to the difficult and self- ty, is that unhappy prejudice which even denying injunction of keeping ourselves good kind of people too often entertain unspotted from the world.' This adjunct is against those who differ from them in opinthe more needful, as many are apt to make ion. Every man who is sincerely in earnest a kind of moral commutation, and to allow to advance the interests of religion, will themselves so much pleasure in exchange have acquired such a degree of candour, as for so much charity. But one good quality to become indifferent by whom good is done, The or who has the reputation of doing it, proviHe will be anxious can never stand proxy for another. 6 · He Christian virtues derive their highest lustre ded it be actually done. from association: they have such a spirit of to increase the stock of human virtue and of society, that they are weak and imperfect happiness, by every possible means. when solitary; their radiance is brightened by an intermingling of their beams, and their natural strength multiplied by their alhance with each other. will whet and sharpen every instrument of goodness, though it be not cast in his own mould, or fashioned after his own pattern. He will never consider whether the form suits his own particular taste, but whether the instrument itself be calculated to accomplish the work of his master. It cannot be denied that good sort of people sometimes use religion as the voluptuous use physic. As the latter employ medicine shall conclude these loose and immethodto make health agree with luxury, the for mer consider religion as a medium to recon-ical hints with a plain though short address cile peace of conscience with a life of pleas- to those who content themselves with a deure. But no moral chemistry can blend cent profession of the doctrines, and a formal natural contradictions. In all such unnatural attendance on the offices, instead of a dilimixtures the world will still be uppermost, and religion will disdain to coalesce with its antipathy. Let me not be suspected of intending to insinuate that religion encourages men to fly from society, and hide themselves in solitudes; to renounce the generous and important duties of active life for the visionary, cold, and fruitless virtues of an hermitage or a cloister. No: the mischief arises not from our living in the world, but from the world living in us; occupying our hearts, and monopolizing our affections. Action is the life of virtue; and the world is the theatre of action. Perhaps some of the most perfect patterns of human conduct may be found in the most public stations, and among the busiest orders of mankind. It is, indeed, gent discharge of the duties of Christianity. Believe, and forgive me! you are the people who lower religion in the eyes of its enemies. The openly profane, the avowed enemies to God and goodness, serve to confirm the truths they mean to oppose, to illustrate the doctrines they deny, and to accomplish the very predictions they affect to disbelieve. But you like an inadequate and faithless prop, overturn the edifice which you pretend to support.-When an acute and keen-eyed infidel measures your lives with the rule by which you profess to walk: he finds so little analogy between them, the copy is so unlike the pattern, that this inconsistency of yours is the pass through which his most dangerous attack is made. And I must confess, that, of all the arguments, which the malignant industry of infidelity has been able to mus- they be really principles of the heart, and ter, the negligent conduct of professing not merely opinions of the understanding, Christians seems to me to be the only one will be followed by a consistent course of ac which is really capable of staggering a man tion; while indecision of spirit will produce of sense. He hears of a spiritual and self-instability of conduct. If there be a model denying religion; he reads the beatitudes; which we profess to admire, let us square our he observes that the grand artillery of the lives by it. If either the Koran of Mahom Gospel is planted against pride and sensuali-et, or the Revelations of Zoroaster, be a ty. He then turns to the transcript of this perfect guide, let us follow one of them. If perfect original; to the lives which pretend either Epicurus, Zeno, or Confucius, be the to be fashioned by it There he sees, with peculiar object of our veneration and res triumphant derision that pride, self-love, pect, let us avowedly fashion our conduct by Juxury, self-sufficiency, unbounded personal the dictates of their philosophy; and then, expense, and an inordinate appetite for though we may be wrong, we shall not be pleasure, are reputable vices in the eyes of absurd; we may be erroneous, but we shall many of those who acknowledge the truth not be inconsistent; but if the Bible be in of the Christian doctrines. He weighs that truth the word of God, as we profess to be. meekness to which a blessing is promised, lieve, we need look no farther for a consum with that arrogance which is too common to mate pattern. If the Lord be God, let us be very dishonourable. He compares that follow HIM.' If Christ be a sacrifice for sin; non-conformity to the world, which the Bible let Him be also to us the example of an holy makes the criterion of a believer, with that life. rage for amusement which is not considered But I am willing to flatter myself that the as disreputable in a Christian. He opposes moral and intellectual scene about us begins the self-denying and lowly character of the to brighten. I indulge myself in moments Author of our faith with the sensual practi- of the most enthusiastic and delightful vision, ces of his followers. He finds little resem- that things are beginning gradually to lead blance between the restraints prescribed, and to the fulfilment of that promise, that 'all the gratifications indulged in. What con- the kingdoms of the earth shall become the clusions must a speculative reasoning sceptic kingdoms of our God and of his Christ.' I draw from such premises? Is it any wonder take encouragement that that glorious proph that such phrases as 'a broken spirit,' a 'con-ecy, that of the increase of his government trite heart, poverty of spirit.' 'refraining there shall be no end,' seems to be gradually the soul,' keeping it low,' and casting down accomplishing; and in no instance more, high imaginations,' should be to the unbe- perhaps, than in the noble attempt about liever foolishness,' when such humiliating be made for the abolition of the African doctrines are a stumbling block' to profes-slave-trade.* For what event can human sing Christians; to Christians who cannot cordially relish a religion which professedly tells them it was sent to stain the pride of hu man glory, and to exclude boasting?' wisdom foresee more likely to contribute to give the Son the heathen for his inherit ance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession,' than the success of such an enterprise, which will restore the lustre of the British name, and cut off at a single stroke as large and disgraceful a portion of national guilt as ever impaired the virtue, or dishonoured the councils of a Christian country. But though the passive and self-denying virtues are not high in the esteem of mere good sort of people, yet they are peculiarly the evangelical virtues. The world extols brilliant actions; the Gospel enjoins good habits and right motives: it seldom inculcates those splendid deeds which make he- A good spirit seems to be at work. A roes, or teaches those lofty sentiments which catholic temper is diffusing itself among all constitute philosophers; but it enjoins the sects and parties: an enlightened candour, harder task of renouncing self, of living un- and a liberal toleration, were never more corrupted in the world, of subduing beset-prevalent; good men combat each others ting sins, and of not thinking of ourselves opinions with less rancour, and better inanmore highly than we ought.' The acquisition of glory was the precept of other religions, the contempt of it is the perfection of Christianity. Let us then be consistent, and we shall never be contemptible, even in the eyes of our enemies. Let not the unbeliever say that we have one set of opinions for our the ory, and another for our practice, that to the vulgar ners;† they hate each other less for those points in which they disagree, and love each other more for those points in which they join issue than they formerly did. We have many public encouragements; we have a pious king; a wise and virtuous minister; very many respectable, and not a few serious clergy. Their number I am willing to hope is daily increasing. Among these some of the first in dignity are the most exemplary in conduct. An increasing desire to instruct the poor, to inform the ignorant, and to reclaim the vicious,s spreading among us. The late royal proc We show the rough and thorny way to heav'n, While we the primrose path of dalliance tread. Would it not become the character of a man of sense, of which consistency is a most unequivocal proof, to choose some rule and abide by it? An extempore Christian is a ridiculous character. Fixed principles, if tion!! *This interesting question was then beginning to be agitated in parliament. + This was written before the French revolu lamation affords an honourable sanction to virtuous endeavours, and lends nerves and sinews to the otherwise feeble exertions of individuals, by enforcing laws wisely planned, but hitherto feebly executed. In short, there is a good hope that we shall more and more become that happy people who have the Lord for their God: that as prosperity is already within our walls, peace and virtue may abide in our dwellings. But vain will be all endeavours after partial and subordinate amendment. Reformation must begin with the GREAT, or it will never be effectual. Their example is the fountain whence the vulgar draw their habits, actions, and characters. To expect to reform the poor while the opulent are corrupt is to throw odours into the stream while the springs are poisoned. shall hear that many houses of the first nobility are on that evening crowded with company, and such amusements carried on as are prohibited by human laws even on common days? As imitation, and a desire of being in the fashion, govern the lower orders of mankind, it is to be feared that they will not think reformation reputable, while they see it recommended only, and not practised, by their superiors. A precept counteracted by an example, is worse than fruitless; it is ridiculous; and the common people will be tempted to set an inferior value on goodness, when they find it is only expected from the lower ranks. They cannot surely but smile at the disinterestedness of their superiors, who, while they seem anxiously concerned to save others, are so little solicitous about their own state. The ambitious vulgar will hardly relish a salvation which is only intended for plebeians; nor will they be apt to entertain very exalted notions of that promised future reward, the road to which they perceive their betters are so much more earnest to point out to them, than to walk in themselves. If, therefore, the rich and great will not, from a liberal spirit of doing right, and from a Christian spirit of fearing God, abstain from those offences, for which the poor are to suffer fines and imprisonments, effectual good cannot be done. It will signify little to lay penalties on the horses of the drover, or on the waggon of the husbandman, while the It was not by inflicting pains and penalties chariot wheels of the great roll with inces- that Christianity first made its way into the sant motion; and while the sacred day on world: the divine truths it inculcated receivwhich the sons of industry are commanded ed irresistible confirmation from the LIVES, by royal proclamation to desist from travel- PRACTICES, and EXAMPLES of its venerable ling, is for that very reason selected for the professors. These were arguments which journeys of the great, and preferred, because no popular prejudice could resist, no Jewish the road is incumbered with fewer interrup-logic refute, and no Pagan persecution distions. But will it not strike every wellmeaning Sunday traveller with a generous remorse, when he reflects that he owes the accommodation of an unobstructed road to the very obedience which is paid by others to that divine and human law which he is in the very act of violating? credit. Had the primitive Christians only praised and promulgated the most perfect religion the world ever saw, it would have produced but very slender effects on the faith and manners of the people. The astonishing consequences which followed the pure doctrines of the Gospel, would never have Will not the common people think it a lit-been produced, if the jealous and inquisitive tle inequitable that they are abridged of the eye of malice could have detected that the diversions of the public-house and the ga- DOCTRINES the Christians recommended had ming-yard on Sunday evening, when they not been illustrated by the LIVES they led. POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION. THE public favour having already brought wrong. Sensible and well-meaning persons this little essay to another edition, the author can hardly be at a loss on a subject which has been sedulous to discover any particular has exhausted precept and wearied exhortaobjections that have been made to it. Since tion. To have expatiated on it, would only the preceding sheets were printed off, it has have been to repeat what is already known been suggested by some very respectable and acknowledged to be right, even by those persons who have honoured this slight per- whom the hurry of engagements will not alformance with their notice, that it inculcates low to take breath one day in a week, that they a too rigid austerity, and carries the point of may run the race of pleasure with more alacobserving Sunday much too far; that it rity on the other six. But probably it is not takes away all the usual occupations of the the duties, but the amusements appropriated day, without substituting any others in their to the day about which the inquiry is made. stead; and that it only pulls down a wrong It will, perhaps, be found, that the intervals system, without so much as attempting to of a Sunday regularly devoted to all its reabuild up a right one. To these observations sonable and obvious employments, are not the author begs leave to reply, that whilst likely to be so very tedious, but that they animadverting on error, the insisting on ob might be easily and pleasantly filled up by vious duty was purposely omitted To tell cheerful, innocent, and instructive converpeople what they already know to be right, sation. Human delights would be very cirwas less the intention of this address, than to cumscribed indeed, if the practices here noobserve upon practices which long habit had ticed as erroneous, included the whole circle prevented them from perceiving to be of enjoyments. In addition to the appropri ate pleasures of devotion, are the pleasures and of cultivating that friendship for each of retirement, the pleasures of friendship, other, that affection for their children, and the pleasures of intellect, and the pleasures that intercourse with their Maker, to which of beneficence, to be estimated as nothing? There will not be found, perhaps, a single person who shall honour these pages with a perusal, who has not been repeatedly told, with an air of imposing gravity, by those who produce cards on a Sunday evening, that it is better to play than to talk scandal. Before this pithy axiom was invented, it was not perhaps suspected that Sunday gaming would ever be adduced as an argument in favour of morals. Without entering into the comparative excellence of these two occupations, or presuming to determine which has a claim to pre-eminence of piety, may we not venture to be thankful that these alternatives do not seem to empty the whole stock of human resource; but that something will still be left to occupy and to interest those who adopt neither the one nor the the present manners are not very favourable To the other set of complainers, those who can find no time to read, this interval naturally presents itself; and it so happens, that some of the most enlightened men the world ever saw, have, not unfrequently, devoted their rare talents to subjects peculiarly suited to this day; and that not merely in the didactic form of sermons, which men of the world affect to disdain, but in every alluring shape which human ingenuity could assume. It can be fortunately produced among a thousand other instances, that the deepest metaphysician,* the greatest astronomer, the sublimest poet, the acutest reasoner, the po litest writer, the most consummate philoso pher, and the profoundest investigator of nature, which this, or perhaps any country has produced, have all written on such subjects other? as are analogous to the business of the Lord's People in the gay and elegant scenes of day. Such authors as these, even wits, philolife are perpetually complaining that an ex-sophers, and men of the world, must ac tensive acquaintance, and the necessity of knowledge that it is not bigotry to read, nor being constantly engaged in large circles and enthusiasm to commend. Of this illustrious mixed assemblies, leaves them little leisure group only one was a clergyman, which to a for family enjoyment, select conversation, certain class of readers will be a strong reand domestic delights. Others, with no less commendation; though it is a little hard that earnestness, lament that the hurry of public the fastidiousness of modern taste should unstations, and the necessary demands of ac- dervalue the learned and pious labours of di tive life, allow them no time for any but fri- vines, only because they are professionalvolous reading. Now the recurrence of one In every other function, a man's composi Sunday in every week seems to hold out an tions are not the less esteemed because they inviting remedy for both these evils. The peculiarly belong to his more immediate bu sweet and delightful pleasures of family so-siness. Blackstone's opinions in jurispru ciety might then be uninterruptedly enjoyed, by the habitual exclusion of trifling and idle visiters, who do not come to see their friends, but to get rid of themselves. Persons of fashion, living in the same house, and connected by the closest ties, whom business and pleasure keep asunder during the greatest part of the week, would then have an opportunity of spending a little time together, con, Boyle. dence are in high reputation, though he was a lawyer; Sydenham is still consulted as oracular in fevers, in spite of his having been a physician; and the Commentaries of Casar are of established authority in military operations, notwithstanding he was a soldier. * Locke, Newton, Milton, Butler, Addison, Ba AN ESTIMATE OF THE RELIGION OF THE FASHIONABLE WORLD. There was never found in any age of the world, either philosophy, or sect, or religion, or law, or dis cipline, which did so highly exalt the public good as the Christian faith.-Lord Bacon. INTRODUCTION. THE general design of these pages is to offer some cursory remarks, on the present state of religion among a great part of the polite and the fashionable; not only among that description of persons who, whether from disbelief or whatever other cause, avowedly neglect the duties of Christianity; but among that more decent class also, who, while they acknowledge their belief of its truth by a public profession, and are not inattentive to any of its forms, yet exhibit little of its spirit in their general temper and conduct. It is designed to show that Christianity, like its Divine Author, is not only denied by those who in so many words dis own their submission to its authority, but is betrayed by the still more treacherous disciple, even while he cries, Hail, Master! For this visible declension of piety various however do not seem fully adequate to the reasons have been assigned, some of which effects ascribed to them. The author of a late popular pamphlet* has accounted for the increased profligacy of the common people, by ascribing it, very justly, to the increased dissoluteness of their superiors. And who will deny what he farther affirms--that the general conduct of high and low receives a * Hints to an Association for preventing Vice and Immorality, written by a nobleman of the highest rank. deep tincture of depravity from the growing its general excellence? They are as the neglect of publie worship? So far I most spots on the sun's disk, which a sharp observcordially agree with the noble author.- er may detect, but which neither diminish Nothing can be more obvious, than that the the warmth, nor obscure the brightness. disuse of public worship is naturally follow- But if those imperfections which are ined by a neglect of all religious duties. En- separable from all human institutions, are to ergies, which are not called out into action, be alleged as reasons for abstaining to attend almost necessarily die in the mind. The on the service of the established church; soul, no less than the body, requires its stated we must, on the same principle, and on still repairs, and regular renovations. And from stronger grounds, abstain from all public the sluggish and procrastinating spirit of worship whatever; and indeed it must be man, that religious duty to which no fixed confessed, that the persons of whom we are time is assigned, is seldom, it is to be feared, now speaking are very consistent in this performed at all.* I must, however, take leave to dissent from the opinion of the noble author, that the too common desertion of persons of rank from the service of the establishment is occasioned in general, as he intimates, by their disapprobation of the Liturgy; as it may more probably be supposed, that the far greater part of them are deterred from going to church by motives widely removed from speculative objections and conscientious scruples. It would be quite foreign to my present purpose to enter upon the question of the superior utility of a form of prayer for public worship. Most sincerely attached to the establishment myself, not, as far as I am able to judge, from prejudice, but from a fixed and settled conviction. I regard its institutions with a veneration at once affectionate and rational. Never need a Christian, except when his own heart is strangely indisposed, fail to derive benefit from its ordinances, and he may bless the overruling providence of God, that, in this instance, the natural variableness and inconstancy of human opinion is, as it were, fixed, and settled, and hedged in, by a stated service so pure, so evangelical, and which is enriched by such a large infusion of sacred Scripture. matter. But the difference of opinion here intimated, is not so much about the Liturgy itself, as the imaginary effects attributed to it in thinning the pews of our people of fashion.The slightest degree of observation serves to contradict this assertion. Those, howerer, who, with the noble author, maintain the other opinion, may satisfy their doubts by inquiring, whether the regular and systematic absentees from church are chiefly to be found among the thinking, the reading, the speculative, and the scrupulous part of mankind. Even the most negligent attendant on public worship must know, that the obnoxious creed, to whose malignant potency this general desertion is ascribed, by the noble author, is never read above three or four Sundays in the year; and even allowing the validity of the objections brought against it, that does not seem a very adequate reason for banishing the most scrupulous and tender consciences from church on the remaining eight-and-forty Sundays of the calendar. Besides, there is one test which is absolutely unequivocal: this creed is never read at all in the afternoon, any more than the Litany, that other great source of offence and supposed desertion; and yet with all these multiplied reasons for their attendance, If so many among us contemn the service do we see the conscientious crowds of the as having been, individually, to us fruitless high born, who abstain from the morning and unprofitable, let us inquire whether the service through their repugnance to subblessing may not be withheld because we are scribe to the dogmas of Athanasius, or the not fervent in asking it. If we do not find more orthodox clauses of the morning Litaa suitable humiliation in the Confession, a ny, do we see them, I say, flocking, to the becoming earnestness in the Petitions, a con- evening service, impatient for the exercise genial joy in the Adoration, a corresponding of that devotion which had been obstructed gratitude in the Thanksgivings, it is because by these two objectionable portions of the our hearts do not accompany our words; it is because we rest in the form of godliness' and are contented to remain destitute of its 'power.' If we are not duly interested when the select portions of Scripture are read to us, it is because we do not as 'new born babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that we may grow thereby.' · Perhaps there has not been since the age of the Apostles, a church upon earth in which the public worship was so solemn and so cheerful; so simple, yet so sublime; so full of fervour, at the same time so free from enthusiasm ; so rich in the gold of Christian antiquity, yet so astonishingly exempt from its dross. That it has imperfections we do not deny, but what are they compared with Liturgy? Do we see them eager to explain the cause of their morning absence, and zealous to vindicate their piety by assiduously attending when the reprobated portions are omitted? So far from it, is it not pretty evident that the general quarrel (with some few exceptions) of those who habitually absent themselves from public worship, is not with the Creed, but the commandments? With such, to reform the Prayer-book would go but a little way, unless the New Testament could be also abridged. Cut, and pare, and prune the service of the church ever so much, still Christianity itself will be found full of formidable objections. Should the Church even give up her abstruse creeds, it would avail but little, unless the Bible would also expunge those rigorous laws which not * On this subject see Dr. Johnson's Life of Mil-only prohibit sinful actions, but corrupt in ton. |