Atheism Among the People Part 2

XV.

a.n.a.lyze with me, if you are not overwhelmed with humiliation, the five or six Revelations of the latter days; and ask yourselves, as I have often asked myself, while listening to them, if these revealers of pretended human felicity do indeed address themselves to men, or to herds of fatted cattle! And are they astonished that the intellectual world resists them? Do they complain that the ignorant are their only disciples? Are they indignant that the ideas they attempt to spread, creep, like fetid mists, along the abysses of society, and excite, instead of enthusiasm, only the fanaticism of hunger and thirst? I can well believe it! What People is there who would become fanatics, only for their own destruction; renounce their moral nature, their divine souls, their immortal destinies, only for a morsel of more savory bread upon their table, for a larger portion of earth under their feet? No! no! enthusiasm soars aloft, it does not fall to earth.

Bear me up to Heaven, if you wish to dazzle my eyes; promise me immortality, if you would offer to my soul a motive worthy of its nature, an aim worthy of its efforts, a price worthy of its virtue!

But what do your systems of atheistic society show us in perspective?

What do they promise us in compensation for our griefs? What do they give us in exchange for our souls? You know,--we will not speak of it.

But, indeed, if these sects survive the month which sees and which produces them; and, if these questions which they debate, and these systems which they bring before the astonished People, are destined to serve as enigmas to posterity; what will the future say of us? It will only explain the Materialism, Atheism, and brutality of the doctrines and sects by which we have been disturbed for ten or twelve years, as the nightmare of a starving People, whose dreams have, for an object, only a frantic satisfaction of the senses. All these philosophies, or all these deliriums, are the deliriums or philosophies of the stomach!

"All this epoch," future historians will say, "the French must have been a nation distressed by a terrible famine, to have forgotten, in so total an eclipse of the intellectual nature, the great and immortal ideas which have alone inspired even these, the human race, and rendered the revolutions of the People worthy of the regard of posterity, and of the blood of man. The Eighteenth Century must have been a time when avaricious Nature shut up her bosom, and the earth brought forth neither fruit nor harvests, that this great intellectual People, formerly called the French People, should have forgotten their souls for a morsel of bread, their immortality for an income, and their G.o.d for a dollar! Let us turn away our eyes and weep over that age."

XVI.

See where we were when the Republic arose: happy was it that the People had at bottom more of the true sentiment of G.o.d than these masters and heads of sects. For, what would have become of us, if, in that total eclipse of government, of armed force, and of law, which followed the 24th of February, the People, masters of all, of the fortunes and lives of the citizens, of Heaven and earth, had been a People of Materialists, of Terrorists, and of Atheists? The Revolution would have been a pillage, the Republic a scaffold, the dynasty of the People a deluge of blood. But there was no such thing. G.o.d was there.

He revealed Himself in the mult.i.tude; Materialism disappeared in enthusiasm, which always exhibits the divinity of the human heart.

We heard but one cry,--"Honor to G.o.d! Respect for the altars! Liberty to their ministers! Self-denial, harmony, protection to the weak, inviolability of property, a.s.sistance to the miserable!" Yes,--on the first day, and during the whole time that the People was alone and burning with excitement, it was religious! It was not until after the cooling of this enthusiasm that the materialistic sects, who waited their opportunity afar off, and who now torment the People, dared to offer their sensual symbols, and to set up Capital and Interest, the organization of labor, the increase of wages, and equality of conditions in this human manger, as the sole Divinities,--dared to infuse envy against the happy, the breath of hatred as the only consolation to the hearts of the miserable, lightning vengeance against the wrongs of Providence, imprecations against society, blasphemies against the existence of G.o.d, the enjoyments and b.e.s.t.i.a.lities of the corporeal nature, purchased by complete forgetfulness of the moral nature, and enjoyed in a debauch of ideas, and in a deification of matter.

This cannot last; the People will not allow themselves to be changed into hogs by the Circes of Atheism. Their souls will flash indignation against their transformers. A day will come when they will see that they are impoverished under the pretext of being enriched; that, when they are robbed of their souls and of G.o.d, both their t.i.tles to liberty are stolen from them. Atheism and Republicanism are two words which exclude each other. Absolutism may thrive without a G.o.d, for it needs only slaves. Republicanism cannot exist without a G.o.d, for it must have citizens. And what is it that makes citizens? Two things,--the sentiment of their rights, and the sentiment of their duties as a republican People. Where are your rights, if you have not a common Father in Heaven? Where are your duties, if you have not a Judge between your brothers and you? Republicanism draws you in both these ways to G.o.d.

XVII.

Thus, look at every free People, from the mountains of Helvetia to the forests of America; see even the free British nation, where the Aristocracy is only the head of liberty, where the Aristocracy and Democracy mutually respect each other, and balance each other by an exchange of kindnesses and services which sanctify society while fortifying it. Atheism has fled before liberty: in proportion as despotism has receded, the divine idea has advanced in the souls of men. Liberty lives by morality. What is morality without a G.o.d? What is a law without a lawgiver?

I know well, and I shall give you the reason hereafter; I know well, and I mourn to think of it, that, even up to the present time, the French People have been the least religious People in Europe.

Is this because the intelligence of France has not that force, and that severity, which are needed to carry long enough and far enough the idea of G.o.d,--the greatest idea of the human soul;--that idea, as it comes from all the evidences of nature, and all the depths of reflection, being the most powerful and the most grave of human intelligence,--and the intelligence of France being the most superficial, the most light, and the least reflecting of the European races?

Is it because our governments have always been charged with thinking, believing, and praying, for us?

Is it that they have always given us G.o.ds of the Court, worship according to Etiquette, and religions of State, instead of letting us form, make, and practise our faith for ourselves, by reason, by free-will, by voluntary piety, by a.s.sociation, by tradition, by the sympathies of the community, of worship, and of the family?

Is it because we are, and always have been, a military People, a nation of soldiers and adventurers, led by kings, heroes, ambitious men, from battle-field to battle-field, making conquests and not keeping them, ravaging, dazzling, charming, and corrupting Europe, and bearing the manners, vices, bravado, lightness, and impiety of the camp into the homes of the People?

I do not know; but it is certain that the nation has an immense progress to make in serious thought, if it wishes to maintain its liberty. If we look at the comparative character, in matters of religious sentiment, of the great nations of Europe, America, and even Asia, the advantage is not on our side. While the great men of other nations live and die upon the scene of history, looking towards heaven, our great men seem to live and die in entire forgetfulness of the only idea for which life or death is worth any thing; they live and die looking at the spectators, or, at most, towards posterity.

Thus, even at the present time, while we have had the greatest men, other nations have had the greatest citizens. It is great citizens that a Republic needs!

XVIII.

Open the history of America, the history of England, and the history of France; read the great lives, the great deaths, the great sufferings, the sublime words, when the ruling pa.s.sion of life reveals itself in the last moments of the dying,--and compare them!

Washington and Franklin fought, spoke, suffered; rose and fell, in their political life, from popularity to ingrat.i.tude, from glory to bitter scorn of their citizens,--always in the name of G.o.d, for whom they acted; and the liberator of America died, committing to the Divine protection, first, the liberty of his People,--and, afterwards, his own soul to His indulgent judgment.

Strafford, dying for the const.i.tution of his country, wrote to Charles I., to entreat his consent to his punishment, that he might spare trouble to the State: "Put not your trust," wrote he, after this consent was obtained, "put not your trust in princes, or in the son of man, because salvation is not in them, but from on high." While walking to the scaffold, he stopped under the windows of his friend, the Bishop of London; he raised his head towards him, and asked, in a loud voice, the a.s.sistance of his prayers in the terrible moment to which he had come. The primate, bowed with age, and bathed in tears, gave, in a stifled voice, his tender benedictions to his unhappy friend, and fell, without consciousness, into the arms of his attendants. Strafford continued his way, sustained by the Divine force, descending from this invocation upon him: he spoke with resignation to the People a.s.sembled to see him die. "I fear only one thing," said he, "and that is, that this effusion of innocent blood is a bad presage for the liberty of my country!" (Alas! why did not the Convention recall these words among us, in '93?) Stafford continued:--"Now," said he, "I draw near my end. One blow will make my wife a widow, my children orphans, deprive my poor servants of an affectionate master, and separate me from my dear brother, and my friends. May G.o.d be all of these!" He disrobed himself, and placed his head on the block. "I give thanks," said he, "to my heavenly Master for helping me to await this blow without fear; for not permitting me to be cast down for a single instant by terror. I repose my head as willingly on this block as I ever laid it down to sleep." This is faith in Patriotism! See Charles I., in his turn,--that model of a kingly death. At the moment that he was to receive the blow of the axe, the edge of which he had coolly examined and touched, he raised his head, and addressed the clergyman who was present:--"Remember!"

said he; as if he had said, "Remember to advise my sons never to revenge their father!"

Sidney, the young martyr of a patriotism, guilty, because too hasty, died to expiate the dream of the freedom of his country. He said to the jailer, "May my blood purify my soul! I rejoice that I die innocent toward the king, but a victim resigned to the King of Heaven, to whom we owe all life."

The republicans of Cromwell sought only the way of G.o.d, even in the blood of battles. Their politics is nothing but faith; their government, a prayer; their death, a holy hymn;--they sang, like the Templars, on their funeral-pile. We see, we feel, we hear G.o.d, above all, in these revolutions, in these great popular movements, and in the souls of the great citizens of these nations.

But recross the Atlantic, traverse the Channel, approach our own time, open our annals; and listen to the great political actors in the drama of our liberty. It would seem as if G.o.d was hidden from the souls of men; as if his name had never been written in the language.

History will have the air of being atheistic, while recounting to posterity these _annihilations_, rather than _deaths_, of the celebrated men of the greatest years of France. The victims alone have a G.o.d; the tribunes and lictors have none.

See Mirabeau on his death-bed. "Crown me with flowers," said he, "intoxicate me with perfumes, let me die with the sound of delicious music." Not one word of G.o.d, or of his soul! A sensual philosopher, he asks of death only a supreme sensualism; he desires to give a last pleasure even to agony.

Look at Madam Roland, that strong woman of the Revolution,--upon the car that carries her to death. She looks with scorn upon the stupid People, who kill their prophets and their sibyls. Not one glance to Heaven; only an exclamation for the earth she leaves:--"O, Liberty!"

Approach the prison door of the Girondines: their last night is a banquet, and their last hymn is the _Ma.r.s.eillaise_!

Follow Camille Desmoulins to punishment:--a cold and indecent pleasantry at the tribunal; one long imprecation on the road to the guillotine;--those are the last thoughts of this dying man, about to appear on high!

Listen to Danton, upon the platform of the scaffold, one step from G.o.d and immortality:--"I have enjoyed much; let me go to sleep," he says;--then, to the executioner, "You will show my head to the People; it is worth while!" Annihilation for a confession of faith; vanity for his last sigh: such is the Frenchman of these latter days!

What do you think of the religious sentiment of a free People, whose great characters seem to walk thus in procession to annihilation; and die, without even death, that terrible minister, recalling to their minds the fear or the promises of G.o.d?

Thus the Republic,--which had no future,--reared by these men, and mere parties, was quickly overthrown in blood. Liberty, achieved by so much heroism and genius, did not find in France a conscience to shelter it, a G.o.d to avenge it, a People to defend it, against that other Atheism called Glory! All was finished by a soldier, and by the apostacy of republicans travestied into courtiers! And what could you expect? Republican Atheism has no reason to be heroic. If it is terrified, it yields. Would one buy it, it sells itself; it would be most foolish to sacrifice itself. Who would mourn for it?--the People are ungrateful, and G.o.d does not exist.

Thus end atheistic revolutions!

XIX.

If you wish that this revolution should not have the same end, beware of abject Materialism, degrading Sensualism, gross Socialism, of besotted Communism; of all these doctrines of flesh and blood, of meat and drink, of hunger and thirst, of wages and traffic, which these corruptors of the soul of the People preach to you, exclusively, as the sole thought, the sole hope, as the only duty, and only end of man! They will soon make you slaves of ease, serfs of your desires.

Are you willing to have inscribed on the tomb of our French race, as on that of the _Sybarites_, this epitaph: "This People ate and drank well, while they browsed upon the earth?" No! You desire that History should write thus: "This People worshipped well, served G.o.d and humanity well,--in thought, in philosophy, in religion, in literature, in arts, in arms, in labor, in liberty, in their Aristocracies, in their Democracies, in their Monarchies, and their Republics! This nation was the spiritual laborer, the conqueror of truth; the disciple of the highest G.o.d, in all the ways of civilization,--and, to approach nearer to him, it invented the Republic, that government of duties and of rights, that rule of spiritualism, which finds in _ideas_ its only sovereignty."

Seek G.o.d, then. This is your nature and your grandeur. And do not seek Him in these Materialisms! For G.o.d is not below,--he is on high!

LAMARTINE,

_Representative of the People_.

THE END.