Considerations on Religion and Public Education Part 1

Considerations on Religion and Public Education.

by Hannah More.

A PREFATORY ADDRESS TO THE LADIES, &c. of GREAT BRITAIN and IRELAND, IN BEHALF OF THE FRENCH EMIGRANT CLERGY.

[Decoration]

If it be allowed that there may arise occasions so extraordinary, that all the lesser motives of delicacy ought to vanish before them; it is presumed that the present emergency will in some measure justify the hardiness of an Address from a private individual, who, stimulated by the urgency of the case, sacrifices inferior considerations to the ardent desire of raising further supplies towards relieving a distress as pressing as it is unexampled.

We are informed by public advertis.e.m.e.nt, that the large sums already so liberally subscribed for the Emigrant Clergy, are almost exhausted.

Authentic information adds, that mult.i.tudes of distressed Exiles in the island of Jersey, are on the point of wanting bread.

Very many to whom this address is made have already contributed. O let them not be weary in well-doing! Many are making generous exertions for the just and natural claims of the widows and children of our brave seamen and soldiers. Let it not be said, that the present is an _interfering_ claim. Those to whom I write, have bread enough, and to spare. You, who fare sumptuously every day, and yet complain you have little to bestow, let not this bounty be subtracted from another bounty, but rather from some superfluous expense.

The beneficent and right minded want no arguments to be pressed upon them; but I write to those of every description. Luxurious habits of living, which really furnish the distressed with the fairest grounds for application, are too often urged as a motive for withholding a.s.sistance, and produced as a plea for having little to spare. Let her who indulges such habits, and pleads such excuses in consequence, reflect, that by retrenching _one_ costly dish from her abundant table, the superfluities of _one_ expensive desert, _one_ evening's public amus.e.m.e.nt, she may furnish at least a week's subsistence to more than one person,[A] as liberally bred perhaps as herself, and who, in his own country, may have often tasted how much more blessed it is to give than to receive--to a minister of G.o.d, who has been long accustomed to bestow the necessaries he is now reduced to solicit.

Even your young daughters, whom maternal prudence has not yet furnished with the means of bestowing, may be cheaply taught the first rudiments of charity, together with an important lesson of economy: They may be taught to sacrifice a feather, a set of ribbons, an expensive ornament, an idle diversion. And if they are thus instructed, that there is no true charity without self denial, they will _gain_ more than they are called upon to _give_: For the suppression of one luxury for a charitable purpose, is the exercise of two virtues, and this without any pecuniary expense.

Let the sick and afflicted remember how dreadful it must be, to be exposed to sufferings, without one of the alleviations which mitigate _their_ affliction. How dreadful it is to be without comforts, without necessaries, without a home--_without a country_! While the gay and prosperous would do well to recollect, how suddenly and terribly those for whom we plead, were, by the surprising vicissitudes of life, thrown from equal heights of gaiety and prosperity. And let those who have husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, or friends, reflect on the uncertainties of war, and the revolution of human affairs. It is only by imagining the possibility of those who are dear to us being placed in the same calamitous circ.u.mstances, that we can obtain an adequate feeling of the woes we are called upon to commiserate.

In a distress so wide and comprehensive, many are prevented from giving by that common excuse--"That it is but a drop of water in the ocean."

But let them reflect, that if all the individual drops were withheld, there would be no ocean at all; and the inability to give much ought not, on any occasion, to be converted into an excuse for giving nothing.

Even moderate circ.u.mstances need not plead an exemption. The industrious tradesman will not, even in a political view, be eventually a loser by his small contribution. The money raised is neither carried out of our country, nor dissipated in luxuries, but returns again to the community; to our shops and to our markets, to procure the bare necessaries of life.

Some have objected to the difference of _religion_ of those for whom we solicit. Such an objection hardly deserves a serious answer. Surely if the superst.i.tious Tartar hopes to become possessed of the courage and talents of the enemy he slays, the Christian is not afraid of catching, or of propagating the error of the sufferer he relieves.--Christian charity is of no party. We plead not for their faith, but for their wants. And let the more scrupulous, who look for desert as well as distress in the objects of their bounty, bear in mind, that if these men could have sacrificed their conscience to their convenience, they had not now been in this country. Let us shew them the purity of _our_ religion, by the beneficence of our actions.

If you will permit me to press upon you such high motives (and it were to be wished that in every action we were to be influenced by the highest) perhaps no act of bounty to which you may be called out, can ever come so immediately under that solemn and affecting description, which will be recorded in the great day of account--_I was a stranger and ye took me in_.----

[Decoration]

_The following is an exact Translation from a_ SPEECH _made in the National Convention at Paris, on Friday the 14th of December, 1792, in a Debate on the Subject of establishing Public Schools for the Education of Youth, by Citizen_ DUPONT, _a Member of considerable Weight; and as the Doctrines contained in it were received with unanimous Applause, except from two or three of the Clergy, it may be fairly considered as an Exposition of the Creed of that Enlightened a.s.sembly. Translated from_ Le Moniteur _of Sunday the 16th of December, 1792_.

[Decoration]

What! Thrones are overturned! Sceptres broken! Kings expire! And yet the Altars of G.o.d remain! (Here there is a murmur from some Members; and the Abbe ICHON demands that the person speaking may be called to order.) Tyrants, in outrage to nature, continue to burn an impious incense on those Altars! (Some murmurs arise, but they are lost in the applauses from the majority of the a.s.sembly.) The Thrones that have been reversed, have left these Altars naked, unsupported, and tottering. A single breath of enlightened reason will now be sufficient to make them disappear; and if humanity is under obligations to the French nation for the first of these benefits, the fall of Kings, can it be doubted but that the French people, now sovereign, will be wise enough, in like manner, to overthrow those Altars and _those Idols_ to which those Kings have hitherto made them subject? _Nature_ and _Reason_, these ought to be the G.o.ds of men! These are my G.o.ds! (Here the Abbe AUDREIN cried out, "There is no bearing this;" and rushed out of the a.s.sembly.--A great laugh.) Admire _nature_--cultivate _reason_. And you, Legislators, if you desire that the French people should be happy, make haste to propagate these principles, and to teach them in your primary schools, instead of those fanatical principles which have hitherto been taught.

The tyranny of Kings was confined to make their people miserable in this life--but those other tyrants, the Priests, extend their dominion into another, of which they have no other idea than of eternal punishments; a doctrine which some men have hitherto had the good nature to believe.

But the moment of the catastrophe is come--all these prejudices must fall at the same time. _We must destroy them, or they will destroy us._--For myself, I honestly avow to the Convention, _I am an atheist_!

(Here there is some noise and tumult. But a great number of members cry out, "What is that to us--you are an honest man!") But I defy a single individual, among the twenty-four millions of Frenchmen, to make against me any well grounded reproach. I doubt whether the Christians, or the Catholics, of which the last speaker, and those of his opinion, have been talking to us, can make the same challenge.--(Great applauses.) There is another consideration--Paris has had great losses. It has been deprived of the commerce of luxury; of that fact.i.tious splendour which was found at courts, and invited strangers. .h.i.ther. Well! We must repair these losses.--Let me then represent to you the times, that are fast approaching, when our philosophers, whose names are celebrated throughout Europe, PETION, SYEYES, CONDORCET, and others--surrounded in our Pantheon, as the Greek philosophers where at Athens, with a crowd of disciples coming from all parts of Europe, walking like the Peripatetics, and teaching--this man, the system of the universe, and developing the progress of all human knowledge; that, perfectioning the social system, and shewing in our decree of the 17th of June, 1789, the seeds of the insurrections of the 14th of July and the 10th of August, and of all those insurrections which are spreading with such rapidity throughout Europe--So that these young strangers, on their return to their respective countries, may spread the same lights, and may operate, _for the happiness of Mankind_, similar revolutions throughout the world.

(Numberless applauses arose, almost throughout the whole a.s.sembly, and in the Galleries.)

[Decoration]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: Mr. Bowdler's letter states, that about Six Shillings a week included the expenses of each Priest at Winchester.]

[Decoration]

REMARKS

ON THE

SPEECH of Mr. DUPONT,

ON THE SUBJECTS OF

Religion and Public Education.

[Decoration]

It is presumed that it may not be thought unseasonable at this critical time to offer to the Public, and especially to the more religious part of it, a few slight observations, occasioned by the late famous Speech of Mr. Dupont, which exhibits the Confession of Faith of a considerable Member of the French National Convention. Though the Speech itself has been pretty generally read, yet it was thought necessary to perfix it to these Remarks, lest such as have not already perused it, might, from an honest reluctance to credit the existence of such principles, dispute its authenticity, and accuse the remarks, if unaccompanied by the Speech, of a spirit of invective and unfair exaggeration. At the same time it must be confessed, that its impiety is so monstrous, that many good men were of opinion it ought not to be made familiar to the minds of Englishmen; for there are crimes with which even the imagination should never come in contact.

But as an ancient nation intoxicated their slaves, and then exposed them before their children, in order to increase their horror of intemperance; so it is hoped that this piece of impiety may be placed in such a light before the eyes of the Christian reader, that, in proportion as his detestation is raised, his faith, instead of being shaken, will be only so much the more strengthened.

This celebrated Speech, though delivered in an a.s.sembly of Politicians, is not on a question of politics, but on one as superior as the soul is to the body, and eternity to time. The object here, is not to dethrone kings, but HIM by whom kings reign. It does not here excite the cry of indignation that _Louis_ reigns, but that _the Lord G.o.d omnipotent reigneth_.

Nor is this the declaration of some obscure and anonymous person, but an exposition of the Creed of a public Leader. It is not a sentiment hinted in a journal, hazarded in a pamphlet, or thrown out at a disputing club: but it is the implied faith of the rulers of a great nation.

Little notice would have been due to this famous Speech, if it had conveyed the sentiments of only _one_ vain orator; but it should be observed, that it was heard, received, _applauded_, with two or three exceptions only--a fact, which you, who have scarcely believed in the existence of atheism, will hardly credit, and which, for the honour of the eighteenth century, it is hoped that our posterity, being still more unacquainted with such corrupt opinions, will reject as totally incredible.

A love of liberty, generous in its principle, inclines some good men still to savour the proceedings of the National Convention of France.

They do not yet perceive that the licentious wildness which has been excited in that country, is destructive of all true happiness, and no more resemble liberty, than the tumultuous joys of the drunkard, resemble the cheerfulness of a sober and well regulated mind.

To those who do not know of what strange inconsistences man is made up; who have not considered how some persons, having at first been hastily and heedlessly drawn in as approvers, by a sort of natural progression, soon become princ.i.p.als;--to those who have never observed by what a variety of strange a.s.sociations in the mind, opinions that seem the most irreconcileable meet at some unsuspected turning, and come to be united in the same man;--to all such it may appear quite incredible, that well meaning and even pious people should continue to applaud the principles of a set of men who have publicly made known their intention of abolishing Christianity, as far as the demolition of altars, priests, temples, and inst.i.tutions, _can_ abolish it; and as to the religion itself, this also they may traduce, and for their own part reject, but we know, from the comfortable promise of an authority still sacred in this country at least, that _the gates of h.e.l.l shall not prevail against it_.

Let me not be misunderstood by those to whom these slight remarks are princ.i.p.ally addressed; that cla.s.s of well intentioned people, who favour at least, if they do not adopt, the prevailing sentiments of the new Republic. You are not here accused of being the wilful abetters of infidelity. G.o.d forbid! "we are persuaded better things of you, and things which accompany salvation." But this _ignis fatuus_ of liberty and universal brotherhood, which the French are madly pursuing, with the insignia of freedom in one hand, and the b.l.o.o.d.y bayonet in the other, has bewitched your senses, and is in danger of misleading your steps.

You are gazing at a meteor raised by the vapours of vanity, which these wild and infatuated wanderers are pursuing to their destruction; and though for a moment you mistake it for a heaven-born light, which leads to the perfection of human freedom, you will, should you join in the mad pursuit, soon discover that it will conduct you over dreary wilds and sinking bogs, only to plunge you in deep and inevitable ruin.

Much, very much is to be said in vindication of your favouring in the first instance their political projects. The cause they took in hand seemed to be the great cause of human kind. Its very name insured its popularity. What English heart did not exult at the demolition of the Bastile? What lover of his species did not triumph in the warm hope, that one of the finest countries in the world would soon be one of the most free? Popery and despotism, though chained by the gentle influence of Louis XVIth, had actually slain their thousands. Little was it then imagined, that anarchy and atheism, the monsters who were about to succeed them, would soon slay their ten thousands. If we cannot regret the defeat of the two former tyrants, what must they be who can triumph in the mischiefs of the two latter? Who, I say, that had a head to reason, or a heart to feel, did not glow with hope, that from the ruins of tyranny, and the rubbish of popery, a beautiful and finely framed edifice would in time have been constructed, and that ours would not have been the only country in which the patriot's fair idea of well understood liberty, and of the most pure and reasonable, as well as the most sublime and exalted Christianity might be realized?

But, alas! it frequently happens that the wise and good are not the most adventurous in attacking the mischiefs which they perceive and lament.

With a timidity in some respects virtuous, they fear attempting any thing which may possible aggravate the evils they deplore, or put to hazard the blessings they already enjoy. They dread plucking up the wheat with the tares, and are rather apt, with a spirit of hopeless resignation,

"To bear the ills they have, "Than fly to others that they know not of."

While sober minded and considerate men, therefore, sat mourning over this complicated ma.s.s of error, and waited till G.o.d, in his own good time, should open the blind eyes; the vast scheme of reformation was left to that set of rash and presumptuous adventurers, who are generally watching how they may convert public grievances to their own personal account. It was undertaken, not upon the broad basis of a wise and well digested scheme, of which all the parts should contribute to the perfection of one consistent whole: It was carried on, not by those steady measures, founded on rational deliberation, which are calculated to accomplish so important an end; not with a temperance which indicated a sober love of law, or a sacred regard for religion; but with the most extravagant l.u.s.t of power, and the most inordinate vanity which perhaps ever instigated human measures; a l.u.s.t of power which threatens to extend its desolating influence over the whole globe; a vanity of the same destructive species with that which stimulated the celebrated incendiary of Ephesus, who being weary of his native obscurity and insignificance, and prefering infamy to oblivion, could contrive no other road to fame and immortality, than that of setting fire to the exquisite Temple of Diana. He was remembered indeed, as he desired to be, but only to be execrated; while the seventh wonder of the world lay prostrate through his crime.

It is the same over ruling vanity which operates in their politics, and in their religion, which makes Kersaint[B] boast of carrying his destructive projects from the Tagus to the Brazils, and from Mexico to the sh.o.r.es of the Ganges; which makes him menace to outstrip the enterprises of the most extravagant hero of romance, and almost undertake with the marvelous celerity of the nimbly footed Puck,