Dimmer and dimmer, as the generations pass away, this tremendous terror,
this all-pervading espionage of evil, this active incarnation of
motiveless malignity, presents itself to the imagination. The once
imposing and solemn rite of exorcism has become obsolete in the Church.
Men are no longer, in any quarter of the world, racked or pressed under
planks to extort a confession of diabolical alliance. The heretic now
laughs to scorn the solemn farce of the Church which, in the name of the
All-Merciful, formally delivers him over to Satan. And for the sake of
abused and long-cheated humanity let us rejoice that it is so, when we
consider how for long, weary centuries the millions of professed
Christendom stooped, awestricken, under the yoke of spiritual and
temporal despotism, grinding on from generation to generation in a
despair which had passed complaining, because superstition, in alliance
with tyranny, had filled their upward pathway to freedom with shapes of
terror,--the spectres of God's wrath to the uttermost, the fiend, and
that torment the smoke of which rises forever. Through fear of a Satan
of the future,--a sort of ban-dog of priestcraft, held in its leash and
ready to be let loose upon the disputers of its authority,--our toiling
brothers of past ages have permitted their human taskmasters to convert
God's beautiful world, so adorned and fitted for the peace and happiness
of all, into a great prison-house of suffering, filled with the actual
terrors which the imagination of the old poets gave to the realm of
Rhadamanthus. And hence, while I would not weaken in the slightest
degree the influence of that doctrine of future retribution,--the
accountability of the spirit for the deeds done in the body,--the truth
of which reason, revelation, and conscience unite in attesting as the
necessary result of the preservation in another state of existence of the
soul's individuality and identity, I must, nevertheless, rejoice that the
many are no longer willing to permit the few, for their especial benefit,
to convert our common Father's heritage into a present hell, where, in
return for undeserved suffering and toil uncompensated, they can have
gracious and comfortable assurance of release from a future one. Better
is the fear of the Lord than the fear of the Devil; holier and more
acceptable the obedience of love and reverence than the submission of
slavish terror. The heart which has felt the "beauty of holiness," which
has been in some measure attuned to the divine harmony which now, as of
old in the angel-hymn of the Advent, breathes of "glory to God, peace on
earth, and good-will to men," in the serene atmosphere of that "perfect
love which casteth out fear," smiles at the terrors which throng the sick
dreams of the sensual, which draw aside the nightcurtains of guilt, and
startle with whispers of revenge the oppressor of the poor.
There is a beautiful moral in one of Fouque's miniature romances,--_Die
Kohlerfamilie_. The fierce spectre, which rose giant-like, in its
bloodred mantle, before the selfish and mercenary merchant, ever
increasing in size and, terror with the growth of evil and impure thought
in the mind of the latter, subdued by prayer, and penitence, and patient
watchfulness over the heart's purity, became a loving and gentle
visitation of soft light and meekest melody; "a beautiful radiance, at
times hovering and flowing on before the traveller, illuminating the
bushes and foliage of the mountain-forest; a lustre strange and lovely,
such as the soul may conceive, but no words express. He felt its power
in the depths of his being,--felt it like the mystic breathing of the
Spirit of God."
The excellent Baxter and other pious men of his day deprecated in all
sincerity and earnestness the growing disbelief in witchcraft and
diabolical agency, fearing that mankind, losing faith in a visible Satan
and in the supernatural powers of certain paralytic old women, would
diverge into universal skepticism. It is one of the saddest of sights to
see these good men standing sentry at the horn gate of dreams; attempting
against the most discouraging odds to defend their poor fallacies from
profane and irreverent investigation; painfully pleading doubtful
Scripture and still more doubtful tradition in behalf of detected and
convicted superstitions tossed on the sharp horns of ridicule, stretched
on the rack of philosophy, or perishing under the exhausted receiver of
science. A clearer knowledge of the aspirations, capacities, and
necessities of the human soul, and of the revelations which the infinite
Spirit makes to it, not only through the senses by the phenomena of
outward nature, but by that inward and direct communion which, under
different names, has been recognized by the devout and thoughtful of
every religious sect and school of philosophy, would have saved them much
anxious labor and a good deal of reproach withal in their hopeless
championship of error. The witches of Baxter and "the black man" of
Mather have vanished; belief in them is no longer possible on the part of
sane men. But this mysterious universe, through which, half veiled in
its own shadow, our dim little planet is wheeling, with its star worlds
and thought-wearying spaces, remains. Nature's mighty miracle is still
over and around us; and hence awe, wonder, and reverence remain to be the
inheritance of humanity; still are there beautiful repentances and holy
deathbeds; and still over the soul's darkness and confusion rises,
starlike, the great idea of duty. By higher and better influences than
the poor spectres of superstition, man must henceforth be taught to
reverence the Invisible, and, in the consciousness of his own weakness,
and sin, and sorrow, to lean with childlike trust on the wisdom and mercy
of an overruling Providence,--walking by faith through the shadow and
mystery, and cheered by the remembrance that, whatever may be his
apparent allotment,--
"God's greatness flows around our incompleteness;
Round our restlessness His rest."
It is a sad spectacle to find the glad tidings of the Christian faith and
its "reasonable service" of devotion transformed by fanaticism and
credulity into superstitious terror and wild extravagance; but, if
possible, there is one still sadder. It is that of men in our own time
regarding with satisfaction such evidences of human weakness, and
professing to find in them new proofs of their miserable theory of a
godless universe, and new occasion for sneering at sincere devotion as
cant, and humble reverence as fanaticism. Alas! in comparison with
such, the religious enthusiast, who in the midst of his delusion still
feels that he is indeed a living soul and an heir of immortality, to whom
God speaks from the immensities of His universe, is a sane man. Better
is it, in a life like ours, to be even a howling dervis or a dancing
Shaker, confronting imaginary demons with Thalaba's talisman of faith,
than to lose the consciousness of our own spiritual nature, and look upon
ourselves as mere brute masses of animal organization,--barnacles on a
dead universe; looking into the dull grave with no hope beyond it; earth
gazing into earth, and saying to corruption, "Thou art my father," and to
the worm, "Thou art my sister."