(April 1839) _The state in its Relations with the church. By W. E.
GLADSTONE, Esq. Student of Christ Church, and M.P. for Newark. 8vo.
Second Edition. London: 1839._
|THE author of this volume is a young man of unblemished character, and
of distinguished parliamentary talents, the rising hope of those stern
and unbending Tories who follow, reluctantly and mutinously, a leader
whose experience and eloquence are indispensable to them, but whose
cautious temper and moderate opinions they abhor. It would not be at all
strange if Mr. Gladstone were one of the most unpopular men in England.
But we believe that we do him no more than justice when we say that
his abilities and his demeanour have obtained for him the respect and
goodwill of all parties. His first appearance in the character of an
author is therefore an interesting event; and it is natural that the
gentle wishes of the public should go with him to his trial.
We are much pleased, without any reference to the soundness or
unsoundness of Mr. Gladstone’s theories, to see a grave and elaborate
treatise on an important part of the Philosophy of Government proceed
from the pen of a young man who is rising to eminence in the House of
Commons. There is little danger that people engaged in the conflicts
of active life will be too much addicted to general speculation. The
opposite vice is that which most easily besets them. The times and tides
of business and debate tarry for no man. A politician must often talk
and act before he has thought and read. He may be very ill informed
respecting a question; all his notions about it may be vague and
inaccurate; but speak he must; and if he is a man of ability, of tact,
and of intrepidity, he soon finds that, even under such circumstances,
it is possible to speak successfully. He finds that there is a great
difference between the effect of written words, which are perused and
reperused in the stillness of the closet, and the effect of spoken words
which, set off by the graces of utterance and gesture, vibrate for a
single moment on the ear. He finds that he may blunder without much
chance of being detected, that he may reason sophistically, and
escape unrefuted. He finds that, even on knotty questions of trade and
legislation, he can, without reading ten pages, or thinking ten minutes,
draw forth loud plaudits, and sit down with the credit of having made an
excellent speech. Lysias, says Plutarch, wrote a defence for a man who
was to be tried before one of the Athenian tribunals. Long before
the defendant had learned the speech by heart, he became so much
dissatisfied with it that he went in great distress to the author. “I
was delighted with your speech the first time I read it; but I liked it
less the second time, and still less the third time; and now it seems to
me to be no defence at all.” “My good friend,” says Lysias, “you quite
forget that the judges are to hear it only once.” The case is the same
in the English Parliament. It would be as idle in an orator to waste
deep meditation and long research on his speeches, as it would be in the
manager of a theatre to adorn all the crowd of courtiers and ladies who
cross over the stage in a procession with real pearls and diamonds. It
is not by accuracy or profundity that men become the masters of great
assemblies. And why be at the charge of providing logic of the best
quality, when a very inferior article will be equally acceptable? Why
go as deep into a question as Burke, only in order to be, like Burke,
coughed down, or left speaking to green benches and red boxes? This has
long appeared to us to be the most serious of the evils which are to be
set off against the many blessings of popular government. It is a fine
and true saying of Bacon, that reading makes a full man, talking a ready
man, and writing an exact man. The tendency of institutions like those
of England is to encourage readiness in public men, at the expense both
of fulness and of exactness. The keenest and most vigorous minds of
every generation, minds often admirably fitted for the investigation of
truth, are habitually employed in producing arguments such as no man of
sense would ever put into a treatise intended for publication, arguments
which are just good enough to be used once, when aided by fluent
delivery and pointed language. The habit of discussing questions in this
way necessarily reacts on the intellects of our ablest men, particularly
of those who are introduced into Parliament at a very early age, before
their minds have expanded to full maturity. The talent for debate is
developed in such men to a degree which, to the multitude, seems as
marvellous as the performance of an Italian Improvisatore. But they
are fortunate indeed if they retain unimpaired the faculties which are
required for close reasoning or for enlarged speculation. Indeed we
should sooner expect a great original work on political science, such
a work, for example, as the Wealth of Nations, from an apothecary in a
country town, or from a minister in the Hebrides, than from a statesman
who, ever since he was one-and-twenty, had been a distinguished debater
in the House of Commons.
We therefore hail with pleasure, though assuredly not with unmixed
pleasure, the appearance of this work. That a young politician should,
in the intervals afforded by his parliamentary avocations, have
constructed and propounded, with much study and mental toil, an
original theory on a great problem in politics, is a circumstance which,
abstracted from all consideration of the soundness or unsoundness of his
opinions, must be considered as highly creditable to him. We certainly
cannot wish that Mr. Gladstone’s doctrines may become fashionable among
public men. But we heartily wish that his laudable desire to penetrate
beneath the surface of questions, and to arrive, by long and intent
meditation, at the knowledge of great general laws, were much more
fashionable than we at all expect it to become.
Mr. Gladstone seems to us to be, in many respects, exceedingly well
qualified for philosophical investigation. His mind is of large grasp;
nor is he deficient in dialectical skill. But he does not give his
intellect fair play. There is no want of light, but a great want of
what Bacon would have called dry light. Whatever Mr. Gladstone sees is
refracted and distorted by a false medium of passions and prejudices.
His style bears a remarkable analogy to his mode of thinking, and indeed
exercises great influence on his mode of thinking. His rhetoric, though
often good of its kind, darkens and perplexes the logic which it should
illustrate. Half his acuteness and diligence, with a barren imagination
and a scanty vocabulary, would have saved him from almost all his
mistakes. He has one gift most dangerous to a speculator, a vast command
of a kind of language, grave and majestic, but of vague and uncertain
import; of a kind of language which affects us much in the same way
in which the lofty diction of the Chorus of Clouds affected the
simple-hearted Athenian:
O ge ton phthegmatos os ieron, kai semnon, kai teratodes.
When propositions have been established, and nothing remains but to
amplify and decorate them, this dim magnificence may be in place. But if
it is admitted into a demonstration, it is very much worse than absolute
nonsense; just as that transparent haze, through which the sailor
sees capes and mountains of false sizes and in false bearings, is more
dangerous than utter darkness. Now, Mr. Gladstone is fond of employing
the phraseology of which we speak in those parts of his works which
require the utmost perspicuity and precision of which human language is
capable; and in this way he deludes first himself, and then his readers.
The foundations of his theory, which ought to be buttresses of adamant,
are made out of the flimsy materials which are fit only for perorations.
This fault is one which no subsequent care or industry can correct. The
more strictly Mr. Gladstone reasons on his premises, the more absurd are
the conclusions which he brings out; and, when at last his good sense
and good nature recoil from the horrible practical inferences to which
this theory leads, he is reduced sometimes to take refuge in arguments
inconsistent with his fundamental doctrines, and sometimes to escape
from the legitimate consequences of his false principles, under cover of
equally false history.
It would be unjust not to say that this book, though not a good book,
shows more talent than many good books. It abounds with eloquent and
ingenious passages. It bears the signs of much patient thought. It is
written throughout with excellent taste and excellent temper; nor does
it, so far as we have observed, contain one expression unworthy of a
gentleman, a scholar, or a Christian. But the doctrines which are put
forth in it appear to us, after full and calm consideration, to be
false, to be in the highest degree pernicious, and to be such as,
if followed out in practice to their legitimate consequences, would
inevitably produce the dissolution of society; and for this opinion we
shall proceed to give our reasons with that freedom which the importance
of the subject requires, and which Mr. Gladstone, both by precept and by
example, invites us to use, but, we hope, without rudeness, and, we are
sure, without malevolence.
Before we enter on an examination of this theory, we wish to guard
ourselves against one misconception. It is possible that some persons
who have read Mr. Gladstone’s book carelessly, and others who have
merely heard in conversation, or seen in a newspaper, that the member
for Newark has written in defence of the Church of England against the
supporters of the voluntary system, may imagine that we are writing in
defence of the voluntary system, and that we desire the abolition of
the Established Church. This is not the case. It would be as unjust to
accuse us of attacking the Church, because we attack Mr. Gladstone’s
doctrines, as it would be to accuse Locke of wishing for anarchy,
because he refuted Filmer’s patriarchal theory of government, or to
accuse Blackstone of recommending the confiscation of ecclesiastical
property, because he denied that the right of the rector to tithe was
derived from the Levitical law. It is to be observed, that Mr. Gladstone
rests his case on entirely new grounds, and does not differ more widely
from us than from some of those who have hitherto been considered as
the most illustrious champions of the Church. He is not content with
the Ecclesiastical Polity, and rejoices that the latter part of that
celebrated work “does not carry with it the weight of Hooker’s plenary
authority.” He is not content with Bishop Warburton’s Alliance of Church
and State. “The propositions of that work generally,” he says, “are
to be received with qualification”; and he agrees with Bolingbroke in
thinking that Warburton’s whole theory rests on a fiction. He is still
less satisfied with Paley’s defence of the Church, which he pronounces
to be “tainted by the original vice of false ethical principles, and
full of the seeds of evil.” He conceives that Dr. Chalmers has taken a
partial view of the subject, and “put forth much questionable matter.”
In truth, on almost every point on which we are opposed to Mr.
Gladstone, we have on our side the authority of some divine, eminent as
a defender of existing establishments.
Mr. Gladstone’s whole theory rests on this great fundamental
proposition, that the propagation of religious truth is one of the
principal ends of government, as government. If Mr. Gladstone has not
proved this proposition, his system vanishes at once.
We are desirous, before we enter on the discussion of this important
question, to point out clearly a distinction which, though very obvious,
seems to be overlooked by many excellent people. In their opinion,
to say that the ends of government are temporal and not spiritual
is tantamount to saying that the temporal welfare of man is of more
importance than his spiritual welfare. But this is an entire mistake.
The question is not whether spiritual interests be or be not superior
in importance to temporal interests; but whether the machinery which
happens at any moment to be employed for the purpose of protecting
certain temporal interests of a society be necessarily such a machinery
as is fitted to promote the spiritual interests of that society. Without
a division of labour the world could not go on. It is of very much
more importance that men should have food than that they should have
pianofortes. Yet it by no means follows that every pianoforte maker
ought to add the business of a baker to his own; for, if he did so, we
should have both much worse music and much worse bread. It is of much
more importance that the knowledge of religious truth should be wisely
diffused than that the art of sculpture should flourish among us. Yet
it by no means follows that the Royal Academy ought to unite with
its present functions those of the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, to distribute theological tracts, to send forth missionaries,
to turn out Nollekens for being a Catholic, Bacon for being a Methodist,
and Flaxman for being a Swedenborgian. For the effect of such folly
would be that we should have the worst possible Academy of Arts, and
the worst possible Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. The
community, it is plain, would be thrown into universal confusion, if it
were supposed to be the duty of every association which is formed for
one good object to promote every other good object.
As to some of the ends of civil government, all people are agreed.
That it is designed to protect our persons and our property; that it
is designed to compel us to satisfy our wants, not by rapine, but by
industry; that it is designed to compel us to decide our differences,
not by the strong hand, but by arbitration; that it is designed to
direct our whole force, as that of one man, against any other society
which may offer us injury; these are propositions which will hardly be
disputed.
Now these are matters in which man, without any reference to any higher
being, or to any future state, is very deeply interested. Every human
being, be he idolater, Mahometan, Jew, Papist, Socinian, Deist, or
Atheist, naturally loves life, shrinks from pain, desires comforts
which can be enjoyed only in communities where property is secure. To be
murdered, to be tortured, to be robbed, to be sold into slavery, these
are evidently evils from which men of every religion, and men of no
religion, wish to be protected; and therefore it will hardly be disputed
that men of every religion, and of no religion, have thus far a common
interest in being well governed.
But the hopes and fears of man are not limited to this short life and to
this visible world. He finds himself surrounded by the signs of a power
and wisdom higher than his own; and, in all ages and nations, men of all
orders of intellect, from Bacon and Newton, down to the rudest tribes
of cannibals, have believed in the existence of some superior mind. Thus
far the voice of mankind is almost unanimous. But whether there be one
God, or many, what may be God’s natural and what His moral attributes,
in what relation His creatures stand to Him, whether He have ever
disclosed Himself to us by any other revelation than that which is
written in all the parts of the glorious and well-ordered world which He
has made, whether His revelation be contained in any permanent record,
how that record should be interpreted, and whether it have pleased
Him to appoint any unerring interpreter on earth, these are questions
respecting which there exists the widest diversity of opinion, and
respecting some of which a large part of our race has, ever since the
dawn of regular history, been deplorably in error.
Now here are two great objects: one is the protection of the persons
and estates of citizens from injury; the other is the propagation of
religious truth. No two objects more entirely distinct can well be
imagined.
The former belongs wholly to the visible and tangible world in which we
live; the latter belongs to that higher world which is beyond the reach
of our senses. The former belongs to this life; the latter to that which
is to come. Men who are perfectly agreed as to the importance of the
former object, and as to the way of obtaining it, differ as widely as
possible respecting the latter object. We must, therefore, pause before
we admit that the persons, be they who they may, who are intrusted with
power for the promotion of the former object, ought always to use that
power for the promotion of the latter object.
Mr. Gladstone conceives that the duties of governments are paternal; a
doctrine which we shall not believe till he can show us some government
which loves its subjects as a father loves a child, and which is as
superior in intelligence to its subjects as a father is to a child. He
tells us in lofty though somewhat indistinct language, that “Government
occupies in moral the place of to pan in physical science.” If
government be indeed to pan in moral science, we do not understand why
rulers should not assume all the functions which Plato assigned to them.
Why should they not take away the child from the mother, select the
nurse, regulate the school, overlook the playground, fix the hours of
labour and of recreation, prescribe what ballads shall be sung, what
tunes shall be played, what books shall be read, what physic shall be
swallowed? Why should not they choose our wives, limit our expenses, and
stint us to a certain number of dishes of meat, of glasses of wine, and
of cups of tea? Plato, whose hardihood in speculation was perhaps more
wonderful than any other peculiarity of his extraordinary mind, and who
shrank from nothing to which his principles led, went this whole length.
Mr. Gladstone is not so intrepid. He contents himself with laying down
this proposition, that whatever be the body which in any community is
employed to protect the persons and property of men, that body ought
also, in its corporate capacity, to profess a religion, to employ its
power for the propagation of that religion, and to require conformity to
that religion, as an indispensable qualification for all civil office.
He distinctly declares that he does not in this proposition confine
his view to orthodox governments or even to Christian governments. The
circumstance that a religion is false does not, he tells us, diminish
the obligation of governors, as such, to uphold it. If they neglect to
do so, “we cannot,” he says, “but regard the fact as aggravating the
case of the holders of such creed.” “I do not scruple to affirm,” he
adds, “that if a Mahometan conscientiously believes his religion to come
from God, and to teach divine truth, he must believe that truth to be
beneficial, and beneficial beyond all other things to the soul of man;
and he must therefore, and ought to desire its extension, and to use
for its extension all proper and legitimate means; and that, if
such Mahometan be a prince, he ought to count among those means the
application of whatever influence or funds he may lawfully have at his
disposal for such purposes.”
Surely this is a hard saying. Before we admit that the Emperor Julian,
in employing the influence and the funds at his disposal for the
extinction of Christianity, was doing no more than his duty, before we
admit that the Arian Theodoric would have committed a crime if he had
suffered a single believer in the divinity of Christ to hold any civil
employment in Italy, before we admit that the Dutch Government is bound
to exclude from office all members of the Church of England, the King
of Bavaria to exclude from office all Protestants, the Great Turk to
exclude from office all Christians, the King of Ava to exclude from
office all who hold the unity of God, we think ourselves entitled to
demand very full and accurate demonstration. When the consequences of
a doctrine are so startling, we may well require that its foundations
shall be very solid.
The following paragraph is a specimen of the arguments by which Mr.
Gladstone has, as he conceives, established his great fundamental
proposition:
We may state the same proposition in a more general form, in which it
surely must command universal assent. Wherever there is power in
the universe, that power is the property of God, the King of that
universe--his property of right, however for a time withholden or
abused. Now this property is, as it were, realised, is used according to
the will of the owner, when it is used for the purposes he has ordained,
and in the temper of mercy, justice, truth, and faith which he has
taught us. But those principles never can be truly, never can be
permanently entertained in the human breast, except by a continual
reference to their source, and the supply of the Divine grace. The
powers, therefore, that dwell in individuals acting as a government as
well as those that dwell in individuals acting for themselves, can only
he secured for right uses by applying to them a religion.
Here are propositions of vast and indefinite extent, conveyed in
language which has a certain obscure dignity and sagacity, attractive,
we doubt not, to many minds. But the moment that we examine these
propositions closely, the moment that we bring them to the test by
running over but a very few of the particulars which are included in
them, we find them to be false and extravagant. The doctrine which “must
surely command universal assent” is this, that every association of
human beings which exercises any power whatever, that is to say, every
association of human beings, is bound, as such association, to profess
a religion. Imagine the effect which would follow if this principle were
really in force during four-and-twenty hours. Take one instance out of a
million. A stage-coach company has power over its horses. This power is
the property of God. It is used according to the will of God when it
is used with mercy. But the principle of mercy can never be truly or
permanently entertained in the human breast without continual reference
to God. The powers, therefore, that dwell in individuals, acting as a
stage-coach company, can only be secured for right uses by applying
to them a religion. Every stage coach company ought, therefore, in its
collective capacity, to profess some one faith, to have its articles,
and its public worship, and its tests. That this conclusion, and
an infinite number of other conclusions equally strange, follow of
necessity from Mr. Gladstone’s principle, is as certain as it is that
two and two make four. And, if the legitimate conclusions be so absurd,
there must be something unsound in the principle.
We will quote another passage of the same sort:
“Why, then, we now come to ask, should the governing body in a state
profess a religion? First, because it is composed of individual men; and
they, being appointed to act in a definite moral capacity, must sanctify
their acts done in that capacity by the offices of religion; inasmuch as
the acts cannot otherwise be acceptable to God, or anything but sinful
and punishable in themselves. And whenever we turn our face away from
God in our conduct, we are living atheistically. . . . In fulfilment,
then, of his obligations as an individual, the statesman must be a
worshipping man. But his acts are public--the powers and instruments
with which he works are public--acting under and by the authority of the
law, he moves at his word ten thousand subject arms; and because such
energies are thus essentially public, and wholly out of the range of
mere individual agency, they must be sanctified not only by the private
personal prayers and piety of those who fill public situations, but also
by public acts of the men composing the public body. They must offer
prayer and praise in their public and collective character--in that
character wherein they constitute the organ of the nation, and wield its
collective force. Wherever there is a reasoning agency there is a moral
duty and responsibility involved in it. The governors are reasoning
agents for the nation, in their conjoint acts as such. And therefore
there must be attached to this agency, as that without which none of our
responsibilities can be met, a religion. And this religion must be that
of the conscience of the governor, or none.”
Here again we find propositions of vast sweep, and of sound so orthodox
and solemn that many good people, we doubt not, have been greatly
edified by it. But let us examine the words closely; and it will
immediately become plain that, if these principles be once admitted,
there is an end of all society. No combination can be formed for any
purpose of mutual help, for trade, for public works, for the relief of
the sick or the poor, for the promotion of art or science, unless the
members of the combination agree in their theological opinions. Take any
such combination at random, the London and Birmingham Railway Company
for example, and observe to what consequences Mr. Gladstone’s arguments
inevitably lead. Why should the Directors of the Railway Company,
in their collective capacity, profess a religion? First, because the
direction is composed of individual men appointed to act in a definite
moral capacity, bound to look carefully to the property, the limbs, and
the lives of their fellow-creatures, bound to act diligently for their
constituents, bound to govern their servants with humanity and justice,
bound to fulfil with fidelity many important contracts. They must,
therefore, sanctify their acts by the offices of religion, or these acts
will be sinful and punishable in themselves. In fulfilment, then, of his
obligations as an individual, the Director of the London and Birmingham
Railway Company must be a worshipping man, But his acts are public. He
acts for a body. He moves at his word ten thousand subject arms. And
because these energies are out of the range of his mere individual
agency, they must be sanctified by public acts of devotion. The Railway
Directors must offer prayer and praise in their public and collective
character, in that character wherewith they constitute the organ of the
Company, and wield its collective power. Wherever there is reasoning
agency, there is moral responsibility. The Directors are reasoning
agents for the Company, and therefore there must be attached to this
agency, as that without which none of our responsibilities can be met,
a religion. And this religion must be that of the conscience of the
Director himself, or none. “There must be public worship and a test.
No Jew, no Socinian, no Presbyterian, no Catholic, no Quaker, must, be
permitted to be the organ of the Company, and to wield its collected
force.” Would Mr. Gladstone really defend this proposition? We are sure
that he would not; but we are sure that to this proposition, and to
innumerable similar propositions, his reasoning inevitably leads.
Again:
“National will and agency are indisputably one, binding either a
dissentient minority or the subject body, in a manner that nothing but
the recognition of the doctrine of national personality can justify.
National honour and good faith are words in every one’s mouth. How do
they less imply a personality in nations than the duty towards God, for
which we now contend? They are strictly and essentially distinct from
the honour and good faith of the individuals composing the nation.
France is a person to us, and we to her. A wilful injury done to her
is a moral act, and a moral act quite distinct from the acts of all the
individuals composing the nation. Upon broad facts like these we may
rest, without resorting to the more technical proof which the laws
afford in their manner of dealing with corporations. If, then, a nation
have unity of will, have pervading sympathies, have capability of
reward and suffering contingent upon its acts, shall we deny its
responsibility; its need of a religion to meet that responsibility? .
. A nation, then, having a personality, lies under the obligation, like
the individuals composing its governing body, of sanctifying the acts of
that personality by the offices of religion, and thus we have a new and
imperative ground for the existence of a state religion.”
A new ground we have here, certainly, but whether very imperative may
be doubted. Is it not perfectly clear, that this argument applies with
exactly as much force to every combination of human beings for a common
purpose, as to governments? Is there any such combination in the world,
whether technically a corporation or not, which has not this collective
personality, from which Mr. Gladstone deduces such extraordinary
consequences? Look at banks, insurance offices, dock companies, canal
companies, gas companies, hospitals, dispensaries, associations for
the relief of the poor, associations for apprehending malefactors,
associations of medical pupils for procuring subjects, associations
of country gentlemen for keeping fox-hounds, book societies, benefit
societies, clubs of all ranks, from those which have lined Pall-Mall and
St. James’s Street with their palaces, down to the Free-and-easy which
meets in the shabby parlour of a village inn. Is there a single one of
these combinations to which Mr. Gladstone’s argument will not apply as
well as to the State? In all these combinations, in the Bank of England,
for example, or in the Athenaeum club, the will and agency of the
society are one, and bind the dissentient minority. The Bank and the
Athenaeum have a good faith and a justice different from the good faith
and justice of the individual members. The Bank is a person to those who
deposit bullion with it. The Athenaeum is a person to the butcher and
the wine-merchant. If the Athenaeum keeps money at the Bank, the two
societies are as much persons to each other as England and France.
Either society may pay its debts honestly; either may try to defraud
its creditors; either may increase in prosperity; either may fall
into difficulties. If, then, they have this unity of will; if they
are capable of doing and suffering good and evil, can we to use Mr.
Gladstone’s words, “deny their responsibility, or their need of a
religion to meet that responsibility?” Joint-stock banks, therefore,
and clubs, “having a personality, lie under the necessity of sanctifying
that personality by the offices of religion;” and thus we have “a new
and imperative ground” for requiring all the directors and clerks of
joint-stock banks, and all the members of clubs, to qualify by taking
the sacrament.
The truth is, that Mr. Gladstone has fallen into an error very common
among men of less talents than his own. It is not unusual for a person
who is eager to prove a particular proposition to assume a major of
huge extent, which includes that particular proposition, without ever
reflecting that it includes a great deal more. The fatal facility with
which Mr. Gladstone multiplies expressions stately and sonorous, but of
indeterminate meaning, eminently qualifies him to practise this sleight
on himself and on his readers. He lays down broad general doctrines
about power, when the only power of which he is thinking is the power of
governments, and about conjoint action when the only conjoint action of
which he is thinking is the conjoint action of citizens in a state.
He first resolves on his conclusion. He then makes a major of most
comprehensive dimensions, and having satisfied himself that it contains
his conclusion, never troubles himself about what else it may contain:
and as soon as we examine it we find that it contains an infinite number
of conclusions, every one of which is a monstrous absurdity.
It is perfectly true that it would be a very good thing if all the
members of all the associations in the world were men of sound religious
views. We have no doubt that a good Christian will be under the guidance
of Christian principles, in his conduct as director of a canal company
or steward of a charity dinner. If he were, to recur to a case which we
have before put, a member of a stage-coach company, he would, in that
capacity, remember that “a righteous man regardeth the life of his
beast.” But it does not follow that every association of men must,
therefore, as such association, profess a religion. It is evident that
many great and useful objects can be attained in this world only by
co-operation. It is equally evident that there cannot be efficient
co-operation, if men proceed on the principle that they must not
co-operate for one object unless they agree about other objects. Nothing
seems to us more beautiful or admirable in our social system than the
facility with which thousands of people, who perhaps agree only on a
single point, can combine their energies for the purpose of carrying
that single point. We see daily instances of this. Two men, one of
them obstinately prejudiced against missions, the other president of
a missionary society, sit together at the board of a hospital, and
heartily concur in measures for the health and comfort of the patients.
Two men, one of whom is a zealous supporter and the other a zealous
opponent of the system pursued in Lancaster’s schools, meet at the
Mendicity Society, and act together with the utmost cordiality. The
general rule we take to be undoubtedly this, that it is lawful and
expedient for men to unite in an association for the promotion of a good
object, though they may differ with respect to other objects of still
higher importance.
It will hardly be denied that the security of the persons and property
of men is a good object, and that the best way, indeed the only way,
of promoting that object, is to combine men together in certain great
corporations which are called States. These corporations are very
variously, and, for the most part very imperfectly organised. Many of
them abound with frightful abuses. But it seems reasonable to believe
that the worst that ever existed was, on the whole, preferable to
complete anarchy.
Now, reasoning from analogy, we should say that these great corporations
would, like all other associations, be likely to attain their end most
perfectly if that end were kept singly in view: and that to refuse
the services of those who are admirably qualified to promote that end,
because they are not also qualified to promote some other end, however
excellent, seems at first sight as unreasonable as it would be to
provide that nobody who was not a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
should be a governor of the Eye Infirmary; or that nobody who was not a
member of the Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews should
be a trustee of the Literary Fund.
It is impossible to name any collection of human beings to which Mr.
Gladstone’s reasonings would apply more strongly than to an army. Where
shall we find more complete unity of action than in an army? Where else
do so many human beings implicitly obey one ruling mind? What other
mass is there which moves so much like one man? Where is such tremendous
power intrusted to those who command? Where is so awful a responsibility
laid upon them? If Mr. Gladstone has made out, as he conceives, an
imperative necessity for a State Religion, much more has he made it out
to be imperatively necessary that every army should, in its collective
capacity, profess a religion. Is he prepared to adopt this consequence?
On the morning of the thirteenth of August, in the year 1704, two great
captains, equal in authority, united by close private and public ties,
but of different creeds, prepared for a battle, on the event of which
were staked the liberties of Europe. Marlborough had passed a part
of the night in prayer, and before daybreak received the sacrament
according to the rites of the Church of England. He then hastened to
join Eugene, who had probably just confessed himself to a Popish priest.
The generals consulted together, formed their plan in concert, and
repaired each to his own post. Marlborough gave orders for public
prayers. The English chaplains read the service at the head of the
English regiments. The Calvinistic chaplains of the Dutch army, with
heads on which hand of Bishop had never been laid, poured forth their
supplications in front of their countrymen. In the meantime, the Danes
might listen to their Lutheran ministers and Capuchins might encourage
the Austrian squadrons, and pray to the Virgin for a blessing on the
arms of the Holy Roman Empire. The battle commences. These men of
various religions all act like members of one body. The Catholic and the
Protestant general exert themselves to assist and to surpass each other.
Before sunset the Empire is saved: France has lost in a day the fruits
of eighty years of intrigue and of victory: and the allies, after
conquering together, return thanks to God separately, each after his own
form of worship. Now, is this practical atheism? Would any man in his
senses say that, because the allied army had unity of action and a
common interest, and because a heavy responsibility lay on its Chiefs,
it was therefore imperatively necessary that the Army should, as an
Army, have one established religion, that Eugene should be deprived
of his command for being a Catholic, that all the Dutch and Austrian
colonels should be broken for not subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles?
Certainly not. The most ignorant grenadier on the field of battle would
have seen the absurdity of such a proposition. “I know,” he would have
said, “that the Prince of Savoy goes to mass, and that our Corporal
John cannot abide it; but what has the mass to do with the taking of the
village of Blenheim? The Prince wants to beat the French, and so does
Corporal John. If we stand by each other we shall most likely beat them.
If we send all the Papists and Dutch away, Tallard will have every man
of us.” Mr. Gladstone himself, we imagine, would admit that our honest
grenadier would have the best of the argument; and if so, what follows?
Even this; that all Mr. Gladstone’s general principles about power, and
responsibility, and personality, and conjoint action, must be given up,
and that, if his theory is to stand at all, it must stand on some other
foundation.
We have now, we conceive, shown that it may be proper to form men into
combinations for important purposes, which combinations shall have
unity and common interests, and shall be under the direction of rulers
intrusted with great power and lying under solemn responsibility, and
yet that it may be highly improper that these combinations should, as
such, profess any one system of religious belief, or perform any joint
act of religious worship. How, then, is it proved that this may not be
the case with some of those great combinations which we call States? We
firmly believe that it is the case with some States. We firmly believe
that there are communities in which it would be as absurd to mix up
theology with government, as it would have been in the right wing of the
allied army at Blenheim to commence a controversy with the left wing, in
the middle of the battle, about purgatory and the worship of images.
It is the duty, Mr. Gladstone tells us, of the persons, be they who they
may, who hold supreme power in the State, to employ that power in order
to promote whatever they may deem to be theological truth. Now, surely,
before he can call on us to admit this proposition, he is bound to prove
that those persons are likely to do more good than harm by so employing
their power. The first question is, whether a government, proposing to
itself the propagation of religious truth as one of its principal ends,
is more likely to lead the people right than to lead them wrong? Mr.
Gladstone evades this question; and perhaps it was his wisest course to
do so.
“If,” says he, “the government be good, let it have its natural duties
and powers at its command; but, if not good, let it be made so. . . . We
follow, therefore, the true course in looking first for the true idea,
or abstract conception of a government, of course with allowance for the
evil and frailty that are in man, and then in examining whether there be
comprised in that idea a capacity and consequent duty on the part of a
government to lay down any laws or devote any means for the purposes of
religion,--in short, to exercise a choice upon religion.”
Of course, Mr. Gladstone has a perfect right to argue any abstract
question, provided that he will constantly bear in mind that it is only
an abstract question that he is arguing. Whether a perfect government
would or would not be a good machinery for the propagation of religious
truth is certainly a harmless, and may, for aught we know, be an
edifying subject of inquiry. But it is very important that we should
remember that there is not, and never has been, any such government
in the world. There is no harm at all in inquiring what course a stone
thrown into the air would take, if the law of gravitation did not
operate. But the consequences would be unpleasant, if the inquirer, as
soon as he had finished his calculation, were to begin to throw stones
about in all directions, without considering that his conclusion rests
on a false hypothesis, and that his projectiles, instead of flying away
through infinite space, will speedily return in parabolas, and break the
windows and heads of his neighbours.
It is very easy to say that governments are good, or if not good, ought
to be made so. But what is meant by good government? And how are all
the bad governments in the world to be made good? And of what value is
a theory which is true only on a supposition in the highest degree
extravagant?
We do not, however, admit that, if a government were, for all its
temporal ends, as perfect as human frailty allows, such a government
would, therefore, be necessarily qualified to propagate true religion.
For we see that the fitness of governments to propagate true religion is
by no means proportioned to their fitness for the temporal end of their
institution. Looking at individuals, we see that the princes under whose
rule nations have been most ably protected from foreign and domestic
disturbance, and have made the most rapid advances in civilisation, have
been by no means good teachers of divinity. Take for example, the
best French sovereign, Henry the Fourth, a king who restored order,
terminated a terrible civil war, brought the finances into an excellent
condition, made his country respected throughout Europe, and endeared
himself to the great body of the people whom he ruled. Yet this man was
twice a Huguenot and twice a Papist. He was, as Davila hints, strongly
suspected of having no religion at all in theory, and was certainly not
much under religious restraints in his practice. Take the Czar Peter,
the Empress Catharine, Frederick the Great. It will surely not be
disputed that these sovereigns, with all their faults, were, if we
consider them with reference merely to the temporal ends of government,
above the average of merit. Considered as theological guides, Mr.
Gladstone would probably put them below the most abject drivellers of
the Spanish branch of the House of Bourbon. Again, when we pass from
individuals to systems, we by no means find that the aptitude of
governments for propagating religious truth is proportioned to their
aptitude for secular functions. Without being blind admirers either of
the French or of the American institutions, we think it clear that the
persons and property of citizens are better protected in France and in
New England than in almost any society that now exists, or that has ever
existed; very much better, certainly, than in the Roman Empire under the
orthodox rule of Constantine and Theodosius. But neither the Government
of France, nor that of New England, is so organised as to be fit for the
propagation of theological doctrines. Nor do we think it improbable
that the most serious religious errors might prevail in a state which,
considered merely with reference to temporal objects, might approach
far nearer than any that has ever been known to the idea of what a state
should be.
But we shall leave this abstract question, and look at the world as we
find it. Does, then, the way in which governments generally obtain
their power make it at all probable that they will be more favourable
to orthodoxy than to heterodoxy? A nation of barbarians pours down on a
rich and unwarlike empire, enslaves the people, portions out the land,
and blends the institutions which it finds in the cities with those
which it has brought from the woods. A handful of daring adventurers
from a civilised nation wander to some savage country, and reduce the
aboriginal race to bondage. A successful general turns his arms against
the State which he serves. A society made brutal by oppression, rises
madly on its masters, sweeps away all old laws and usages, and when its
first paroxysm of rage is over, sinks down passively under any form
of polity which may spring out of the chaos. A chief of a party, as
at Florence, becomes imperceptibly a sovereign, and the founder of a
dynasty. A captain of mercenaries, as at Milan, seizes on a city, and
by the sword makes himself its ruler. An elective senate, as at Venice,
usurps permanent and hereditary power. It is in events such as these
that governments have generally originated; and we can see nothing in
such events to warrant us in believing that the governments thus called
into existence will be peculiarly well fitted to distinguish between
religious truth and heresy.
When, again, we look at the constitutions of governments which have
become settled, we find no great security for the orthodoxy of rulers.
One magistrate holds power because his name was drawn out of a purse;
another, because his father held it before him. There are representative
systems of all sorts, large constituent bodies, small constituent
bodies, universal suffrage, high pecuniary qualifications. We see that,
for the temporal ends of government, some of these constitutions
are very skilfully constructed, and that the very worst of them is
preferable to anarchy. We see some sort of connection between the very
worst of them and the temporal well-being of society. But it passes our
understanding to comprehend what connection any one of them has with
theological truth.
And how stands the fact? Have not almost all the governments in the
world always been in the wrong on religious subjects? Mr. Gladstone, we
imagine, would say that, except in the time of Constantine, of Jovian,
and of a very few of their successors, and occasionally in England since
the Reformation, no government has ever been sincerely friendly to the
pure and apostolical Church of Christ. If, therefore, it be true that
every ruler is bound in conscience to use his power for the propagation
of his own religion, it will follow that, for one ruler who has been
bound in conscience to use his power for the propagation of truth,
a thousand have been bound in conscience to use their power for the
propagation of falsehood. Surely this is a conclusion from which common
sense recoils. Surely, if experience shows that a certain machine, when
used to produce a certain effect, does not produce that effect once in
a thousand times, but produces, in the vast majority of cases, an effect
directly contrary, we cannot be wrong in saying that it is not a machine
of which the principal end is to be so used.
If, indeed, the magistrate would content himself with laying his
opinions and reasons before the people, and would leave the people,
uncorrupted by hope or fear, to judge for themselves, we should see
little reason to apprehend that his interference in favour of error
would be seriously prejudicial to the interests of truth. Nor do we,
as will hereafter be seen, object to his taking this course, when it is
compatible with the efficient discharge of his more especial duties. But
this will not satisfy Mr. Gladstone. He would have the magistrate
resort to means which have a great tendency to make malcontents, to
make hypocrites, to make careless nominal conformists, but no tendency
whatever to produce honest and rational conviction. It seems to us quite
clear that an inquirer who has no wish except to know the truth is more
likely to arrive at the truth than an inquirer who knows that, if he
decides one way, he shall be rewarded, and that, if he decides the other
way, he shall be punished. Now, Mr. Gladstone would have governments
propagate their opinions by excluding all Dissenters from all civil
offices. That is to say, he would have governments propagate their
opinions by a process which has no reference whatever to the truth or
falsehood of those opinions, by arbitrarily uniting certain worldly
advantages with one set of doctrines, and certain worldly inconveniences
with another set. It is of the very nature of argument to serve the
interests of truth; but if rewards and punishments serve the interests
of truth, it is by mere accident. It is very much easier to find
arguments for the divine authority of the Gospel than for the divine
authority of the Koran. But it is just as easy to bribe or rack a Jew
into Mahometanism as into Christianity.
From racks, indeed, and from all penalties directed against the persons,
the property, and the liberty of heretics, the humane spirit of Mr.
Gladstone shrinks with horror. He only maintains that conformity to the
religion of the State ought to be an indispensable qualification for
office; and he would, unless we have greatly misunderstood him, think
it his duty, if he had the power, to revive the Test Act, to enforce
it rigorously, and to extend it to important classes who were formerly
exempt from its operation.
This is indeed a legitimate consequence of his principles. But why stop
here? Why not roast Dissenters at slow fires? All the general reasonings
on which this theory rests evidently lead to sanguinary persecution. If
the propagation of religious truth be a principal end of government, as
government; if it be the duty of a government to employ for that end
its constitutional Power; if the constitutional power of governments
extends, as it most unquestionably does, to the making of laws for the
burning of heretics; if burning be, as it most assuredly is, in many
cases, a most effectual mode of suppressing opinions; why should we not
burn? If the relation in which government ought to stand to the people
be, as Mr. Gladstone tells us, a paternal relation, we are irresistibly
led to the conclusion that persecution is justifiable. For the right of
propagating opinions by punishment is one which belongs to parents as
clearly as the right to give instruction. A boy is compelled to attend
family worship: he is forbidden to read irreligious books: if he will
not learn his catechism, he is sent to bed without his supper: if he
plays truant at church-time a task is set him. If he should display
the precocity of his talents by expressing impious opinions before his
brothers and sisters, we should not much blame his father for cutting
short the controversy with a horse-whip. All the reasons which lead us
to think that parents are peculiarly fitted to conduct the education of
their children, and that education is the principal end of a parental
relation, lead us also to think that parents ought to be allowed to use
punishment, if necessary, for the purpose of forcing children, who are
incapable of judging for themselves, to receive religious instruction
and to attend religious worship. Why, then, is this prerogative of
punishment, so eminently paternal, to be withheld from a paternal
government? It seems to us, also, to be the height of absurdity to
employ civil disabilities for the propagation of an opinion, and then
to shrink from employing other punishments for the same purpose. For
nothing can be clearer than that, if you punish at all, you ought to
punish enough. The pain caused by punishment is pure unmixed evil, and
never ought to be inflicted, except for the sake of some good. It is
mere foolish cruelty to provide penalties which torment the criminal
without preventing the crime. Now it is possible, by sanguinary
persecution unrelentingly inflicted, to suppress opinions. In this way
the Albigenses were put down. In this way the Lollards were put down. In
this way the fair promise of the Reformation was blighted in Italy
and Spain. But we may safely defy Mr. Gladstone to point out a single
instance in which the system which he recommends has succeeded.
And why should he be so tender-hearted? What reason can he give for
hanging a murderer, and suffering a heresiarch to escape without even a
pecuniary mulct? Is the heresiarch a less pernicious member of society
than the murderer? Is not the loss of one soul a greater evil than the
extinction of many lives? And the number of murders committed by the
most profligate bravo that ever let out his poniard to hire in Italy, or
by the most savage buccaneer that ever prowled on the Windward Station,
is small indeed, when compared with the number of souls which have
been caught in the snares of one dexterous heresiarch. If, then, the
heresiarch causes infinitely greater evils than the murderer, why is
he not as proper an object of penal legislation as the murderer? We can
give a reason, a reason, short, simple, decisive, and consistent. We do
not extenuate the evil which the heresiarch produces; but we say that
it is not evil of that sort the sort against which it is the end of
government to guard. But how Mr. Gladstone, who considers the evil which
the heresiarch produces as evil of the sort against which it is the end
of government to guard, can escape from the obvious consequence of his
doctrine, we do not understand. The world is full of parallel cases. An
orange-woman stops up the pavement with her wheelbarrow; and a policeman
takes her into custody. A miser who has amassed a million suffers an old
friend and benefactor to die in a workhouse, and cannot be questioned
before any tribunal for his baseness and ingratitude. Is this because
legislators think the orange-woman’s conduct worse than the miser’s? Not
at all. It is because the stopping up of the pathway is one of the evils
against which it is the business of the public authorities to protect
society, and heartlessness is not one of those evils. It would be the
height of folly to say that the miser ought, indeed, to be punished, but
that he ought to be punished less severely than the orange-woman.
The heretical Constantius persecutes Athanasius; and why not? Shall
Caesar punish the robber who has taken one purse, and spare the wretch
who has taught millions to rob the Creator of His honour, and to bestow
it on the creature? The orthodox Theodosius persecutes the Arians, and
with equal reason. Shall an insult offered to the Caesarean majesty be
expiated by death; and shall there be no penalty for him who degrades
to the rank of a creature the almighty, the infinite Creator? We have a
short answer for both: “To Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.
Caesar is appointed for the punishment of robbers and rebels. He is not
appointed for the purpose of either propagating or exterminating the
doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son.” “Not so,”
says Mr. Gladstone, “Caesar is bound in conscience to propagate whatever
he thinks to be the truth as to this question. Constantius is bound to
establish the Arian worship throughout the empire, and to displace
the bravest captains of his legions, and the ablest ministers of his
treasury, if they hold the Nicene faith. Theodosius is equally bound to
turn out every public servant whom his Arian predecessors have put in.
But if Constantius lays on Athanasius a fine of a single aureus,
if Theodosius imprisons an Arian presbyter for a week, this is most
unjustifiable oppression.” Our readers will be curious to know how this
distinction is made out.
The reasons which Mr. Gladstone gives against persecution affecting
life, limb, and property, may be divided into two classes; first,
reasons which can be called reasons only by extreme courtesy, and which
nothing but the most deplorable necessity would ever have induced a
man of his abilities to use; and, secondly, reasons which are really
reasons, and which have so much force that they not only completely
prove his exception, but completely upset his general rule. His
artillery on this occasion is composed of two sorts of pieces, pieces
which will not go off at all, and pieces which go off with a vengeance,
and recoil with most crushing effect upon himself.
“We, as fallible creatures,” says Mr. Gladstone, “have no right, from
any bare speculations of our own to administer pains and penalties to
our fellow-creatures, whether on social or religious grounds. We have
the right to enforce the laws of the land by such pains and penalties,
because it is expressly given by Him who has declared that the civil
rulers are to bear the sword for the punishment of evil-doers, and for
the encouragement of them that do well. And so, in things spiritual,
had it pleased God to give to the Church or the State this power, to be
permanently exercised over their members, or mankind at large, we
should have the right to use it; but it does not appear to have been so
received, and consequently, it should not be exercised.”
We should be sorry to think that the security of our lives and property
from persecution rested on no better ground than this. Is not a teacher
of heresy an evil-doer? Has not heresy been condemned in many countries,
and in our own among them, by the laws of the land, which, as Mr.
Gladstone says, it is justifiable to enforce by penal sanctions? If a
heretic is not specially mentioned in the text to which Mr. Gladstone
refers, neither is an assassin, a kidnapper, or a highwayman: and if the
silence of the New Testament as to all interference of governments to
stop the progress of heresy be a reason for not fining or imprisoning
heretics, it is surely just as good a reason for not excluding them from
office.
“God,” says Mr. Gladstone, “has seen fit to authorize the employment of
force in the one case and not in the other; for it was with regard to
chastisement inflicted by the sword for an insult offered to
himself that the Redeemer declared his kingdom not to be of this
world:--meaning, apparently in an especial manner, that it should be
otherwise than after this world’s fashion, in respect to the sanctions
by which its laws should be maintained.”
Now here Mr. Gladstone, quoting from memory, has fallen into an error.
The very remarkable words which he cites do not appear to have had
any reference to the wound inflicted by Peter on Malchus. They were
addressed to Pilate, in answer to the question, “Art thou the King
of the Jews?” We can not help saying that we are surprised that Mr.
Gladstone should not have more accurately verified a quotation on which,
according to him, principally depends the right of a hundred millions of
his fellow-subjects, idolaters, Mussulmans, Catholics, and dissenters,
to their property, their liberty, and their lives.
Mr. Gladstone’s humane interpretations of Scripture are lamentably
destitute of one recommendation, which he considers as of the highest
value: they are by no means in accordance with the general precepts or
practice of the Church, from the time when the Christians became strong
enough to persecute down to a very recent period. A dogma favourable
to toleration is certainly not a dogma quod semper, quod ubique, quod
omnibus. Bossuet was able to say, we fear with too much truth, that on
one point all Christians had long been unanimous, the right of the civil
magistrate to propagate truth by the sword; that even heretics had been
orthodox as to this right, and that the Anabaptists and Socinians were
the first who called it in question. We will not pretend to say what is
the best explanation of the text under consideration; but we are sure
that Mr. Gladstone’s is the worst. According to him, Government ought to
exclude Dissenters from office, but not to fine them, because Christ’s
kingdom is not of this world. We do not see why the line may not be
drawn at a hundred other places as well as that which he has chosen. We
do not see why Lord Clarendon, in recommending the act of 1664 against
conventicles, might not have said, “It hath been thought by some that
this classis of men might with advantage be not only imprisoned but
pilloried. But methinks, my Lords, we are inhibited from the punishment
of the pillory by that Scripture, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.”’
Archbishop Laud, when he sate on Burton in the Star-Chamber, might have
said, “I pronounce for the pillory; and, indeed, I could wish that all
such wretches were delivered to the fire, but that our Lord hath said
that His kingdom is not of this world.” And Gardiner might have written
to the Sheriff of Oxfordshire “See that execution be done without fall
on Master Ridley and Master Latimer, as you will answer the same to
the Queen’s grace at your peril. But if they shall desire to have some
gunpowder for the shortening of their torment, I see not but you may
grant it, as it is written, Regnum meum non est de hoc mundo; that is to
say, My kingdom is not of this world.”
But Mr. Gladstone has other arguments against persecution, arguments
which are of so much weight, that they are decisive not only against
persecution but against his whole theory. “The Government,” he says, “is
incompetent to exercise minute and constant supervision over religious
opinion.” And hence he infers, that “a Government exceeds its province
when it comes to adapt a scale of punishments to variations in religious
opinion, according to their respective degrees of variation from the
established creed. To decline affording countenance to sects is a single
and simple rule. To punish their professors, according to their several
errors, even were there no other objection, is one for which the State
must assume functions wholly ecclesiastical, and for which it is not
intrinsically fitted.”
This is, in our opinion, quite true. But how does it agree with Mr.
Gladstone’s theory? What! the Government incompetent to exercise even
such a degree of supervision over religious opinion as is implied by
the punishment of the most deadly heresy! The Government incompetent
to measure even the grossest deviations from the standard of truth!
The Government not intrinsically qualified to judge of the comparative
enormity of any theological errors! The Government so ignorant on these
subjects that it is compelled to leave, not merely subtle heresies,
discernible only by the eye of a Cyril or a Bucer, but Socinianism,
Deism, Mahometanism, Idolatry, Atheism, unpunished! To whom does Mr.
Gladstone assign the office of selecting a religion for the State, from
among hundreds of religions, every one of which lays claim to truth?
Even to this same Government, which is now pronounced to be so unfit for
theological investigations that it cannot venture to punish a man for
worshipping a lump of stone with a score of heads and hands. We do not
remember ever to have fallen in with a more extraordinary instance of
inconsistency. When Mr. Gladstone wishes to prove that the Government
ought to establish and endow a religion, and to fence it with a Test
Act, Government is _to pan_ in the moral world. Those who would confine
it to secular ends take a low view of its nature. A religion must be
attached to its agency; and this religion must be that of the conscience
of the governor, or none. It is for the Governor to decide between
Papists and Protestants, Jansenists and Molinists, Arminians and
Calvinists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, Sabellians and Tritheists,
Homoousians and Homoiousians, Nestorians and Eutychians, Monothelites
and Monophysites, Paedobaptists and Anabaptists. It is for him to
rejudge the Acts of Nice and Rimini, of Ephesus and Chalcedon, of
Constantinople and St. John Lateran, of Trent and Dort. It is for him to
arbitrate between the Greek and the Latin procession, and to determine
whether that mysterious filioque shall or shall not have a place in the
national creed. When he has made up his mind, he is to tax the whole
community in order to pay people to teach his opinion, what ever it may
be. He is to rely on his own judgment, though it may be opposed to that
of nine-tenths of the society. He is to act on his own judgment, at
the risk of exciting the most formidable discontents. He is to inflict,
perhaps on a great majority of the population, what, whether we choose
to call it persecution or not, will always be felt as persecution by
those who suffer it. He is, on account of differences often too slight
for vulgar comprehension, to deprive the State of the services of the
ablest men. He is to debase and enfeeble the community which he governs,
from a nation into a sect. In our own country, for example, millions of
Catholics, millions of Protestant Dissenters, are to be excluded from
all power and honours. A great hostile fleet is on the sea; but Nelson
is not to command in the Channel if in the mystery of the Trinity he
confounds the persons. An invading army has landed in Kent; but the Duke
of Wellington is not to be at the head of our forces if he divides the
substance. And after all this, Mr. Gladstone tells us, that it would be
wrong to imprison a Jew, a Mussulman, or a Buddhist, for a day; because
really a Government cannot understand these matters, and ought not to
meddle with questions which belong to the Church. A singular theologian,
indeed, this Government! So learned, that it is competent to exclude
Grotius from office for being a Semi-Pelagian, so unlearned that it is
incompetent to fine a Hindoo peasant a rupee for going on a pilgrimage
to Juggernaut.
“To solicit and persuade one another,” says Mr. Gladstone, “are
privileges which belong to us all; and the wiser and better man is bound
to advise the less wise and good; but he is not only not bound, he is
not allowed, speaking generally, to coerce him. It is untrue, then, that
the same considerations which bind a Government to submit a religion to
the free choice of the people would therefore justify their enforcing
its adoption.”
Granted. But it is true that all the same considerations which would
justify a Government in propagating a religion by means of civil
disabilities would justify the propagating of that religion by penal
laws. To solicit! Is it solicitation to tell a Catholic Duke, that he
must abjure his religion or walk out of the House of Lords? To persuade!
Is it persuasion to tell a barrister of distinguished eloquence and
learning that he shall grow old in his stuff gown, while his pupils
are seated above him in ermine, because he cannot digest the damnatory
clauses of the Athanasian Creed? Would Mr. Gladstone think that a
religious system which he considers as false, Socinianism for example,
was submitted to his free choice, if it were submitted in these
terms?--“If you obstinately adhere to the faith of the Nicene fathers,
you shall not be burned in Smithfield; you shall not be sent to
Dorchester gaol; you shall not even pay double land-tax. But you shall
be shut out from all situations in which you might exercise your talents
with honour to yourself and advantage to the country. The House of
Commons, the bench of magistracy, are not for such as you. You shall see
younger men, your inferiors in station and talents, rise to the highest
dignities and attract the gaze of nations, while you are doomed to
neglect and obscurity. If you have a son of the highest promise, a son
such as other fathers would contemplate with delight, the development of
his fine talents and of his generous ambition shall be a torture to you.
You shall look on him as a being doomed to lead, as you have led, the
abject life of a Roman or a Neapolitan in the midst of a great English
people. All those high honours, so much more precious than the most
costly gifts of despots, with which a free country decorates its
illustrious citizens, shall be to him, as they have been to you, objects
not of hope and virtuous emulation, but of hopeless, envious pining.
Educate him, if you wish him to feel his degradation. Educate him, if
you wish to stimulate his craving for what he never must enjoy. Educate
him, if you would imitate the barbarity of that Celtic tyrant who fed
his prisoners on salted food till they called eagerly for drink, and
then let down an empty cup into the dungeon and left them to die of
thirst.” Is this to solicit, to persuade, to submit religion to the free
choice of man? Would a fine of a thousand pounds, would imprisonment
in Newgate for six months, under circumstances not disgraceful, give Mr
Gladstone the pain which he would feel, if he were to be told that he
was to be dealt with in the way in which he would himself deal with more
than one half of his countrymen?