be managed to render it pleasing, let us reflect a little upon the
moral tendency of such representations. Much has been said in favour
of them, and they are generally thought to improve the tender and
humane feelings; but this, I own, appears to me very dubious. That they
exercise sensibility, is true; but sensibility does not increase with
exercise. By the constitution of our frame our habits increase, our
emotions decrease, by repeated acts; and thus a wise provision is made,
that as our compassion grows weaker, its place should be supplied by
habitual benevolence. But in these writings our sensibility is strongly
called forth without any possibility of exerting itself in virtuous
action, and those emotions, which we shall never feel again with equal
force, are wasted without advantage. Nothing is more dangerous than
to let virtuous impressions of any kind pass through the mind without
producing their proper effect. The awakenings of remorse, virtuous
shame and indignation, the glow of moral approbation--if they do not
lead to action, grow less and less vivid every time they recur, till
at length the mind grows absolutely callous. The being affected with
a pathetic story is undoubtedly a sign of an amiable disposition, but
perhaps no means of increasing it. On the contrary, young people, by a
course of this kind of reading, often acquire something of that apathy
and indifference which the experience of real life would have given
them, without its advantages.
Another reason why plays and romances do not improve our humanity
is, that they lead us to require a certain elegance of manners and
delicacy of virtue which is not often found with poverty, ignorance and
meanness. The objects of pity in romance are as different from those in
real life as our husbandmen from the shepherds of Arcadia; and a girl
who will sit weeping the whole night at the delicate distresses of a
lady Charlotte, or lady Julia, shall be little moved at the complaint
of her neighbour, who, in a homely phrase and vulgar accent, laments to
her that she is not able to get bread for her family. Romance-writers
likewise make great misfortunes so familiar to our ears, that we have
hardly any pity to spare for the common accidents of life: but we
ought to remember, that misery has a claim to relief, however we may
be disgusted with its appearance; and that we must not fancy ourselves
charitable, when we are only pleasing our imagination.
It would perhaps be better, if our romances were more like those of the
old stamp, which tended to raise human nature, and inspire a certain
grace and dignity of manners of which we have hardly the idea. The
high notions of honour, the wild and fanciful spirit of adventure
and romantic love, elevated the mind; our novels tend to depress and
enfeeble it. Yet there is a species of this kind of writing which must
ever afford an exquisite pleasure to persons of taste and sensibility;
where noble sentiments are mixed with well-fancied incidents, pathetic
touches with dignity and grace, and invention with chaste correctness.
Such will ever interest our sweetest passions. I shall conclude this
paper with the following tale.
In the happy period of the golden age, when all the celestial
inhabitants descended to the earth, and conversed familiarly with
mortals, among the most cherished of the heavenly powers were twins,
the offspring of Jupiter, LOVE and JOY. Where they appeared, the
flowers sprung up beneath their feet, the sun shone with a brighter
radiance, and all nature seemed embellished by their presence. They
were inseparable companions, and their growing attachment was favoured
by Jupiter, who had decreed that a lasting union should be solemnized
between them as soon as they were arrived at maturer years. But in
the mean time the sons of men deviated from their native innocence;
vice and ruin over-ran the earth with giant strides; and Astrea, with
her train of celestial visitants, forsook their polluted abodes. Love
alone remained, having been stolen away by Hope, who was his nurse,
and conveyed by her to the forests of Arcadia, where he was brought
up among the shepherds. But Jupiter assigned him a different partner,
and commanded him to espouse SORROW, the daughter of Até. He complied
with reluctance; for her features were harsh and disagreeable, her
eyes sunk, her forehead contracted into perpetual wrinkles, and her
temples were covered with a wreath of cypress and wormwood. From this
union sprung a virgin, in whom might be traced a strong resemblance
to both her parents; but the sullen and unamiable features of her
mother were so mixed and blended with the sweetness of her father, that
her countenance, though mournful, was highly pleasing. The maids and
shepherds of the neighbouring plains gathered round, and called her
PITY. A red-breast was observed to build in the cabin where she was
born; and while she was yet an infant, a dove, pursued by a hawk, flew
into her bosom. This nymph had a dejected appearance, but so soft and
gentle a mien that she was beloved to a degree of enthusiasm. Her voice
was low and plaintive, but inexpressibly sweet; and she loved to lie
for hours together on the banks of some wild and melancholy stream,
singing to her lute. She taught men to weep, for she took a strange
delight in tears; and often, when the virgins of the hamlet were
assembled at their evening sports, she would steal in amongst them,
and captivate their hearts by her tales full of a charming sadness. She
wore on her head a garland composed of her father’s myrtles twisted
with her mother’s cypress.
One day, as she sat musing by the waters of Helicon, her tears by
chance fell into the fountain; and ever since, the Muses’ spring has
retained a strong taste of the infusion. Pity was commanded by Jupiter
to follow the steps of her mother through the world, dropping balm
into the wounds she made, and binding up the hearts she had broken.
She follows with her hair loose, her bosom bare and throbbing, her
garments torn by the briars, and her feet bleeding with the roughness
of the path. The nymph is mortal, for her mother is so; and when she
has fulfilled her destined course upon the earth, they shall both
expire together, and LOVE be again united to JOY, his immortal and
long-betrothed bride.
THOUGHTS ON THE DEVOTIONAL TASTE,
ON SECTS, AND ON ESTABLISHMENTS.
NOTE. This Essay was first printed in 1735, and prefixed to
_Devotional Pieces compiled from the Psalms of David_.
It is observed by a late most amiable and elegant writer, that Religion
may be considered in three different views. As a system of opinions,
its sole object is truth; and the only faculty that has any thing to
do with it is Reason, exerted in the freest and most dispassionate
enquiry. As a principle regulating our conduct, Religion is a habit,
and like all other habits, of slow growth, and gaining strength only
by repeated exertions. But it may likewise be considered as a taste,
an affair of sentiment and feeling, and in this sense it is properly
called Devotion. Its seat is in the imagination and the passions,
and it has its source in that relish for the sublime, the vast, and
the beautiful, by which we taste the charms of poetry and other
compositions that address our finer feelings; rendered more lively
and interesting by a sense of gratitude for personal benefits. It is
in a great degree constitutional, and is by no means found in exact
proportion to the virtue of a character.
It is with relation to this last view of the subject that the
observations in this essay are hazarded: for though, as a rule of
life, the authority and salutary effects of religion are pretty
universally acknowledged, and though its tenets have been defended
with sufficient zeal, its affections languish, the spirit of Devotion
is certainly at a very low ebb amongst us, and what is surprising, it
has fallen, I know not how, into a certain contempt, and is treated
with great indifference, amongst many of those who value themselves on
the purity of their faith, and who are distinguished by the sweetness
of their morals. As the religious affections in a great measure rise
and fall with the pulse, and are affected by every thing which acts
upon the imagination, they are apt to run into strange excesses; and
if directed by a melancholy or enthusiastic faith, their workings are
often too strong for a weak head, or a delicate frame; and for this
reason they have been almost excluded from religious worship by many
persons of real piety. It is the character of the present age to allow
little to sentiment, and all the warm and generous emotions are treated
as romantic by the supercilious brow of a cold-hearted philosophy. The
man of science, with an air of superiority, leaves them to some florid
declaimer who professes to work upon the passions of the lower class,
where they are so debased by noise and nonsense, that it is no wonder
if they move disgust in those of elegant and better-informed minds.
Yet there is a devotion, generous, liberal, and humane, the child of
more exalted feelings than base minds can enter into, which assimilates
man to higher natures, and lifts him “above this visible diurnal
sphere.” Its pleasures are ultimate, and, when early cultivated,
continue vivid even in that uncomfortable season of life when some
of the passions are extinct, when imagination is dead, and the heart
begins to contract within itself. Those who want this taste, want a
sense, a part of their nature, and should not presume to judge of
feelings to which they must ever be strangers. No one pretends to be
a judge in poetry or the fine arts, who has not both a natural and a
cultivated relish for them; and shall the narrow-minded children of
earth, absorbed in low pursuits, dare to treat as visionary, objects
which they have never made themselves acquainted with? Silence on such
subjects will better become them. But to vindicate the pleasures of
devotion to those who have neither taste nor knowledge about them, is
not the present object. It rather deserves our enquiry, what causes
have contributed to check the operations of religious impressions
amongst those who have steady principles, and are well disposed to
virtue.
And, in the first place, there is nothing more prejudicial to the
feelings of a devout heart, than a habit of disputing on religious
subjects. Free enquiry is undoubtedly necessary to establish a rational
belief; but a disputatious spirit, and fondness for controversy,
give the mind a sceptical turn, with an aptness to call in question
the most established truths. It is impossible to preserve that deep
reverence for the Deity with which we ought to regard him, when all
his attributes, and even his very existence, become the subject of
familiar debate. Candor demands that a man should allow his opponent
an unlimited freedom of speech, and it is not easy in the heat of
discourse to avoid falling into an indecent or careless expression;
hence those who think seldomer of religious subjects, often treat them
with more respect than those whose profession keeps them constantly in
their view. A plain man of a serious turn would probably be shocked to
hear questions of this nature treated with that ease and negligence
with which they are generally discussed by the practised Theologian,
or the young lively Academic ready primed from the schools of logic
and metaphysics. As the ear loses its delicacy by being obliged only
to _hear_ coarse and vulgar language, so the veneration for religion
wears off by hearing it treated with disregard, though we ourselves
are employed in defending it; and to this it is owing that many who
have confirmed themselves in the belief of religion, have never been
able to recover that strong and affectionate sense of it which they
had before they began to enquire, and have wondered to find their
devotion grown weaker when their faith was better grounded. Indeed,
strong reasoning powers and quick feelings do not often unite in the
same person. Men of a scientific turn seldom lay their hearts open to
impression. Previously biassed by the love of system, they do indeed
attend the offices of religion, but they dare not trust themselves with
the preacher, and are continually upon the watch to observe whether
every sentiment agrees with their own particular tenets.
The spirit of enquiry is easily distinguished from the spirit of
disputation. A state of doubt is not a pleasant state. It is painful,
anxious, and distressing beyond most others: it disposes the mind to
dejection and modesty. Whoever therefore is so unfortunate as not to
have settled his opinions in important points, will proceed in the
search of truth with deep humility, unaffected earnestness, and a
serious attention to every argument that may be offered, which he will
be much rather inclined to revolve in his own mind, than to use as
materials for dispute. Even with these dispositions, it is happy for
a man when he does not find much to alter in the religious system he
has embraced; for if that undergoes a total revolution, his religious
feelings are too generally so weakened by the shock, that they hardly
recover again their original tone and vigour.
Shall we mention Philosophy as an enemy to religion? God forbid!
Philosophy,
Daughter of Heaven, that slow ascending still
Investigating sure the form of things
With radiant finger points to heaven again.
Yet there is a view in which she exerts an influence perhaps rather
unfavourable to the fervor of simple piety. Philosophy does indeed
enlarge our conceptions of the Deity, and gives us the sublimest ideas
of his power and extent of dominion; but it raises him too high for
our imaginations to take hold of, and in a great measure destroys
that affectionate regard which is felt by the common class of pious
Christians. When, after contemplating the numerous productions of
this earth, the various forms of being, the laws, the mode of their
existence, we rise yet higher, and turn our eyes to that magnificent
profusion of suns and systems which astronomy pours upon the mind--When
we grow acquainted with the majestic order of nature, and those eternal
laws which bind the material and intellectual worlds--When we trace
the footsteps of creative energy through regions of unmeasured space,
and still find new wonders disclosed and pressing upon the view--we
grow giddy with the prospect; the mind is astonished, confounded at its
own insignificance; we think it almost impiety for a worm to lift its
head from the dust, and address the Lord of so stupendous a universe;
the idea of communion with our Maker shocks us as presumption, and the
only feeling the soul is capable of in such a moment is a deep and
painful sense of its own abasement. It is true, the same philosophy
teaches that the Deity is intimately present through every part of this
complicated system, and neglects not any of his works: but this is a
truth which is believed without being felt; our imagination cannot
here keep pace with our reason, and the sovereign of nature seems ever
further removed from us in proportion as we enlarge the bounds of his
creation.
Philosophy represents the Deity in too abstracted a manner to engage
our affections. A Being without hatred and without fondness, going
on in one steady course of even benevolence, neither delighted with
praises, nor moved by importunity, does not interest us so much as a
character open to the feelings of indignation, the soft relentings of
mercy, and the partialities of particular affections. We require some
common nature, or at least the appearance of it, on which to build our
intercourse. It is also a fault of which philosophers are often guilty,
that they dwell too much in generals. Accustomed to reduce every thing
to the operation of general laws, they turn our attention to larger
views, attempt to grasp the whole order of the universe, and in the
zeal of a systematic spirit seldom leave room for those particular
and personal mercies which are the food of gratitude. They trace the
great outline of nature, but neglect the colouring which gives warmth
and beauty to the piece. As in poetry it is not vague and general
description, but a few striking circumstances clearly related and
strongly worked up--as in a landscape it is not such a vast extensive
range of country as pains the eye to stretch to its limits, but a
beautiful, well-defined prospect, which gives the most pleasure--so
neither are those unbounded views in which philosophy delights, so much
calculated to touch the heart as home views and nearer objects. The
philosopher offers up general praises on the altar of universal nature;
the devout man, on the altar of his heart, presents his own sighs, his
own thanksgivings, his own earnest desires: the former worship is more
sublime, the latter more personal and affecting.
We are likewise too scrupulous in our public exercises, and too
studious of accuracy. A prayer strictly philosophical must ever be a
cold and dry composition. From an over-anxious fear of admitting any
expression that is not strictly proper, we are apt to reject all warm
and pathetic imagery, and, in short, every thing that strikes upon the
heart and the senses. But it may be said, ‘If the Deity be indeed so
sublime a being, and if his designs and manner are so infinitely beyond
our comprehension, how can a thinking mind join in the addresses of the
vulgar, or avoid being overwhelmed with the indistinct vastness of such
an idea?’ Far be it from me to deny that awe and veneration must ever
make a principal part of our regards to the Master of the universe, or
to defend that style of indecent familiarity which is yet more shocking
than indifference: but let it be considered that we cannot hope to
avoid all improprieties in speaking of such a Being; that the most
philosophical address we can frame is probably no more free from them
than the devotions of the vulgar; that the scriptures set us an example
of accommodating the language of prayer to common conceptions, and
making use of figures and modes of expression far from being strictly
defensible; and that, upon the whole, it is safer to trust to our
genuine feelings, feelings implanted in us by the God of nature, than
to any metaphysical subtleties. He has impressed me with the idea of
trust and confidence, and my heart flies to him in danger; of mercy to
forgive, and I melt before him in penitence; of bounty to bestow, and
I ask of him all I want or wish for. I may make use of an inaccurate
expression, I may paint him to my imagination too much in the fashion
of humanity; but while my heart is pure, while I depart not from the
line of moral duty, the error is not dangerous. Too critical a spirit
is the bane of every thing great or pathetic. In our creeds let us
be guarded; let us there weigh every syllable; but in compositions
addressed to the heart, let us give freer scope to the language of the
affections, and the overflowing of a warm and generous disposition.
Another cause which most effectually operates to check devotion, is
ridicule. I speak not here of open derision of things sacred; but
there is a certain ludicrous style in talking of such subjects, which,
without any ill design, does much harm; and perhaps those whose studies
or profession lead them to be chiefly conversant with the offices of
religion, are most apt to fall in to this impropriety; for their ideas
being chiefly taken from that source, their common conversation is apt
to be tinctured with fanciful allusions to scripture expressions, to
prayers, &c. which have all the effect of a parody, and, like parodies,
destroy the force of the finest passage, by associating it with
something trivial and ridiculous. Of this nature is Swift’s well-known
jest of “Dearly beloved Roger,” which whoever has strong upon his
memory, will find it impossible to attend with proper seriousness to
that part of the service. We should take great care to keep clear from
all these trivial associations, in whatever we wish to be regarded as
venerable.
Another species of ridicule to be avoided, is that kind of sneer often
thrown upon those whose hearts are giving way to honest emotion.
There is an extreme delicacy in all the finer affections, which makes
them shy of observation, and easily checked. Love, Wonder, Pity, the
enthusiasm of Poetry, shrink from the notice of even an indifferent
eye, and never indulge themselves freely but in solitude, or when
heightened by the powerful force of sympathy. Observe an ingenuous
youth at a well-wrought tragedy. If all around him are moved, he
suffers his tears to flow freely; but if a single eye meets him with
a glance of contemptuous indifference, he can no longer enjoy his
sorrow; he blushes at having wept, and in a moment his heart is shut
up to every impression of tenderness. It is sometimes mentioned as a
reproach to Protestants, that they are susceptible of a false shame
when observed in the exercises of their religion, from which Papists
are free. But I take this to proceed from the purer nature of our
religion; for the less it is made to consist in outward pomp and
mechanical worship, and the more it has to do with the finer affections
of the heart, the greater will be the reserve and delicacy which attend
the expression of its sentiments. Indeed, ridicule ought to be very
sparingly used; for it is an enemy to every thing sublime or tender:
the least degree of it, whether well or ill founded, suddenly and
instantaneously stops the workings of passion, and those who indulge
a talent that way, would do well to consider, that they are rendering
themselves for ever incapable of all the higher pleasures either of
taste or morals. More especially do these cold pleasantries hurt the
minds of youth, by checking that generous expansion of heart to which
their open tempers are naturally prone, and producing a vicious shame,
through which they are deprived of the enjoyment of heroic sentiments
or generous action.
In the next place, let us not be superstitiously afraid of
superstition. It shews great ignorance of the human heart, and the
springs by which its passions are moved, to neglect taking advantage
of the impression which particular circumstances, times and seasons,
naturally make upon the mind. The root of all superstition is the
principle of the association of ideas, by which, objects naturally
indifferent become dear and venerable, through their connection with
interesting ones. It is true, this principle has been much abused:
it has given rise to pilgrimages innumerable, worship of relics, and
priestly power. But let us not carry our ideas of purity and simplicity
so far as to neglect it entirely. Superior natures, it is possible,
may be equally affected with the same truths at all times, and in all
places; but we are not so made. Half the pleasures of elegant minds
are derived from this source. Even the enjoyments of sense, without
it, would lose much of their attraction. Who does not enter into the
sentiment of the Poet, in that passage so full of nature and truth:
‘He that outlives this hour, and comes safe home,
Shall stand on tiptoe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian:
He that outlives this day and sees old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, To-morrow is St. Crispian.’
But were not the benefits of the victory equally apparent on any
other day of the year? Why commemorate the anniversary with such
distinguished regard? Those who can ask such a question, have never
attended to some of the strongest instincts in our nature. Yet it has
lately been the fashion, amongst those who call themselves rational
Christians, to treat as puerile, all attentions of this nature when
relative to religion. They would
Kiss with pious lips the sacred earth
Which gave a Hampden or a Russel birth.
They will visit the banks of Avon with all the devotion of enthusiastic
zeal; celebrate the birth-day of the hero and the patriot; and yet pour
contempt upon the Christian who suffers himself to be warmed by similar
circumstances relating to his Master, or the connection of sentiments
of peculiar reverence with times, places, and men which have been
appropriated to the service of religion. A wise preacher will not, from
a fastidious refinement, disdain to affect his hearers from the season
of the year, the anniversary of a national blessing, a remarkable
escape from danger, or, in short, any incident that is sufficiently
guarded, and far enough removed from what is trivial, to be out of
danger of becoming ludicrous.