Schools.—Reform of the Calendar.—Art of Teaching.—General
Education.—Religion and Politics.—Inconsistency of the
Jesuits.—Unbelievers.—Direction of Electors.—Political
Churches.—Violation of the Laws.—Infidelity.—Obedience to
Law.—Enforced Religion.—Persecution.—Hypothetical Case.—Treatment of
Insanity.—Professed Inspiration.—Impostors and Lunatics.—Changes in
Europe.—Founders of the Colony.
The Southlanders have numerous schools—mostly day-schools—for boys and
for girls, in all parts of the country. They are of various
descriptions, suited to persons of different classes of society. There
are also four universities, besides some other scientific and literary
institutions partaking of that character.
The most ancient, and, at present, the largest university is in the
state of Müllersfield. Mr. Sibthorpe’s notes on this subject contain but
a small portion of the little he had, up to that time, been enabled to
collect; as it happened that the principal vacation of all the
universities is in the spring, the time of the travellers’ arrival in
the country. He was, accordingly, promising himself, in the latter part
of his sojourn, to obtain a much fuller and more correct acquaintance
with their academical institutions.
It appears that, as might have been expected, the Southlanders have not
made the same advancements in the physical sciences as the Europeans,
though much greater than, under their circumstances of seclusion, could
have been anticipated. They have detected and rectified the error of the
Julian calendar. The alteration of their style, which was begun above a
century and a half ago, was not established at once, like the reform
first made in Roman Catholic, and subsequently in Protestant countries;
but was effected _gradually_, by the simple omission of the leap-years,
till the error was rectified.
Mr. Sibthorpe was particularly struck with the circumstance, that, both
at the universities and elsewhere, the _art of teaching_ is distinctly
taught as a separate and most important department; regular lectures on
it being given, and the pupils exercised in various modes, to train and
qualify them for the office of giving instruction to others. This people
are so far from taking for granted—as, till of late years, has been
commonly done in Europe—that every one is qualified to teach anything he
knows himself, that, from the highest to the lowest description of
schoolmaster or tutor, every one is required to have gone through a
regular course of training for that profession. Nor is the study of this
art by any means confined to those who design professionally to engage
in it; but some degree of it is considered as a part of a liberal
education.
In some of the newly-settled, and, consequently, thinly-peopled
districts, there are sometimes two (and, in some instances, even three)
schoolhouses for one master or mistress. In such a case, the master
attends at them by turns for half a week, or, if at a greater distance,
a week. Sometimes the schools are kept up during the intervals by an
assistant; sometimes even this is wanting; and the children remain at
home half their time preparing lessons, in which they are examined when
they return to school. It is held that one good master can do more
service in two or three schools than two or three inferior ones. All
parents and guardians are required to have the children under their care
instructed. Any who may be too poor to afford the moderate cost of the
humblest education are provided with it at the public charge; but it is
very rare indeed that there is occasion for this, except in the case of
the half-reclaimed aborigines.
The Southlanders were astonished to hear that, in what is called
civilized Europe, a large proportion of the population should remain
totally illiterate, “_like the savages_.” When they were told that some
persons in England dreaded the education of the labouring classes, as
unfitting them for their station, and were disposed to apply the remark
of Mandeville, that “if a horse knew as much as a man, I should be sorry
to be his rider,” they inquired how this was to be reconciled with the
_political rights_ which they were told were conceded to these very
people; and how it could be safe to entrust _power_ to those whom it was
thought unsafe to instruct how to make a _rational use_ of it.
“If,” said they, “you are to keep men in slavery, like the domestic
brutes, it may be the safest way to keep them in as brutish a condition
of mind as you can; but brutes that are _not_ enslaved are much more
dangerous animals than rational beings. A horse is kept as a slave, and,
however gently treated, is subjected to restraint, and compelled to
labour for his _master’s_ service. It would be doubtless unsafe, and,
what is more, _unjust_, to ride a horse if he _knew as much_ as a
man,—_i. e._ if he were a rational being, instead of a brute; but Dr.
Mandeville ought to have remembered that, if a groom _knew no more_ than
a horse, he would be very unfit to be a _rider_.”
They require, accordingly, that any parent who, from inconvenient
distance of residence or any other cause, is unable or unwilling to send
a child to school, shall provide for his instruction at home, and shall
bring him to the periodical examinations of the school inspectors, who
are appointed to visit the schools at stated times and examine the
children. On being asked what would be done in the case of any parent’s
refusing instruction to his children, they said that no such case had
occurred in their recollection; but that they conceived, if it should
occur, it would be considered as a sufficient evidence of mental
derangement. As for the _right_ of a parent over his children, they
utterly denied that his children _belong_ to him in the same manner that
dogs and cats and horses do, which he is at liberty to keep as mere pets
and playthings, or as drudges, or to sell or drown if he finds himself
overstocked. They hold that he has no more right to debar his children
from instruction than to deny them proper food and clothing. To these
last they have a fair claim—a claim enforced by law in all countries—as
_animals_; to the other, as _rational_ beings.
Female education also they attend to quite as much as Europeans, without
confining it so much (among the upper classes) to mere showy
accomplishments. Some of them laughed at our employment of the word
“accomplishment,” “which,” said they, “signifies properly a _completion_
of that which, by your account, is never _begun_.” They cited a maxim
which, they said, had been laid down by Aristotle,—that a people whose
institutions pay no regard to women and children, are neglecting the
_half_ of the _present_ generation, and the _whole_ of the _next_. And
they observed, that a child whose earliest years,—whose first
impressions, and habits of thought and sentiments,—have been left to a
mother who is wanting in cultivated understanding, and sound principles,
and well-regulated feelings, will be very far from having a fair chance
of turning out an estimable member of society.
On these subjects the travellers had much conversation with Sir Andrew
Knox, who holds in the kingdom of Eutopia the office of
inspector-general of education, nearly answering to that of minister of
public instruction in some of the European states. In his observations
on the conduct of the governments of Europe,—such as they had been three
centuries back, and such as many of them appeared to him to continue in
some measure still unchanged,—he remarked that nothing could be more
completely the reverse of a wise and honest legislature than the attempt
to make _belief_ compulsory, and _knowledge not_ compulsory.
“They enforced,” said he, “the reception of ‘true religion,’—that is,
what the rulers regarded as such; and left it optional to learn, or to
remain ignorant of, the difference between one religion and another.
Even you, it seems, regard it as an intolerable encroachment on liberty
to compel a person to learn his letters that he may be able to _read_
the Bible; but you compel him to _believe_ the Bible,—at least to
profess his belief, or not openly to deny it. His _knowledge_ of the
book may be anything or nothing, just as he pleases; but he is required
to acknowledge its divine authority and the correctness of your
interpretation of it, or else you treat him as a helot or an alien, and
exclude him from civil rights and power. He is not obliged to know
whether Jerusalem is in the northern or southern hemisphere, or whether
Mahomet lived before or after Christ; but he _is_ obliged, under pain of
punishments or civil disabilities, to think with you as to the Jewish,
Christian, and Mahometan religions.
“Now this,” he continued, “does seem to us most preposterous. I am not
adverting now to its opposition to the principles of justice or of the
Christian religion, but to common sense. An injunction which it is
completely _in the power_ of the subject to obey, and of the government
to enforce, this governments do _not_ issue; and one which the subject
may be _unable_ to obey, and which the government _cannot_ fully
enforce, _that_ forms an essential part of their enactments; for to
acquire a certain humble degree of _knowledge_ (when government provides
the means of instruction) is a command which the subject is clearly
_able_ to obey. He may, indeed, not think knowledge worth the trouble of
study, and may be so brutish as to feel it a hardship not to be allowed
to remain in stupid ignorance; but, unless he is a born idiot, he cannot
say that it is _out of his power_ to learn anything, or, again, that it
is _against his conscience_ to attempt it; nor, on the other hand, can
he evade the requisition by _pretending_ to have learnt what he has not,
since his proficiency may be ascertained by examination. In the other
case, _all_ these circumstances are reversed. A man may be really
_unable_ to adopt the same view of religious truth as his rulers; he may
feel it a _violence to his conscience_ to profess their belief; and,
lastly, he can always, if conscience does not stand in his way, make a
false and hypocritical profession of a faith which he does not really
hold.
“These governments, therefore, do _not_ interfere where their
interference would be, at least, both allowable and effectual—_we_ think
beneficial; and where their interference, as we think, is always
noxious, but evidently may be both unjust and ineffectual, there they do
interfere. Such a ruler, if he teaches his subjects hypocrisy, teaches
them at least to be like himself; for his pretended zeal for God’s
honour and his people’s welfare must be a mere specious cloak for his
desire to uphold his own power in the most effectual and least
troublesome way. As for true religion, if he had the least particle of
it, or the least conception of its nature, he could not but know that it
is a thing which cannot be enforced by law.”
[Much more to the same purpose was urged by Sir Andrew Knox, who, like
most of his countrymen, is tinged, as our readers will have perceived,
with much of that peculiar habit of thought, derived from the founders
of the colony, which many will probably be disposed to regard as
eccentric enthusiasm and extravagance. The travellers laid before him,
in reply, the arguments commonly employed in Europe (which need not be
here repeated) for and against the existing principles of legislation,
and the various modifications of these which have been introduced in the
several European states.]
On something being said respecting the duty of a Christian ruler to
maintain and enforce true religion, and respecting the conduct to be
pursued by a Christian community, Sir Andrew observed that, in former
times, there appeared to have prevailed among their European ancestors
much confusion of thought on those subjects, which did not seem to be
even now cleared up, but to be fostered by indistinctness of language.
“Ours,” said he, “are ‘Christian states,’ in the sense that the
_individual citizens_ of them are Christians, but not in the sense of
our _laws enforcing_ the profession of Christianity, or of any
particular religious persuasion. And although, in the sense first
specified, our states might be called Christian, the phrase ‘Christian
community’ conveys to _our_ minds the idea, not of a state, but of a
_church_; and to blend the two kinds of community into one, so as to
give spiritual jurisdiction to the civil magistrate, to maintain
religion by secular coercion, and to give those of a particular creed a
monopoly of civil privileges and secular offices,—this we consider as
changing Christianity into Judaism, and making Christ’s kingdom one ‘of
this world,’ which he expressly forbade.”
“But is it not natural, Sir Andrew,” said Mr. Sibthorpe, “that
Christians, who have any real veneration for their religion, should wish
to exclude from all share of political power in a Christian nation those
who are not Christians, or who have depraved and corrupted the Christian
faith?”
“Nothing could be more _natural_,” replied he, “than that the Jewish
people, when convinced, as the mass of them at one time were, of his
divine mission, should wish to take Jesus and force Him to be their
king, so that all who should have disowned his authority, or disobeyed
his commands, would have incurred the penalties of treason. Nothing, I
say, could be more natural than this; and thence it is that He was so
earnest in renouncing all such pretensions, and prohibiting all such
attempts: and experience shows how consonant to the character of the
‘natural man’ such a course of procedure has been ever since.
“But the question is not what is agreeable to human nature, but to the
divine will. Our Master declared that his kingdom is not a temporal one;
and we must not seek to do Him honour by running counter to his
commands, so as to _make_ it a kingdom of this world, and, as it were,
‘take Him by force to make Him a king.’ It cannot evince our veneration
for Him to mix up religion with politics, when He and his Apostles
neither did so nor permitted their followers to do so, though _they_
possessed (what no human rulers can with truth pretend to) one ground of
a claim to the right of enforcing true religion by civil penalties and
disabilities, viz. the infallible knowledge of what _is_ true religion.
“As for what you were saying of Christ’s kingdom being indeed not of
this world, but that, according to prophecy, the kingdoms of the earth
are to become the kingdoms of the Lord, this we conceive must be
understood of the _people themselves_ becoming Christians; because we
conceive that, if it were understood as authorising the state, as a
civil community, to enforce and regulate Christianity by the secular
sword, then Christ’s kingdom _does_ become a kingdom of this world. To
set up a plea founded on a subtle verbal distinction where there is no
real difference, reminds one (if I may be pardoned for using so homely
an illustration) of the quibbling thief, who contended that he was
unjustly charged with having carried off a horse; for that, in truth, it
was the horse that had carried off him.
“The Jesuits of whom you have been telling me, according to the worst
accounts given of their tricks and subterfuges, evasions and mental
reservations, would be well deserving of their title,—they would be
really and fitly ‘companions of Jesus,’—if we could suppose Him and his
Apostles to have secretly maintained a principle which goes to nullify
practically (as soon as their followers should have gained sufficient
strength) all their disavowals of political designs,—all their
renunciation of temporal power as connected with their religion,—all
desire to monopolize, as Christians, civil ascendency. They were accused
of forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar,—of speaking against Cæsar, &c.
Now, if you suppose that, when Jesus, in answer to such charges, said in
a loud voice to the Roman governor, ‘My kingdom is not of this world,’
He had _whispered_ to his disciples, ‘This is only till you have gained
sufficient numbers and strength; whenever and wherever you can become
the predominant party, then draw the sword which I lately bid you
sheathe, and enforce by civil penalties submission to my laws, and
exclude by law from political privileges all who will not join your
communion:’—if you suppose that while He publicly issued the injunction,
‘Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s,’ He added, as it were
_aside_, to his companions, “Remember, however, that, as Cæsar is an
idolater, you must hereafter make him embrace Christianity on pain of
ceasing to be Cæsar; you must oblige him and all other governors and
public officers, from the highest to the lowest, and all who would lay
claim to any of the rights of citizens in any state where you can
acquire political ascendency, to profess my religion; and _then_ you
must render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s; you must then ‘render
unto all their due,’ after having first secured that none but those who
agree with you in religion shall _have_, politically, _any_ due at all;
you must ‘submit yourselves to every ordinance of man,’ after having
first provided that every ordinance of man shall have submitted to you;
you must consider ‘the powers that be’ as ‘ordained of God,’ after
having monopolized them all for yourselves, carefully excluding
unbelievers:—if, I say, you suppose this to have been the secret
meaning, and these the private instructions, of Jesus and his Apostles,
while their openly avowed teaching was such as we find recorded, well
surely may the most disingenuous of the _Jesuits_ lay claim to their
title.”
“Can an unbeliever, then,” said Mr. Sibthorpe,—“can even an atheist, in
this country, rise to the highest offices?”
“I hope,” said Sir Andrew, “such instances are rare; I know of none: but
if you speak of the _possibility_, you should remember that in _every_
country, even where the Inquisition exists, an atheist can, by
disguising his real opinions, rise to any office, even that of Grand
Inquisitor, or of Pope; which, indeed, you were lately telling me is
suspected to be no such very rare occurrence.”
“True,” said Mr. Sibthorpe; “there is no law that can prevent hypocrisy;
but what I meant is, an open and _avowed_ infidel, or an advocate of
extravagant corruptions of religion.”
“If you mean to ask,” said Sir Andrew, “whether _I would vote for_ a man
of that description, and whether a majority of electors would in any
case be as likely to appoint him as one of opposite character, I answer
at once in the negative; but if you are asking whether there is any _law
to prohibit_ my voting for such a man,—any _legal_ incapacity on
religious grounds,—we have no such law. As far as a man’s religious
opinions are concerned, his fitness or unfitness for any civil office is
left to be decided by the judgment of the _electors_. Conviction of any
_crime_, or ascertained deficiency in the requisite _knowledge_, alone
disqualify a man by law for public offices.
“But it is important,” added he, “to keep distinct two questions which,
I observe, the modern Europeans, as well as our ancestors, have often
confounded,—the question whether a person of such and such a description
is or is not _fit_, or the most fit, to be appointed to such and such an
office; and the question, whether the _electors_ to that office shall be
left to decide that point according to _their_ judgment, instead of the
legislators deciding it for them, and restricting their choice. How much
shall be _left to the discretion_ of the electors is one question; what
is the wisest and _best use_ they can make of their discretion is
another, quite different, though often confounded with it.
“But, among us, it is in a _religious_, not a _civil_ community—in a
_church_, not in a _state_—that a man’s religious qualifications or
disqualifications are taken notice of in the laws of the community as
determining whether he may or may not be one of its officers or one of
its members. Our brethren in Europe, you seem to think, would, some of
them, take for granted, from our acting on these principles, that we
must be very indifferent about religion (though you, I rejoice to find,
are ready to bear your testimony to the contrary); but they might as
well conclude that we are indifferent about political affairs also,
because we attend places of worship in which no political questions are
discussed, and are members of Christian churches which do not
intermeddle with politics. Indeed, I myself, as well as many others, am
a member of an agricultural association also, in which neither political
nor religious matters are introduced; and yet I hope many of us are good
citizens, good Christians, and good farmers too.
“But since your people hold it to be allowable and right, and a
duty, for a civil legislature in a Christian country to take
cognizance of matters of religious faith, (which _we_ think should
be left between each man’s conscience and the Deity,) you ought,
methinks, to see nothing incongruous neither in a religious
community taking cognizance of political matters also, and embodying
in its creed and formularies decisions, not only of points of faith,
but of points of politics. Thus you would have, not only Trinitarian
or Arian churches, Calvinistic or Arminian, Episcopalian or
Presbyterian churches, &c. but also, according to your phraseology,
Tory churches and Whig churches, commercial-restriction churches and
free-trade churches, &c. Parents, bringing their child to be
baptized, would have to engage that he should be brought up in sound
political as well as sound religious views; and to renounce in his
name, not only sin, the world, and the devil, but also annual
parliaments and vote by ballot, or some other political measure; and
would have to be solemnly admonished, not only to bring him at a
suitable age to be confirmed by the bishop, but also to have his
vote duly registered. And a man would not be admissible at the
eucharist unless he first declared his opinion, not only on the
question of transubstantiation, but also on the mint regulations,
paper currency, or any other such points on which the church or sect
he belonged to should determine what was to be accounted orthodox.
If you are struck, as you seem to be, with the incongruity and
absurdity of such regulations and practices as these, you may form
some conception how incongruous it appears in _our_ eyes to mix up
together _at all_ the Christian religion and politics. In short,” he
added, in conclusion, “do but consider whether, among you, religion
is considered as _a part of politics_, or _politics a part of
religion_. If neither (which is what _we_ hold), then your conduct
is palpably inconsistent with your principles. If you hold religion
to be a part of politics, what becomes of your _Christianity_? But
if politics is held to be a part of religion, then such
politico-religious creeds and formularies as I have just now been
supposing, must be, not only reasonable, but even necessary.”
“I admit,” said Mr. Sibthorpe, “the absurdity of attempting by secular
penalties to produce conviction of a religious doctrine, and the
cruelty, as well as absurdity, of compelling outward profession of
conviction. But how do you proceed in regard to the public
_promulgators_ of pernicious error? Is not a government bound to protect
its subjects, not only from theft and violence, but also from having
their minds, especially those of the young, the weak, and the ignorant,
corrupted by every one who chooses to go about scattering moral and
spiritual poison around him?”
“No one,” answered Sir Andrew Knox, “would be allowed among us, under
the plea of conscience, or any other, to incite men to a violation of
the laws, to a breach of the peace, or to rebellion against government;
else, indeed, men might be found preaching up theft and all sorts of
crimes, like those Anabaptist sects that appeared before we left Europe,
who inculcated community of goods and of wives, and I know not what
abominations besides.
“But the practice, or the recommendation, of anything that is immoral,
and so accounted by _all_ good men of whatever religious persuasion, is
clearly punishable by the civil magistrate. Nor can any plea of
conscience be admitted as justifying abusive language against any class
of religionists,—threats, violence, personal slander, or interruption of
religious worship.
“But if any man peaceably sets forth his own views respecting religion,
appealing to men’s reason and conscience and the visible universe, or
the Scriptures, we do not hold that the civil authorities are justified
in going about to punish or silence him, or in excluding him from civil
rights. Any _church_, indeed, to which he may have belonged will disown
him as a member if he teach anything at variance with their fundamental
religious principles; but this we do not regard as a _punishment_
inflicted as for an offence, but rather as a _dissolution of
partnership_ between two parties who cannot agree as to the matter in
which they were partners. He is excommunicated by his church only in the
same manner as his church is excommunicated by him; but no _secular
penalties_ or privations are incurred by imputed religious error.
“For we consider that, in the first place, as the legislature is not
infallible, there is no security that its enactments may not be on the
wrong side; as there have been, indeed, both Trinitarian and Arian,
Protestant and Popish laws and rulers: and, secondly, we consider that
Christ and his Apostles, who did possess infallibility, deliberately
chose to rest their cause on pure persuasion alone.”
“But might it not be urged,” said Mr. Sibthorpe, “that this would go to
put an end to _all_ legislation on all subjects, since no legislature
can be infallible, even in political measures?”
“It is true,” replied Sir Andrew, “that statesmen can lay no claim to
infallible wisdom, even in their own department; and there is,
accordingly, no country whose laws are, or _need be believed to be_,
perfect.
“It is the duty of a good citizen to labour to bring about the
improvement of any laws which he thinks inexpedient; but in the mean
time (and _here_ lies the important difference) he may, in almost all
cases, obey the laws _with a safe conscience_, even such as he may not
approve of; because they require only the _outward acts_ of compliance,
and not the inward assent and conviction of the mind. You had, for
instance, formerly a law enjoining all men to put out their fires at the
toll of the curfew-bell; it is now long since repealed. You had a law
against selling game, which you have told us is abrogated. These laws
may have been very inconvenient; but it could not be against a man’s
conscience to put out his fire or to abstain from buying and selling
game, though it _would_ have been to require him to declare his _belief_
in the wisdom of those regulations.
“Hence it is that, imperfect as human legislation must be, laws, since
they are essential to the existence of civil society, have the sanction
of reason, and conscience, and Scripture in favour of submission to
them, except in those cases where submission involves a violation of
some prior duty; as if, suppose, we had a law enjoining us to hunt down
the blacks, and kill them like wild beasts. But it is remarkable that
almost all the cases where it does become a duty to resist the law, are
those in which _religion_ is concerned,—those, in short, in which the
civil legislature has gone out of its own province; as when a man is
required to profess or renounce, to preach or abstain from preaching, a
certain religion; forbidden to instruct a slave in Christianity, (as,
you say, was formerly the law at the Cape of Good Hope,) and other such
injunctions.
“On these grounds,” continued he, “we hold that all interference of the
secular power to enforce the profession of ‘true religion’ and punish
‘heretics,’ or to give Christians, or any particular description of
Christians, political ascendency on religious grounds, are adverse to
the spirit and injurious to the cause of true religion, contrary to the
commands of its Author, tending to impair the force of its proper
evidence, and leading at once to oppression in one party, to hypocrisy
in the other, and to unchristian rancour in both.
“These principles may be said, in some sort, to form a part of our
national creed; for there is no one of our churches that does not
maintain them, and inculcate the strictly voluntary character of true
Christianity, and the spiritual, and not secular nature, of its Author’s
kingdom.”
“But what would you do,” said Mr. Sibthorpe, “if some church were to
arise among you of opposite principles? Would you tolerate a sect whose
religion forbade them to tolerate others?”
“That,” said the other, “is certainly a shrewd question, and one which,
I am happy to say, we can none of us answer from experience; as we have
never had, and I hope never shall have, any such among us. I can,
therefore, only speak from conjecture as to what conclusions we might
come to in such a case. Probably, a good deal might depend on the
_actual temper_ of the persons who should hold in theory persecuting
principles; for as men are too often worse than their principles, so, as
you must be well aware, they are sometimes better; and if men of such
principles were content to let their right and duty of persecution
remain by some humane subterfuge in abeyance and dormant, we should
probably let them alone. Much might also depend on their strength of
numbers, on their power, as well as their disposition to do mischief.
The cat appears to be much the same kind of animal as the lions and
tigers we have read of; but, being too small to be formidable, is
allowed to go loose about the house. I suppose it would be unsafe to
extend the same _toleration_ to a tiger.
“But on one point I think I can answer you, though still from
conjecture, pretty confidently: if there _should_ be any sect or class
of men in one of our states whom we found it impossible to place, with
due regard to our safety, on the footing of citizens, we should
undoubtedly _part company_; we should banish them all, or we should
imprison them all; nay, I think we should even put them all to death at
once, were there no better alternative, rather than tolerate among us a
race of helots or Gibeonites,—a degraded and disfranchised caste,
especially one degraded on account of religious differences. _That_ is
contrary to all the principles, political and religious, which we have
imbibed, as it were, with our very mothers’ milk.
“There is, however, one point in which you were remarking, the other
day, that our practice is more rigid than yours, and in which we might
perhaps appear at the first glance to be, though in truth we are not,
acting at variance with these principles. You were remarking that we are
more prompt and daring than most Europeans in placing under restraint
those who appear to be in a state of dangerous mental derangement. We
hold it to be a benefit to the individual, as well as to the community,
to confine and keep in order one who is palpably incapable of taking due
care of himself; as, for instance, an habitual drunkard, who, though not
otherwise mad, when sober cannot command himself so as to refrain from
drinking, when liquor is within his reach, till he becomes no better
than mad. Now, although no legal interference takes place to prevent a
man from setting forth his own views of religion, or any other subject,
and _appealing to the judgment_ of his hearers, it is otherwise if he
profess to have received a _divine revelation_ and to be the bearer of
an immediate message from the Deity. We do not pronounce such
pretensions a _crime_; for the magistrate has no right to prejudge the
question as to their _truth_, nor, for the same reason, are they
considered as decisive evidence of insanity: but they do justify a
certain degree of suspicion of it, and of such an insanity as may prove
highly mischievous in various ways; and especially as being, above all
other kinds of insanity, dreadfully infectious. Madmen of this
particular class are, among persons of a nervous and excitable
temperament, almost as dangerous as mad dogs.
“Now, any person professing, as the Apostles did, to have received an
immediate divine commission to be special messengers of God, sent forth
by his miraculous interposition with prophetic inspiration, must be
either _a true apostle_, or an impious _impostor_, or else a man under
_mental alienation_. That there can be but these three possible
suppositions is evident; though it may not be evident, in any given
case, _which_ of the three is the true one. On the first supposition,
the man is evidently entitled, _as soon as he shall have exhibited his
credentials_, by displaying such miracles as are the ‘signs of an
apostle,’ to high veneration, and diligent attention to what he is
commissioned to declare. On the second supposition, he ought to be
punished, on the same principle (only more severely) as pretended
witches, conjurors, and other such cheats who practise on the credulity
of the superstitious. On the third supposition, the man ought to be
secluded and taken care of, and subjected to proper treatment for the
cure of his disorder.
“In all cases, then, of professed inspiration and immediate divine
commission, our laws enjoin solitary confinement, as perfectly suitable
on any of the foregoing three suppositions. The person is subjected to
no indignity or unnecessary pain; he is treated tenderly, and carefully
provided for; but he is closely secluded from all but medical attendants
and other official persons. We have a full trust that, if he be indeed a
divine messenger, he will be miraculously liberated. We find in
Scripture that this _was_ done repeatedly; as in the case of the first
imprisonment of the Apostles,—in that of Peter alone, afterwards,—and
that of Paul and Silas. They were thus enabled both to execute their
commission, and, by appeal to the miracle, to attest its truth. Nor do
we consider that, as long as we abstain from all reproach or unnecessary
violence, we should be doing any wrong even to real prophets, or
presumptuously tempting the Deity; for it is contrary to all reason, and
to all Scripture, to suppose that He ever did or can require implicit
faith to be given to his ambassadors without furnishing them with
testimonials; with credentials, to satisfy us that they really are sent
by Him. To call upon a man pretending to inspiration to display a
sensible miracle (as by a supernatural release from confinement) is no
affront to God or man; it is only asking a professed ambassador for his
credentials. But if, again, the man be either an impious impostor, or a
lunatic, his confinement is, in the one case, a just, though very mild
punishment, or, in the other, an act of kindness towards himself, as
well as a removal of a nuisance to the public.
“Instances of the first class, I need hardly tell you, have not
occurred; and there are not many of us, I believe, who expect that they
ever will. But whatever may be thought of that last question, we all
agree that it would imply want of faith, ignorance of Scripture, and
folly, to doubt that God, if He did send us an inspired messenger, would
fail to vindicate His own honour, and establish the prophet’s mission,
by miraculous proof; or to suspect that it could be displeasing to Him
that we should insist on such proof, and refuse to incur the risk of
_idolatry_ in paying divine homage to a human device or delusion.
“In respect of the second class—impostors, our law has operated chiefly
(as might have been expected) in the way of prevention. In a few
instances, however, such men (having, for the most part, _secretly_
circulated their pretensions among the credulous) have been induced, by
the correction thus administered, to confess their fraud, and submit to
the penalties of the laws enacted against common cheats.
“Of the third class—those under delusion, there have been a good many
instances; and, in a large proportion of them, quiet seclusion and
proper medical treatment have effected the restoration of reason: but
some cases, as in all other kinds of derangement, prove incurable. There
are also, by your account, in Europe also, such patients in almost every
lunatic asylum,—imaginary apostles, prophets, and even deities. The only
difference between us is, that _you_ allow several of such patients to
go at large and do mischief in the world, because _you_ think it
necessary to have fully _ascertained_ that a man is deranged before you
confine him; whereas we think it right to confine him at once, as soon
as it is made evident that he is _either_ deranged, or an impostor, or
able (as a divine messenger, and therefore under a miraculous
dispensation,) to obtain immediate release. In all these cases (and
there can be no other supposition) we hold it manifestly allowable, and
consequently right, to confine him.”
It was in the course of this conversation, after the discussion of the
foregoing and several kindred subjects, that one of the company made a
remark respecting the views which had been presented to him of the
history of Europe since their departure from it, as compared with its
state at that time, and the general history of mankind.
“Our founders,” he said, “appear to have had peculiar advantages, from
which we have, I trust, derived some fruit, in the particular time and
circumstances of their change of abode. They left Europe at the exciting
period of the Reformation, which had shaken the hold that ancient
opinions, habits, and institutions had long maintained over the human
mind; when men’s energies were roused, their imaginations kindled, and
all their feelings highly stimulated.
“It is not to be wondered at, that, at such a period, many of the
results should have followed which appear in Europe to have actually
ensued. Some, we know, ran into the wildest extravagancies of
innovation. Again, the fierce and obstinate opposition of others to
every change—besides the malevolent passions thus called into
play—appears to have driven many of the reformers to still greater
excesses, or to have hardened them into greater pertinacity. And,
moreover, many, frightened at the prospect of extravagant innovations,
or weary of perpetual change, seem to have resolutely stopped short
before they had fairly followed out their own just principles of a
complete reformation; or even relapsed into the prejudices they had
renounced, embraced anew the errors which had been exploded, and
returned to the corrupt systems, which were standing, as it were, with
their gates open to receive them.
“Our founders, on the other hand, after they had received the salutary
stimulus, were removed out of the way of most of these evils by their
retirement hither. Withdrawn from persecution and oppression, and
furious controversy and religious wars, they were secured in a great
measure from the fanaticism and the unchristian bitterness of spirit
which these are so often found to generate. They were kept out of the
way, again, of all temptation to return to the corrupt systems they had
renounced, since no example of these remained among them; and were left
calmly and peaceably to make trials of the application of their
principles in practice, and to modify at leisure those principles
according to the dictates of experience.”
[Such is the substance of the conversation that passed on these
subjects. The language is of course altered, in this and in the other
conversations recorded, in order to render it more readily intelligible.
It is, indeed, almost a _translation_ that is given; not, indeed, from a
foreign tongue, but from a peculiar dialect of English.
The greater part of what was said by the travellers, except what was
necessary to make the answers intelligible, has been omitted, for the
reasons already stated.]