CHAPTER XII.
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 happenedthat 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 effectedgradually, 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, theart of teachingis 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 thepolitical rightswhich they were told were conceded to these very people; and how it could be safe to entrustpowerto those whom it was thought unsafeto instruct how to make arational useof 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 arenotenslaved 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 hismaster’sservice. It would be doubtless unsafe, and, what is more,unjust, to ride a horse if heknew as muchas a man,—i. e.if he were a rational being, instead of a brute; but Dr. Mandeville ought to have remembered that, if a groomknew no morethan a horse, he would be very unfit to be arider.”
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 beingasked 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 therightof a parent over his children, they utterly denied that his childrenbelongto 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—asanimals; to the other, asrationalbeings.
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 acompletionof that which, by your account, isneverbegun.” 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 thehalfof thepresentgeneration, and thewholeof thenext. 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 legislaturethan the attempt to makebeliefcompulsory, andknowledge notcompulsory.
“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 toreadthe Bible; but you compel him tobelievethe Bible,—at least to profess his belief, or not openly to deny it. Hisknowledgeof 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 heisobliged, 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 usmost 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 completelyin the powerof the subject to obey, and of the government to enforce, this governments donotissue; and one which the subject may beunableto obey, and which the governmentcannotfully enforce,thatforms an essential part of their enactments; for to acquire a certain humble degree ofknowledge(when government provides the means of instruction) is a command which the subject is clearlyableto 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 isout of his powerto learn anything, or, again, that it isagainst his conscienceto attempt it; nor, on the other hand, can he evade the requisition bypretendingto have learnt what he has not, since his proficiency may be ascertained by examination. In the other case,allthese circumstances are reversed. A man may be reallyunableto adoptthe same view of religious truth as his rulers; he may feel it aviolence to his conscienceto 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, donotinterfere where their interference would be, at least, both allowable and effectual—wethink 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 haveperceived, 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 theindividual citizensof them are Christians, but not in the sense of ourlaws enforcingthe profession of Christianity, or ofany particular religious persuasion. And although, in the sense first specified, our states might be called Christian, the phrase ‘Christian community’ conveys toourminds the idea, not of a state, but of achurch; 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 morenatural,” 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 whoshould 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 tomakeit 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, thoughtheypossessed (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 whatistrue 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 thepeople themselvesbecoming 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 kingdomdoesbecome 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 principlewhich 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 hadwhisperedto 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 wereaside, to his companions, “Remember, however, that, as Cæsar is an idolater, you must hereafter make himembrace 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; andthenyou 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 shallhave, politically,anydue 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 theJesuitslay 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 thepossibility, you should remember that ineverycountry, 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 andavowedinfidel, or an advocate of extravagant corruptions of religion.”
“If you mean to ask,” said Sir Andrew, “whetherI would vote fora 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 anylaw to prohibitmy voting for such a man,—anylegalincapacity on religious grounds,—we have no such law. As far as a man’s religiousopinions are concerned, his fitness or unfitness for any civil office is left to be decided by the judgment of theelectors. Conviction of anycrime, or ascertained deficiency in the requisiteknowledge, 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 notfit, or the most fit, to be appointed to such and such an office; and the question, whether theelectorsto that office shall be left to decide that point according totheirjudgment, instead of the legislators deciding it for them, and restricting their choice. How much shall beleft to the discretionof the electors is one question; what is the wisest andbest usethey can make of their discretion is another, quite different, though often confounded with it.
“But, among us, it is in areligious, not acivilcommunity—in achurch, not in astate—that a man’s religious qualifications or disqualifications are taken notice of in the laws of thecommunity 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, (whichwethink should be left between each man’s conscience and the Deity,) you ought, methinks, to see nothingincongruous 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 whichthe 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 inoureyes to mix up togetherat allthe Christian religion and politics. In short,” he added, in conclusion, “do but consider whether, among you, religion is considered asa part of politics, orpolitics a part of religion. If neither (which is whatwehold), then your conduct is palpably inconsistent with your principles. If you hold religion to be a part of politics, what becomes of yourChristianity? 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 publicpromulgatorsof 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 byallgood 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, personalslander, 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. Anychurch, 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 apunishmentinflicted as for an offence, but rather as adissolution of partnershipbetween 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 nosecular penaltiesor 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, bothTrinitarian 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 toalllegislation 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, orneed 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 (andherelies the important difference) he may, in almost all cases, obey the lawswith a safe conscience, even such as he may not approve of; because they require only theoutward actsof 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 itwouldhave been to require him to declare hisbeliefin 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 whichreligionis 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 aslave 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 toleratea 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 theactual temperof 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 supposeit would be unsafe to extend the sametolerationto a tiger.
“But on one point I think I can answer you, though still from conjecture, pretty confidently: if thereshouldbe 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 undoubtedlypart 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.Thatis 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 remarkingthat 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, andappealing to the judgmentof his hearers, it is otherwise if he profess to have received adivine revelationand to be the bearer of an immediate message from the Deity. We do not pronounce such pretensions acrime; for the magistrate has no right to prejudge the question as to theirtruth, 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 mischievousin 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 eithera true apostle, or an impiousimpostor, or else a man undermental alienation. That there can be but these three possible suppositions is evident; though it may not be evident, in any given case,whichof 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 credulityof 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 thiswasdone 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’smission, 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 ofidolatryin 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,secretlycirculated 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, thatyouallow several of such patients to go at large anddo mischief in the world, becauseyouthink it necessary to have fullyascertainedthat 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 iseitherderanged, 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 thatancient 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 atranslationthat 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.]